Do you love yourself? Like really love yourself unconditionally, right now?
You have to love yourself first, before you can love anyone or anything else.
This is going to be a long one, because this is the most important topic of your life. (I've split it into 2 parts, but it's still long. I may do a video as well.)
So let's dive in. You are worthy of love right now - no conditions. You can't wait on other people to love you first to feel worthy of love. You are worthy now. You can't put conditions on yourself like only loving yourself if you lose weight, change your appearance somehow, stop "bad" habits, or start "good" habits.
You need to stop being so hard on yourself. You need to stop shaming yourself, stop the guilt, stop the self-sabotage cycle.
So how do you do this?
You have to change your perception of yourself, your life, your circumstances, the events in your life. You have to change the story you are telling yourself.
It is really that simple. It may be easier said than done, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Where do you start? I boiled it down to these 5 steps. I will talk about the first two in this post and Part 2 will discuss steps 3-5. These first steps are a doozy and they get easier but you don't ever stop doing them. It's kind of funny how I felt like the universe was testing me this week to put these steps into practice. It's a process, but the steps really overlap quite a bit, except for the feelings step. That really does need to be a stand alone step.
So here we go, my 5 step process:
Pay attention to your thoughts.
Feel and release your feelings.
Focus on gratitude and love.
Change the story you are telling yourself.
Find the beauty and love in life.
Pay attention to your thoughts:
Your thoughts create your reality. What you focus on , what you give your energy to, is what you bring into your life. Do you tend to be mostly positive or tend to be more negative? We are all human and can't be positive all the time, nor should you try. You will have great days, better days and harder days, but in general, how do you feel about your life? What do you tell yourself about your job, your love life, your financial situation, your life? If you stub your toe first thing in the morning, does that set off a cascade of negativity that ruins your day and convinces you the universe is out to get you? Or are you able to shrug it off and not let it affect you?
So when you are down, what are you telling yourself? Are you hard on yourself? Do you shame yourself? Do you think about everything that is wrong with you and wrong with your life?
Pay attention to the thoughts that go through your head, write down what you notice. Keep track of how often you are giving your energy to negative thoughts and thus reinforcing negative things in your life. This awareness is the first step. This is the first glimpse you will have of how powerful you are. You are going to change the stories you tell yourself.
But first we need to learn how to let go of attachments and stop reacting to the world based on our programming, triggers, learned behaviors and past patterns.
Feel and release your feelings:
Emotions are energy. That's all they are, just energy. When you let that energy get stuck in your body and you focus on it, feed it negative thoughts, or let it become your identity, you make it more powerful and it can create "dis-ease" in your body. You may feel depressed, anxious, tired, sick, achy, stuck, hopeless. You need to let the emotions move through you, and to do that, you need to feel them without getting attached to them. You ARE NOT your feelings. Feel them, acknowledge them, then release them.
Think of it like clouds moving through. Sometimes they are heavy clouds and bring rain, lightening, or scary storms, but let them just move through you so that sunnier skies will follow. Besides, rain is cleansing and storms make you appreciate the good weather that much more.
When you are feeling heavy, dense emotions. Sadness, Fear, Anger, Resentment, Jealousy, Anxiety...any emotion...Pause. Take a deep breath. In through your nose and down into your belly. This helps activate your parasympathetic nervous system. Take two more deep breaths. Stop reacting, stop thinking, stop analyzing, stop judging. Just sit with yourself and feel. Let yourself just feel what you are feeling. Observe the emotions without judgement. Identify them, acknowledge them, accept them, but don't try to analyze why you are feeling them. What is the emotion? Where is it in your body? Is it in your chest? In your stomach? Feel it, watch it, breathe. Repeat. It is completely okay to feel what you are feeling, there is no good or bad. You are okay. These feelings are just a little heavier and take a little more work to move through. Your thoughts and feelings don't make you a bad person. There is nothing wrong with you. It's just energy. Let it sink down into the earth, breathe it out with each breath or cry it out through your tears.
You can also walk, or dance, meditate or something that helps you feel and release emotions. (Just don't repress them, judge them or distract yourself from them! )
You may be surprised to feel the emotion dissipate as you observe it. That is how you alchemize or transmute emotions. If it's really heavy or painful sometimes I imagine scooping it out of my body and putting it in a fire of violet flames.
I want to add a couple of notes here:
Triggers: I think I will devote a whole blog post to triggers so I won't go into much here. Triggers are not something to avoid. They are not caused by another person. Triggers are something to be grateful for because they show you where you have unhealed wounds. I find that when I am triggered it is harder to just sit and feel my feelings. I know what I need to do deep down, but it's like I won't let myself. It's a defense mechanism. You are protecting yourself from your deep, unhealed wounds.
It's okay. You don't have to know what they are. It's enough to acknowledge the trigger. Allow the feelings to just be. Don't project your feelings onto other people, try not to react based on your past patterns. It may take longer for the feelings to dissipate but it's an excellent first step until you really have time to address the wounds and traumas that you need heal.
Check in with your Current State of Being: It is important to note that if you have other issues going on, it may change when or how long this process will take. For example, if you are hungry or tired, you will need to eat or sleep first, as you may realize your emotions weren't as heavy as you thought they were, your body just needed a different input. If you are suffering from grief, this process will be ongoing but realize that whatever emotions you feel are okay. You may find yourself feeling shame for feeling lighter, happier feelings. The process is the same though. Just feel. Just be. No Judgement.
Fight or Flight: If you go into fight or flight, you won't be able to pause and do this until you can calm down. If you can, try to catch your anxiety before you get to this stage and take some deep, calming breaths. Otherwise, ride out the storm until you are able to calm down. If you can get to the point of tears, that is a beautiful release of emotions, so don't hold back. Patterns: If you find yourself going back to the same emotions over and over, like anger, sadness, jealousy. It might be worthwhile to look deeper into that. What does the anger do for you? How does it serve your? Is it a coping mechanism? Do you have limiting beliefs that are holding you back? This will probably be a topic for another post, but pay attention to that. Your feelings are your responsibility: My kids and husband are all very empathic and we tend to feed off of each other's emotions. It is important to clear your energy when you think someone else's energy is affecting yours. Moreover, it's important to explain to your loved ones that you are dealing with your own feelings and these feelings are not their responsibility. I wish I'd known that as a child. Our feelings, unfortunately affect other people, and vice versa, but they don't have to. If we show our children how to manage their emotions and be a role model, we will be doing a huge service to the next generation. Relationships: When I'm upset, my husband wants me to talk about it because sometimes he thinks I'm upset with him. Sometimes you need to ask for space in order to just feel your feelings. This may save a lot of needless discussion or arguments, because the feelings or triggers are yours and may not have anything to do with your partner. After you do this, if there are still issues that need to be discussed, you will be able to do so in a much calmer manner.
This step is not easy, but it is so vital for your health and well-being.
It is really hard to just be with yourself and not judge yourself for what you are feeling and not overthink everything that led you to feel that way. But at the same time, it's so simple and very liberating to know it's okay to just feel without having to feel bad about yourself and analyze it all, which is just exhausting. The more you practice, the easier it gets and the faster you are able to transmute the feelings. I know this, because I do it all the time.
Also, it's helpful to also observe yourself when you have lighter, happier feelings too! These feelings are also just energy and it's important to tap into this energy when you feel it. It helps you remember that feeling and frequency so you can move to it more easily and more frequently.
Sending love to you all,
Beth
To continue to Part 2 of this blog post click here.
