Radical Self Love

As children, when certain aspects of ourselves were deemed unacceptable, such as our anger, our fear, or our grief, we learned to hide them away to maintain the connection with our caregivers which was then critical to our survival. And so we formed social masks to please the grown-ups (and others), but unfortunately we keep using these masks today as the templates for our significant relationships, which keeps us from being truly seen by, and from deeply connecting to, others. On Day 1, you will be guided through an exercise to bring curiosity to your different social masks, so you can more easily access the more vulnerable and authentic aspects of yourself.

We tend to focus on other people’s shadows while remaining ignorant of our own. But other people are our mirrors, and everything that bothers us in others can actually lead us to a better understanding, and thus to better loving of ourselves. When we find ourselves judging others, we can turn our attention to our inner experience with compassion and curiosity, thereby discovering precious insights about ourselves, and increasing our self-acceptance and connection to others. On Day 2, you’ll practice a visualisation to explore situations that spark your reactivity and observe what might be underneath, with curiosity and compassion. This practice will help you to reclaim hidden parts of yourself and give yourself unconditional love.

We all have aspects of ourselves that we judge as undesirable, that we hide and wish we could get rid of. But when we resist a particular trait in ourselves, it tends to show up in our most vulnerable moments, and to create a disconnect with others. As counter intuitive as it may seem, the only way to prevent these aspects of ourselves from creating unhappiness is to actually embrace them: to love ourselves unconditionally, especially when we display the behavior we are most ashamed of. On Day 3, you will practice a meditation and affirmations to help bring awareness to the less desirable aspects of your personality and practice giving them more love, not less.

We all have a child that lives inside of us. Sometimes this child wants to play, to have fun, to sing, to dance. At other moments, this child may feel sad, unloved, alone. We tend to underestimate how much of our inner child’s mood carries out into our daily lives and interactions, especially when his or her wounds are reactivated. That’s why it’s essential for us to establish a loving and caring relationship with our younger self. On Day 4, we will be going on a journey into of our childhood, to meet our inner child at different stages of our life, to listen to what he or she may want to tell us, and to learn how we may better love this young and tender part of ourselves.

When we’re in the midst of intense emotional turmoil, loving ourselves can feel especially challenging. Yet, resisting these emotions only extends our difficult experience. Sometimes, the only way out is through. Tara Brach’s RAIN method is a powerful way to help us move through a difficult experience of shame, anger, unworthiness or self-blame. On Day 5, you will practice the four steps of RAIN to reconnect to a more self-compassionate, peaceful, and open state of being, and thus come to better take care of your wounded inner child.

Many of us, when growing up, were taught implicitly that we had no rights to boundaries. And we may still find ourselves automatically saying “yes” when we feel a “no”, sacrificing our wellbeing to please others. What is important to realize is that communicating our boundaries to others is our responsibility and it’s a necessary condition to develop authentic and strong relationships. On Day 6 of this course, you will explore the art of boundary setting from a place of embodied awareness, and thus reconnect with the joy of saying yes to yourself.

As a social species, we humans are highly interdependent beings with a variety of different needs. However, it seems harder than ever not to confuse addictive habits with the satisfaction of our deeper needs. The more we practice identifying our needs, the more our actions naturally align with what we most deeply long for and nourish us with a deep sense of satisfaction. On Day 7 of this course, you’ll be practicing a meditation that reviews a list of fundamental needs to feel into what may be most present for you today, and a visualisation to move towards their satisfaction.

Most of us have at least one or several forms of addiction. Instead of seeing them as shameful or bad, we can learn to recognize our cravings as a signal reminding us that a part of us is hurting, and in dire need for love and attention. In order to progressively move towards a true healing of our wound, we must be willing to observe it, to welcome it and to give it love. On Day 8, you will practice a visualization to explore what unmet need may be calling out for your attention during moments of cravings. You will practice affirmations to help you give love to the difficult emotions underneath your addictions and cultivate habits that make you feel good.

We live in a complex world where we receive many external demands to be this way or that way, and it can be difficult to stay connected to the deeper values that we long to embody. A powerful technique to move towards greater alignment is to carve out time from our busy schedules to imagine what our ideal future self would look like, fully embodying our values, and to feel the positive emotions of this future version of ourselves in the here and now. On Day 9, you’ll practice a visualisation and affirmations to help you move towards the inner peace and joy of your higher self.

In this course, we’ve explored different ways that we can practice Radical Self-Love. We’ve seen how our social masks keep us from experiencing nourishing connection; how repressed parts of our shadow are actually defense mechanisms that require more of our love and attention; how to better give love to our inner child; and how to move towards more alignment with our higher selves. On the final meditation of this course, you’ll be practicing a visualisation to bring all these parts together, and affirmations to integrate the ideas from this 10-day course, thereby moving closer to the unconditional self-love that is your true nature.