Only you can cultivate a loving relationship with yourself – through all 3 of your bodies. Yes, you have more than one. Who’da guessed?
So how do these bodies influence your ability to love yourself and to receive love?
Fully loving yourself means opening to receiving at all levels:
- Physical body – your skin, organs, bones, muscles. You experience it through touch, strength, beauty, movement, and sex, etc. — as well as pain, discomfort, and illness. Whether you’re balanced or not, you feel it.
- Mental body – your thoughts and judgments … the way you process information, how you use words, focus, learn, and get clarity on things. This is also key to your thoughts becoming reality. When your mental body is unhealthy, you tend to overthink and overanalyze things.
- Emotional body – the bridge between your physical and mental bodies. It’s how you interpret your world and feel your way through life. Think about how you react to other people and situations, like how you feel when people aren’t who you want them to be. Emotions are often misunderstood because you’ve buried them or lived through a veil of misperception for so long, you’re not even aware of them. You feel anxious, stressed, sad, etc. without even being aware of it in your own body.
When I pretended I didn’t have any wants or needs, I drove myself into a crumpled heap and was unable to function.
Sometimes I could get away with months of recklessly adding things to my to-do list, doing endless people-pleasing tasks with no sense of what I wanted and needed. It wasn’t a sustainable way to live. It wasn’t a matter of if I would crumble. It was just a matter of when.
My body knew what it needed and was demanding that much-needed down time – physically, mentally and emotionally. I was clueless that giving myself much-needed rest, time to restore, and play time was essential to living a healthy, balanced life. And I paid deeply for my ignorance.
I needed to cultivate an authentic body-love relationship with myself.
Physically: Treat my body better. Be mindful when I’m pushing too hard. Exercise. Eat healthy. Pamper myself. Stop comparing myself to others.
Emotionally: Give myself permission to experience my feelings just as they are. Acceptance feels so good. I practice gratitude daily.
Mentally: Express myself honestly and vulnerably. Unplug so my mental body can rejuvenate. Reach for balance. Allow myself to do mental stretch exercises as I learn more on subjects that I’m drawn to. Get curious. Live with wonder.
Feeling bad isn’t bad. Your feelings are showing you exactly what’s up for you to heal.
As a child, you may have felt you needed walls to stay safe and to function. And now, those walls are annoying limitations that keep your life small.
I’ve unknowingly tried to manipulate others into liking me a zillion times. Then, when I was convinced they did, I’d disrespect their opinion. Why? Because it wasn’t in alignment with my feelings about myself.
Then I’d switch focus onto that person who didn’t like me – either to deflect my pain away from myself or to work even harder to convince them to love me. I was completely missing the point. 🙃
Having someone else love you is great. But it’s not sustainable if you don’t make that shift, and lock in love for yourself.
You’re not here for easy. You’re here to make peace with your past so you can live in peace with who you are today.
I wouldn’t take the messy feelings away from anyone, including myself. It’s all part of the process of letting go of misunderstandings and b.s., along with making us stronger.
My journey from trying to convince everyone that I was lovable to truly loving myself was just that – my journey. What made me was:
- The faceplant, hysterically sobbing, there-has-to-be-a-better-way moments.
- The humiliating fight for who I was pretending to be was never sustainable and brought me to my knees again and again.
- Trying new things to find out what was authentically me and what wasn’t. This meant getting out of my comfort zone instead of staying in the cheap seats of complacency.
Over time, I realized I didn’t need others to love me in order to love myself.
No one else on this planet can love you enough to heal you – no intuitive guide and healer, no loving friend, no momma.
Clients have come to me and said, “Rita fix it.” My response, “That’s your job.”
What I can do is hold space and in this safe and sacred container so you can face your pain, trauma, and misunderstandings from your past so you can keep the lesson and let go of the pain and struggle.
It’s magical.
But you can do holy hell F-ing hard things. On the other side of leaning in and doing your work, you release held beliefs and misunderstandings. That’s the part where you become more authentically you. And you don’t have to do your work alone.
Let’s release blocks to consciously create a balanced life you love (even more) and open to receiving all the goodness life offers exactly as it is.
Join me and a supportive community of heart-centered people in my monthly program as we explore topics including prosperity, control, relationships, anger … all that glamorous stuff that life throws your way. 😎
Come discover how transformative Journey to Your Center can be to your life.
As one participant shared:
“I learn how to love myself by learning through the story of others, loving them through their story, seeing my version of pain through their story, and allowing myself that same love. Interesting. We can’t change what happened, but we can change what it means and how we respond to it by changing our minds.” – Kim
