Self-Actualize with Self-Love - Part 1

Part 1 of 2

I once heard a very gifted hands-on healer say that in her line of work pretty much everyone she encountered carried within them some degree of self hatred that was responsible for their dis-ease.  “Gosh, hatred?! That seems so harsh!”, I thought.   But, I sat for a while and considered this and sadly, it seemed right.  How did we get here?  Why is this so?  How do we fix this?  These were some of the questions I had that followed.  A seemingly softer way to put this ‘self hatred’ we are all contending with could be ‘low self esteem’ and we all understand what this means.  But, perhaps we need to call a spade a spade, no matter how awful it sounds, since ‘hatred’ stands in opposition to love and love is what is missing when we have a low self-esteem.   No matter what way we slice it, or in this case, label it, it doesn’t change the reality that across the board we humans struggle with this and, I think, it is single-handedly responsible for most, if not all, of the pain, illness and struggle in our lives.  In fact, in my research and findings on authentic success, I have come to understand self-love to be one of the biggest and most crucial aspects of human potential above most else.  Yeah, seriously!

I have had a real struggle myself with self-love and I’ve been fascinated by, and even shocked at, how deep-seated these feelings can actually be.  It’s no simple fix either, at least not in the usual ways we tend to tackle our “problems”.  We can’t just insist, or will ourselves to love ourselves, or decide that our self-deprecating behaviors must stop. However, this is most certainly a meaningful and worthwhile start.  We can read about it all we want and while we may learn some really helpful things that might afford us some incremental progress, the real work doesn’t happen at the level of desire or intellect.  We can really really REALLY want to love ourselves and know that is exactly what we need and, yet, discover that this is just no match for all of the ways we’ve been hard-wired to deny ourselves love.  

In this blog, I’ll explore some of the ways we end up withholding love from ourselves, why we do this, and some of the ways you can start to repatriate the love you deserve back into your life, whether you are in a relationship or not, and how doing this can up-level your life in so many domains.  Next week, I’ll share with you a few tips from some of my greatest teachers who have helped me along the way work through blocks to my self love, so that if and when you feel ready to start healing this aspect of your life, you have some direction and resources at your disposal to do so.

To start, let’s take a moment here to really define what self-love is so we’re moving forward together with the same basic understanding.  Firstly, let’s look at self-esteem. Self-esteem is your overall sense of worthiness and value.  Self-confidence, on the other hand, is really more about what you think you're capable of.  So these two concepts most certainly do intertwine, but they are different.  Self-confidence and self-esteem are often used interchangeably, but I am of the school of thought that self-esteem stands alone; it’s a matter of the whole Self, whereas, our self-confidence changes depending on the situation.  I think it’s more accurate to consider terms like, self-regard and self-worth as synonymous with self-esteem.  Your self-concept is all of the above — it is how you see yourself, how you think others see you and how you project yourself out into the world and into all that you do.  Self-love is all of the ways you love, care for and respect yourself, regardless of your self-concept, because, for self-love to be true love, it must be unconditional love. Self love, I would say, is an action; it is a verb.  Self-love is loving yourself.  It is how you weave the essence of love throughout all the ways you honor yourself day in and day out. 

A low self-esteem, a lack of confidence and/or an impaired self-concept can be the reason why we not only deny ourselves love, but worse, harm ourselves with negative or harmful behaviors.  This is because everything you do stems from how you see yourself.  Therefore, everything in our lives is affected by our self-esteem — our choices, how we speak, how we eat, how we care for our bodies, our ability to accomplish our goals, our relationships with others, our relationship with ourselves, our ability to contribute in our jobs, our ability to authentically express ourselves through meaningful endeavours, our ability to set boundaries, our awareness of our potential, our ability to achieve financial independence — I mean, the list goes on and on.  When we know this it becomes undeniable that self-love and personal success are proportionally related.  When one is high, the other is high.   It makes a lot of sense.  Agreed? 

We all need love and belonging.  On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this is actually the very first need above basic survival like shelter, food and safety!  So, naturally and quite inherently, we look outside of ourselves to constantly measure whether or not this fundamental need of love and belonging is being met.  People of all ages, of all ethnicities, all genders, across the world share these basic needs and, just like you and me, these needs are not being met.   This phenomenon is quite literally holding the world back and locking so many of us in its grip and this is primarily because we seek love and belonging outside of ourselves.  We don’t know ourselves as loved or lovable unless someone outside of us overtly convinces us of it.  We don’t perceive ourselves as belonging unless we meet certain criteria that are defined by our external world.  We think we need to earn this but that is not the case.  Now, I don’t mean to say that the harsh and unloving ways we’ve been treated in our lives don’t hurt us or matter.  But what I do mean to say is that no matter what has happened to you, or what you have done, none of these things define you because who you are is not defined by things that “happen”.  Who you are in your purest form, the you that came into this world, is love, loving and loved and regardless of how you see yourself now, this has not changed. 

Your beliefs were adopted — picked up along the way —  and if they include unloving ideas about you then it can be clearly understood that these ideas are not of you.  They are learned.  Understanding this helps us to see that we have the capacity to correct this on our own since no real change is required.  No real change is required because what really needs to happen is more like a clean up — the clearing of the unloving ways we’ve learned to see ourselves.  It is a removal of the dark to reveal the light within that has never left you.  So please take heart….take solace in knowing that it is really you that decides your worth and you do this by acknowledging and accepting that you are worthy, through and through, and every other extraneous part of you that opposes this in unloving ways has been picked up by you needlessly. 

