[Monday March 11, 2019 8:08 a.m.]
[You can still divert the trajectory of dystopian “Back to the Future 2”.]
[The longer you wait, the less recovery (and return to true) are possible.]
[It’s time to make amends.]
How did you learn to love yourself?
[Answered by Carol Reathel on Quora.com.]
There is a wonderful technique called ‘reparenting’ - this is great if you missed out on unconditional love when you were younger, and that part of you never felt secure and safe in life.
We see the part of ourselves that is unloved as the ‘Inner Child’ and we see the conscious part of us, that is who we refer to as ‘I’ as the parent.
Internally, we begin to engage with a loving dialog towards our younger self. You can give her a name. In time, this part of us comes forward and may respond to you, and you can have a 2 way communication. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Regardless, imagine you a have a little child to look after, and treat her with all the love and care you would a child.
Talk to her, tell her what you are doing, if you do something well, even as little as making a nice coffee, praise yourself for a job well done. In time, you may notice an uplifting feeling when you self praise.
Enjoy foods that are nourishing for your body and begin to really take care of what you take into your body. Make gradual change if you need to. Ensure you are getting the wide range of vitamins you need, either from your food or supplement with a multivitamin if you need to give yourself a boost.
Take time to have fun with your inner child, do things you love to do. When you feel like adult time, metaphorically tuck your child into bed in your mind for a nap and spend some time doing something you enjoy just for yourself. Whether that is a favourite tv show, hobby, craft, or time in your garden. Make sure each part of your day has at least one activity you do for your own enjoyment.
Get into meditation. This is sitting or lying down for 15 minutes in silence and just let thoughts pass through your mind, and do not follow them, just them appear and go. Look for the space between the thoughts, were there is silence. Some people like to focus on a constant background noise, like the hum of an air conditioner to focus their attention on, this helps minimize thoughts.
Meditating 15 minutes daily is beneficial for you in so many may ways. It releases calming and happy hormones into the system, and increases your resilience in order to manage any stressful situations in a calmer way, or move through the stress more quickly.
You need to do the inner journey towards self forgiveness. No matter what you have done that you judge yourself for, you are a human being and all humans make mistakes. Some of us can be very hard on ourselves, and that gets in the way of loving yourself, so forgive yourself for being human. Balance that with a commitment to yourself to learn from future mistakes, so that you grow as a person and take on new spiritual maturity.
Pamper yourself if you can. If you have a bath, buy some lovely scent and candles and luxuriate in the hot water and allow yourself to breathe in the scents and relax deeply. You are worthy of being pampered, and it is a way of telling yourself you have value and are worth pampering.
Self love also involves recognizing your strengths. Write a list of the things you know you are good at, and add qualities that you have as a person. No time fo modesty here, recognize your unique talents and qualities. Allow that list to be available for adding to, as more answers come to you.
Remove toxicity from your life. Whether this comes in the form of people who always make yourself feel small or depleted when you have been around them, or who openly devalue you. These are toxic people and have no place in the world of a person who values their right for a peaceful life filled with loving and supportive people.
In time, as your self love grows, you may find that any addictions you have might begin to fall away. This is because you used the addictions to replace the empty feeling inside, or to avoid feeling the lack of love for yourself, but as your self love grows, there is less need for the addictions. I quit smoking, drinking and green herb when I reached the place of understanding and really getting self love.
There is a moment when, as an allegory, your puzzle of the world breaks apart and it reforms with a new picture of who you are. A better and brighter version of you, With this re-creation comes understanding about the bigger picture, or insights into your life or some deeper understanding of some aspect of yourself. This is when you know you're well on your way to loving yourself.
Keep going, it can take weeks to really develop self love and it becomes a lifestyle. An effortless life style. It takes 30 to 60 days for the brain to re-wire to new patterns of thinking, so the self loving talk to your inner child will be laying new neural networks in your brain, and the old self disliking ones will fizzle away.
Enjoy walks in nature. Stop to admire nature as often as you can, even if it is a flower or a house plant. Nature is such a special system all on its own and the perfection of its shape and form, even colour gives us a new dimension to look into. It brings us fresh new energies that support self love, because nature is about love.
Did I mention: do things you enjoy just for yourself, also take time to hang out with your inner child watching fun movies and fun books or even games you loves to play when you were younger.
The inner child may have some pain that it trapped in the body because it was too young to know what to do with it when or if an event happened in the past, so she may bring up some emotions for releasing, Allow these to be felt and released. This is perfectly natural, you are not going mad.
You can find other ways to love yourself that i haven’t mentioned. Perhaps make a challenge to yourself to find new ways to honour the wonderful person you are.
One day, you will wake up and feel a sense of empowerment, You will love yourself unconditionally, and the inner child can now be integrated back into who you are because she has caught up on the love, you have parented her well. She will always be a part of you and you can remember her and play whenever the urge takes you.
There is a sort of magical realignment inside and you may even discover your life purpose and life mission. I always imagine that reaching self love is light a lovely big crystal with lots of facets. When we release old trapped emotions we allow a little more of our real self to show, and the more we polish ourself with love, the shinier and sparklier we become. One day we are this beautiful shining crystal, complete with flaws, but perfect and wonderful as a whole.
I hope these ideas are helpful. It is what i did to move into self love. I thought I already did love myself, but wow, experiencing the full unconditional self love is way different. It means that we do not ever let people cross our boundaries unless we give them permission, we never compromise our values and standards and we live authentically from the heart. We can be ourselves and not worry how other perceive us, because the only opinion that matters is ourselves.
This small answer is growing into a book that outlines the science of how these processes work and with the human brain working in conjunction we can turn a self loving person into a super ninja. Follow me if you would like to know when the book is available, and I will send a link to a place where we work on getting book see a bit more for what it will offer. This who long process has changed my life for the better, and me and myself have lot of fun doing things that are fun. tricky and grow us a person. Don’t miss out!
