Self-love is a way of shaping our emotions, so they align with our thoughts and our feelings. Many people confuse emotions and feelings and often think they are pretty much the same thing. But emotions are actually associated with our body. They are the reactions activated through neurotransmitters and hormones released by the brain. Feelings, on the other hand, are the overall conscious experience of those emotional reactions. Then thoughts are what get triggered and created by those emotions and feelings. Therefore, this leads to creating all sorts of narratives and stories about ourselves.
The emotions, feelings and thoughts drive us to make the decisions we made. We just have to learn how to align our emotions, feelings and thoughts. We need to create self-awareness around our emotions and feelings, then transform them into thoughts that create positive narratives. That way, we can feel at our best and work toward practicing self-love and acceptance.
As women, one of our most intimate relationships is the one we have with ourselves. What do you think your relationship is like with yourself? Do you find yourself in critical mode most of the time? Or do you boost yourself up with positive self-talk? Do you have good days and bad days? If someone were to ask you, “If you knew me…”, what would you say? What if they asked, “If you really knew me…”, how would you respond?
These questions help us understand who we are and learn to both accept the good, bad and ugly. Only with acceptance and acknowledging who we really are, can we learn to forgive, grow and work toward transformation, balance and alignment.
Understanding Self-Awareness
Feeling empowered and self-aware allows you to get to a place of gratitude, confidence, and purpose. Self-awareness is part of emotional intelligence. It is having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs and drives. This understanding requires honesty, both with themselves and others. You have to be able to understand your values and goals and get really clear about them. When you are in touch with what you truly value, what ideas and beliefs are most important to you, you have the tools to empowerment. abundance and fulfilment. Understanding self-awareness gives you access to knowing your values. Thus, you can start living your most authentic and true live with purpose.
Self-awareness can be identified as a thirst for knowing, seeking constructive criticism feels comfortable, whether from a mentor or a coach, and it stems from the ability to assess oneself openly, realistically and with humility, about how their emotions and feeling impact their life. This is in contrast to people who may have low self-awareness. They may interpret the need to improve as a threat or a sign of failure. Being able to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, feelings, thoughts and the impact on others is a great place to start alleviating suffering and getting to acceptance.
Getting to Acceptance
Being at peace with all or most areas of your life can give you a sense of calmness. Unresolved issues drain energy from your soul, and it will be very difficult to be present where it counts. Keep in mind that peace is not absent of conflict, but rather your response to conflict. Challenge and conflict are a part of everyday life. Without them, there would be no growth. There would be nothing to bring you face to face with those parts of yourself that are ready for transformation.
Remember, you really do choose. You can choose to get caught up in the drama , or you can rise above it. You can instead, observe what is happening with your emotions at that subconscious bodily level (become self-aware). Is your heart racing? Has your stomach flipped? Where do you feel tension? Where do you feel relaxed? Once you are aware, then give yourself space to accept what you are feeling and how you are processing the emotions. Is your body telling you that you feel angry? Mad? Sad? Joy?
Giving yourself empathy and compassion to forgive yourself and others is a good place to start when it comes to acceptance. Awareness, forgiveness, and resilience offers you the ability to self-soothe and provide support. Be mindful of the discomfort and find ways to comfort yourself. Then, accept, move toward self-love, and let go.
Practicing Self-Love
Understanding your emotions at a deeper level is critical for adaptive change. For instance, fear and desire are often the key feelings that lead us to act. Both are a part of life, but we don’t have to let them control who we are. Understanding at a deeper level, where that fear is coming from through awareness and acceptance is going to help get us to a place where we can then create new narratives around our thoughts.
If we feel a threat, we immediately want to protect. We incorporate whatever coping mechanism we learned as a child and fight, flight or freeze. But, there are ways to reframe our emotional experience. It is like asking “What would you do if you knew you would never be abandoned?”. Can you reframe this to instead say “What would you do if you had no fear of abandonment?” How we frame our practice, impacts how we incorporate self-love into our life and get to a place where we are in charge of our emotions and feelings. We are able to self-regulate and give us an opportunity to shift our thoughts from fear to love.
Self-sabotage is the opposite of self-love. Self-sabotage is an unconscious behavior (an emotion) that undermines our confidence and security. Self-love is being aware of the emotion, accepting the feeling, and creating a story that you are worthy, you are amazing in all aspects of your life, that you matter, that you are important and cared for. The consequence it that you start making choices for yourself that honor your values and beliefs.
Remember, you are not a victim. Be able to set boundaries, give and receive love, and know this is an on-going process that thrives over time and allows you to manifest the vision of how you want to love, live and lead your life.