What Does Self-Love Look Like?
“Love is the strongest medicine. It is more powerful than electricity.” ~Neem Karoli Baba
Good morning lovely you!
Guess what I’m doing this very minute? If you guessed sipping tea and watching my beloved Zuzu napping, give yourself a pat on the back. And speaking of back…
I am finally back from my very busy conference in Boston last week. I had a wonderful time but boy was it hectic! I am always happy to be able to come back home and relax after such a trip. It’s so hard to get enough rest, hydration and proper nutrition when I am on these business trips. As soon as I am back home, I begin to care for myself the way I am used to.
How are you used to caring for yourself? Can you say that you actually LOVE yourself on a daily basis?
We’ve been talking about ways to heal your life and your body, and there is a topic we absolutely need to dive into, and that is the importance of self-love for healing. Trying to heal without self-love is like trying to cook without heat – it’s not possible.
You may be able to fool other people into thinking you actually love yourself and care for yourself, but the real YOU knows the truth. Every cell of your body knows whether you do or don’t love you. This is a fact. So unless you begin to be truthful with yourself and make some changes, healing, truly healing from your disease, cannot happen.
What Does Self-Love Look Like?
If you’ve never practiced self-love before, you most likely have no idea what it really means. You’ve also probably been brainwashed into believing that being self-less is the right/proper/kind way to move through life and that to put your needs first and (gasp) love yourself is somehow selfish and wrong.
WRONG!
Ask Anita Moorjani about self-love. She fought cancer and ended up dying from it. During a profound near-death experience, she was made aware that the reason for her disease and the diseases of many was from a lack of self-love. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Anita’s book “Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing.”
See that word “true” in her title? It’s there for a reason. It’s there because TRUE healing cannot happen without self-love. So let’s take a look at some examples of what self-love looks like.
You Make Decisions That are Good and Healthy for You
Loving yourself means that when faced with a decision, you think about what will nourish your mind, body, heart and soul (remembering ALL 4 of those life aspects). You don’t necessarily have to always put yourself first, though I would say if you are battling cancer right now, PUT YOURSELF FIRST. Your life is on the line. If you don’t put your own needs first at a time like this, when WILL you?
Your Inner Voice Has Wonderful Things to Say About You
Do you have an inner champion or an inner critic? Most people’s inner voice has nothing very good to say about them, which is incredibly sad.
Think of some of the things your inner voice has said about you over the years. “You’re too fat.” “God, you’re an idiot.” “You look stupid in that outfit.” And on and on and on. You would NEVER say these things to another human being. Yet you may say them to yourself on a daily basis without even a thought.
How do you think your cells react when you hate yourself? How do you think your immune system reacts when you feel you can do no right?
When you hear that inner critic begin to speak, tell it if it can’t say anything nice, it shouldn’t speak at all.
You Forgive Yourself
Everyone makes choices that are not the best ones for their life. We often call these mistakes. How much contempt are you currently holding for yourself? How much are you resenting YOU for doing something in the past that you now regret? As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and it’s very easy to see a past situation with a clearer vision now.
Whatever you did, didn’t do, said or didn’t say… whatever it was… love yourself by forgiving yourself, and forgive yourself by understanding why you made the choice you made then. Often, the very act of truly understanding ourselves or another person helps us to instantly let go of a grudge we’ve been holding on to.
Allow Yourself a Voice
In dealing with people dealing with cancer, I have found some running themes among all of us. One of those themes is, we don’t feel like we have a voice. We have, somewhere in our life, been made to feel like we should be seen and not heard. We feel like we can’t be honest or authentic because it may go in direct opposition to what has been deemed “acceptable” by family, friends, or society in general.
When you truly love yourself, you give yourself a voice to speak your truth, always. You don’t have to be pushy or a bully, but you must be real and honest in order for true healing to occur.
These are just some of the ways you can begin to truly practice self-love. And understand this, self-love must be UNCONDITIONAL. You don’t love yourself on Mondays and Thursdays and that’s it. You love yourself unconditionally every day no matter what.
I will leave you with one more quote:
“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”
~Louise L. Hay
Yours in love, love, and even more love…
Prue
