The insanity of “working”on Self Love
Love is who we are, love is our nature. So why the hell we need to work on self-love?
There are hundreds of books, work shops on self love. They make a huge part of the self-help industry. Therapists offices are filled with people searching how to love themselves, and of course the therapy model is falling apart. Falling apart because no one can “teach” self love to another. The approach needs to shift.
To explore this topic, first we have to ask:
When did we stop loving ourselves?
What did go wrong in humanity? What did go wrong in our childhood? How did we forget that innate feeling of love towards ourselves?
This hit me the the other day as I was thinking about my own journey of returning to love, recovering my essence that had gotten lost long time ago.
What is authentic self LOVE? Let me start by stating what self love isn’t:
It isn’t the weekly manicures.
It isn’t the vacation in the Bahamas.
It isn’t going to the gym daily.
Those are nice things to “do”, they are behaviors that create a healthy lifestyle, no doubt.
Self-Love is a state of “Being”, not doing.
It is tricky to know if we truly love ourselves in an intellectual level.
I have been on this journey of healing and growth for many years now and I thought I had learned how to love myself about 10 years ago, after a heart break. Well I didn’t, I came to learn that in these last 2-3 years.
How do I know? Relationships.. How we relate to others reveal what we believe deeply about our worth and love.
What is the quality of your relationships? With family, friends and romantic?
Do you let others treat you poorly and make your fault?
Do you go above and beyond to make peace with the cost of your inner peace?
Do you put others needs before yours?
Do you stay in relationships where you are constantly looking for validation and approval?
Do you need to be busy always “doing” in order to feel your worth?
Do you worry about what others will think of you?
Answering some of these questions will reveal the truth about your levels of self love.
I don’t know if I can answer what self-love is because it is a state of being, an inner experience of connection with our heart. It is a sense of wholeness. It is a return to our essence.
Essence is what you were before all the personalities in childhood started to take over your psyche and dictated your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. We can say the essence is who we are in the absence of the ego.
We can’t learn self love by reading all Marianne Williamson or Louise Hay books, and I love both authors. They made self love main stream. I am sorry to say that looking at the mirror every day and say “I love myself” won’t do it.
That may feel good for few minutes, like a foot rub!
What made you stop loving yourself?
That itself is an exploration, it is an inner journey. And you don’t need to have a memory of your childhood or adolescence to start healing and returning to love.
The greatest Persian poet RUMI said well:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
That is healing. Healing is a journey back to our wholeness, so self love is a journey and the more you embody this journey, the more your behaviors and actions will align with self love.
I walk this path every day. It is not one moment of crying the tears of the inner child, or one psychedelic journey that will cure it all. It is a path to our heart, to Source energy.
Think for a minute of all the times in your childhood that you got hurt, scared, sad because you experienced rejection, abandonment, abuse or neglect. Each time we experience separation from love (from our care takers), we put a veil, we put a wall around our heart.
Self love returns as a bio product of healing, of lifting these veils, one by one and with that we get closer to our beloved heart, our higher self, the Divine in us.
Final thought is that we need to stop “working” on self love and put the energy and attention on what is blocking us from feeling love, from feeling safe and connecting deeply with ourself, with others, with nature and with our spirit.
How to start? First with the truth, that you got lost in the way called life and you want to return to your essence. The truth about your early experiences in childhood.
Then find a good guide who has been walking on this path for a while and someone who you feel safe with. Healing can only happen in the container of safety and compassion.
Questions? Email me at alex@alexgilcoaching.com
Much love, Alex.
“We are born of love; love is our mother.” Rumi