What Self Love Really Is

This talk will help you to love yourself - not in some superficial 'eat a piece of cake' kind of love, but a true, deep, compassionate, and caring self-love. The kind of self-love that will carry you through the darkness and into the light.

Transcript

Self-love. What is it? And what does it mean? It's a difficult question and it's complicated. I guess it is the relationship you have with this person that you are stuck with for the rest of your life, Which is yourself. So let's break it down. So often we hate ourselves or maybe just parts of ourselves. And you might try to love yourself. You might think, Yeah, I'm gonna give self-love a go, But horrible feelings come up and you get so frustrated that you're such a mess. And why is it that it's so hard? Or we might have a tendency to buy ourselves things, A massage, A day at the day spa, Whatever it is. And it's like, Okay, This is self-love. But for me, That's more of a reward. I think going shopping is a reward and it is lovely to reward yourself at times. That's not true self-love. What I think it is, Is learning to give yourself radical self-compassion. So in a moment where we've done something that we're not proud of, We want to push it away and not connect to it and just kind of pretend it never happened emotionally. But actually, I think that's a really good opportunity to practice self-love and radical self-compassion and be like, It did happen and it's okay. And say to yourself in that moment, How can I serve you? How can I help or be your best friend right now? And give myself the care and compassion that I want someone else to give me. And so often we project this to someone else and we say, I want my partner to be the one that gives me this compassion, This love and compassion. Or I want my best friend or my sister. And it's so lovely if they can. But also, It's actually on me to give that to myself. Now I used to look for radical love in someone else. But the thing is that that hole doesn't get filled by someone else. It was actually a sign that I needed to love myself. And I needed to stop waiting for someone else to fill that hole. And I needed to start being my own best friend. Give myself unconditional love and compassion. And be a cheerleader, Be someone that I can call at any time. That's me. That's me to myself. And what I'm actually waiting for is for me to give that to myself. So self-love is a practice. It's me saying to myself, What do I need right now? What are these feelings? What is my body trying to tell me? And for a long time, I never did this. I didn't care what my body was trying to tell me. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to do today and didn't matter what the feelings were. I had to just do it. But when I realized that self-love needed to be deeper, I started asking myself these questions. How do I feel about this? And how do I feel about that? And honoring and holding space for that answer to come through. And sometimes it's not what I wanna hear. Sometimes my body doesn't wanna do that big day I've planned. Sometimes my body wants to rest. Or sometimes my brain or thoughts or whatever wants to rest and have a quiet day, But my body actually wants to do something else, Go out, Connect with someone, Exercise. So self-love is about balancing that. And as a practice, I try to do this every morning when I wake up. And for a long time I was doing this and there was no answer. My body didn't, Or my inner self, Didn't have anything to say to me. And I realized I actually need to build trust with myself because I have a long history of being my own abuser and saying, I don't care if you feel sick, Get out of bed. We've got work to do and all these kinds of things. And my body didn't trust me to take care of it. And so when I started saying to my body, What do you need right now? I'd like to be your best friend, Please. My inner self was like, I don't know you. But I stuck with it and over months, Little hunches, Little answers started coming through. And so I built trust. And I also had to set boundaries with the inner critic because part of self-love is not speaking to myself like an abuser, Not yelling at myself, Being compassionate to myself. And it took a long time, But I started to prioritize the things my body asked for. And I realized that that compassion has to be there on the worst days, Not just the best days. And sometimes there's just feelings that come up. I say, What do you need right now? I just have feelings there. And so I just listened to them, Try not to push them away. And sometimes it's just that my body's trying to share that with me. And then I say, Have I eaten? What would be good for me right now? Will I wear something that I'm comfortable with? Am I respecting all of my allergies? How can I make choices for myself instead of for society's expectation? So all these things have been a part of learning to love myself. Another part of it was facing the idea of body modification, Diets, Wanting to be thin, Wanting to be fit. How are people looking at me? How are they seeing me? I have had to challenge the idea that I have to look a certain way or be a certain way to deserve love. Which is something that we all internalize. So now when I think of losing weight or getting fitter or doing something to change my body, I ask myself, Is this coming from a place of love? And if it is, If it's me like honestly taking care of myself, Then I do it. But if it's coming from a place of hating my body or hating myself, Then I don't do it. It needs to come from a place of self-compassion and supporting myself. If it's something that is punishing or doesn't feel right, I definitely don't do it. So the question is, What is your core relationship with yourself? Is it hate? Are you constantly looking for ways to punish yourself because you think that's actually gonna make you a better person? Or is it compassion? Are you trying to be best friends with yourself? Or are you actually like two coworkers that hate each other? And you're like, Why don't you do more work? No, Why don't you do more work? Because that is a very common relationship with yourself. And the idea is we are stuck with this person ourselves the rest of our life. So if we can build a bridge and get a really good relationship going, We'll be very much better off for the rest of our lives, Knowing that this person that we're stuck with is on our team, On my team. So give it a go. How can you be your own best friend? How can you honor yourself? How can you hold space for yourself? How can you give yourself what you are looking for, What you're waiting for? Do you need to take yourself out to dinner? Do you need to take yourself out to a dance class? If there's something that you wish you were doing in life, And you're waiting for your partner or your friend to take you there, Like the ballet or a new hobby, You have to be that friend to yourself and just give it a go.