I think the best place for the self-love work to start is with our adopted beliefs.  The meaning we make out of who we are and the lives that we live comes from our beliefs.  Our beliefs inform our perceptions – what we believe we perceive.  If we believe certain people who look a certain way can’t be trusted then we will perceive this, because we will find evidence of this in the world.  If, on the other hand, at a very basic level at least, we learn that our perceptions can be flawed because our beliefs can be flawed, we open ourselves up to powerful change.   When we challenge our beliefs we create the necessary space between our quick judgements and convictions to allow more consideration and discernment.  What we think we know about the world and what we think we know about ourselves can (and should) be challenged because it is often false, especially if it is disempowering of ourselves or others.  So, when it comes to self-love, first and foremost, above all else, you need to know that how you feel about yourself is very likely based on some false perceptions. So, you can learn to see your true Self by understanding that your beliefs may be false.  Once the false belief is seen for what it is, it can be released and replaced with something more empowering found in the light of your truth.  When you do this work, you can make major shifts in your belief systems, thereby altering your perceptions and fundamentally changing your life.  

We carry stories within us that have been very much defined by our past, particularly our youth.  Some of them might be empowering us, some of them might be disempowering us.  It all acts like computer code….once the software is in place, all systems will respond accordingly and only until the code is changed or broken/defective will our live experience change.  Our decisions and ideas about ourselves are heavily influenced by this code. In fact, when we continue with the computer code analogy, it can become easy for us to feel so convinced we ARE this code that it feels impossible to change — we believe the code IS us — like it’s in our DNA.   Someone might say, “I am shy.  This is how I have always been.  I am a shy person and always will be”.  But, really, it’s just bad programming and we can change the programming. Much like we can install antivirus software or a new operating system onto a computer, we can do this for ourselves as well.   Our struggles are our greatest teachers.  Our suffering, our mental and emotional anguish, are telling us to take notice, seek to understand and then take corrective action.

If low self esteem is stifling your progress it is likely causing you some mental anguish.  It is difficult for us to take our next best step when we are distracted and weakened by self-limiting beliefs.  These feelings of frustration from not moving to the next level, from holding ourselves back, create inner conflict.  Our Higher Selves know we want more but our lower selves, our ego selves, say we can’t, or that we’re not good enough.  Maybe we are unwilling to fail, maybe we are unwilling to be judged. Maybe it just feels too unsafe to be ourselves and safety is our very basic need for survival.  But, humans want to progress.  You want to progress.  Your Higher Self wants you to take the reins and repatriate what is rightfully yours — your POWER.  When we are not progressing, we start to really struggle mentally, emotionally and spiritually and internal conflict ensues.  This kind of struggle doesn’t go away if we deny it or ignore it.  Instead it manifests into hardship and dis-ease.   

So, what we need to pull from this so far are the following key points: 

1. We have a potential to fulfill.  It is unique to us and we’ve been given a lifetime to fulfill it.  We have innate talents within us that peek out to us as interests, inspirations, fascinations, admirations, curiosities and passions; 

2. When we are not taking steps in our lives towards the fulfillment of our highest potential, towards our actualization, we start to feel a lack of progress, we begin to feel confused, lost, hopeless and sad.  We have mental anguish; 

3.  We are more than the sum of our beliefs, but our beliefs drive our perceptions, decisions and actions.  If we align our beliefs with the part of us that wants to progress, and our decisions and actions follow suit, we start to see some seriously cool stuff happen in our lives; and 

4. The KICKER — When we are loving ourselves fully as we are we align our beliefs, decisions and actions with who we really are, unapologetically.  As we do this, we are able to quite precisely point ourselves in the direction of what we really want – what we yearn for – and we start to self actualize.  As we self-actualize, we begin to reach our highest potential and experience a full realization of our abilities and a profound sense of completeness. 

“What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization” (Abraham Maslow, American Psychologist, 1943).

 “You were not given life just to have a job or a career.  You were given life to discover the wildly creative and powerful resources of your Soul.” (Caroline Myss, Author, Medical Intuitive, Present Day)  

True success to me is also the ability to love and honor yourself fully, honestly and with Grace.  It is the acknowledgment that every single one of us has a path to walk — our own path — and the more we honor our individuality and stay on our own path, the more we experience true joy and fulfilment.  It means that we’ve learned to discern between those experiences or teachings in our lives that align to or support this path, and those that don’t, so that we can do the work necessary to release that which does not serve our purpose.  It means that our daily lives are built in such a way that it includes lifestyle choices that optimize our health and wellbeing and these ALL stem from self-love.  

There you have it my friend – my thoughts on self-love, why we struggle with self-love and experience low self esteem, and why building on it and cultivating it matters so much. Next week we’ll look at some awesome self-love tools that I hope you’ll use to build up your self-esteem so that you can keep progressing and move to your next level.  Once you learn how to level up this way, you’ll be able to apply it again and again in your life so that the old ways you used to deny yourself love can come undone as they become unlearned.  Self love takes practice and commitment and you are so WORTH the effort! When we learn to live in ways that honor ourselves as loveable we get onto our path and we reach our full potential.  

And now, I’d like to leave you with a few parting words, from my heart to yours:

“If I could give you one gift, I would give you the ability to see yourself as I see you so you could see how special you are."  ~ Anonymous

Jennifer