What do you do to show yourself love?
Self-love has become a bit of a buzz word, but what does it really mean?
Well in a nutshell, it’s everything we say and do to ourselves, for example, what we eat, what we watch on tv or social media, whether we overwork ourselves and put ourselves last, that harsh self talk we berate ourselves with - ring a bell?
I was there for years as a people pleaser and my harshest critic, and it’s become a bit of an honour in our society to be the one who does everything for everyone else, to put our self down, to work really hard and long hours and still manage to turn up to events looking gorgeous. But underneath that is a nervous system that’s frazzled and mental health on the edge of a burnout - NOT GOOD!
So in the midst of loving and caring for everyone else, do you include yourself in that?
If you’re stressed, anxious, depressed or suffering with a chronic illness the answer to that question is probably no! This can seem a little harsh, but we need to break the pattern of accepting that working ourselves into the ground to pay the bills, for others, or for ANYTHING is ok, it really isn’t, and we wouldn’t let anyone else we love do this…so it’s time to make a change!
In my coaching and healing sessions with clients we get to the bottom of this self-destructive behaviour - remember that even working silly hours to pay the bills or to look after your family is a CHOICE; there is always another option. Sometimes we can feel like there isn’t when this is all we have known, but deep down below all of those choices are beliefs about ourselves that can be changed!
Learning to watch our self talk and what we do when we’re nervous, angry, stressed etc, can be really helpful and give us the space to make a different choice! Choosing softer language is a great start, and also watching our justification for our unhealthy habits of over-working, bingeing food and TV, not making time for ourselves etc. It can be really insightful to look at how you feel beneath these choices, and to work with someone to change those beliefs, such as theta healing and trauma release therapy (find out more about my coaching sessions here: www.suzieford.com/coaching).
But most of all, be gentle with yourself.
These beliefs and patterns are sometimes engrained through lifetimes and through our ancestors lives too so to change them it takes LOVE and ACCEPTANCE of where we are, and then the intention to make the necessary changes, do the inner work, ask for help and make ourselves a priority. YOU are important too, isn’t it about time you showed yourself that?! When we do, our lives change, opportunities present themselves, people treat us better, we start to feel better, and then we start to enjoy our self-love time - it’s now my favourite part of everyday! I know that a lot of the time the reaction to that can be that it’s selfish - but this reaction requires a pause to look at why we feel that way when someone looks after themselves and what that tells us about ourselves? The world we live in is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves - so wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all gave some of that love to ourselves too? We can choose to change this narrative about how important we are, and this will change our life…hmmm food for thought!
Let me know what you do for self-love below in the comments…
I am holding my Body Love workshop on Saturday 16th October. Come and experience self-love for yourself and how you can make this part of your everyday too!