How to Love & Accept Yourself; My Path from Self-Loathing to Self-Love
Love Yourself and Accept Yourself
Are there times when that negative voice in your mind sucks you down into a dark hole, telling you that you’re unworthy or unlovable? Are there days when you feel unappreciated or alone? Do you long to love yourself and accept yourself? I know what this feels like.
I suspect that many of us are in the same boat. Our outer facade might show confidence, success and self-respect. But when we look underneath our ego personas, we’re often swimming in a murky pool of feeling unloved and unworthy.
Allow me to share my story. To the outside world, my life as a child and a young adult appeared to be filled with pleasant circumstances. I grew up in a nice family. I got excellent grades. I was a good athlete. As a teen, I had a solid group of friends. As a young adult, I learned two foreign languages and enjoyed exciting adventures, like working abroad for the United Nations Development Program.
But no matter what I accomplished, I walked through life with a sickeningly-high level of anxiety and monstrous self-doubt. The voice in my mind taunted me with negative beliefs and incessant reminders that I was not good enough. At 30 years old, I discovered that not only did I not like myself…but I loathed myself. This shocking epiphany 15 years ago marked the beginning of my healing journey.
My personal path from chronic anxiety and self-loathing to inner peace and self-love is the most remarkable and meaningful journey of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for all the riches in the world. But it didn’t happen overnight. Healing is a process. Personally, I see life as one great healing adventure!
(Photo: Pete Shoniker)
Self-Sabotaging and Negative Beliefs
Self-love is about alignment. What are you aligned with? Are you aligned with your old wounds and your stored pain? Are you aligned with your inner child’s old negative beliefs that you’re unlovable, unworthy and undeserving? Are you aligned with the self-berating, aggressive ego?
We long to free ourselves of our self-doubt and self-sabotaging. We long to silence the voices in our minds that tell us that we’re not good enough. But regardless of these desires, we walk through adulthood dragging around our old childhood beliefs that we’re unappreciated, unlovable and unworthy. We root ourselves in the judgemental ego, shielding our hearts and disconnecting us from our authentic selves.
Here’s a real life story that illustrates this point. A woman named Kelly was frustrated with the workers she had hired for a job. She judged them as being stupid and incompetent. In an intuitive healing session, we observed that underneath her ego (the part that judges others) was a sweet little girl who was scared and breathless. We witnessed that when she was a small child her father menacingly criticized her. As a little girl, she translated these attacks and criticism as “I am stupid. I am useless.”
Throughout Kelly’s life, she has repeatedly heard this same negative message of being stupid in her mind. At the same time, her ego has projected this pain and negative belief outward onto other people. This woman’s story is not unique.
Many of us judge ourselves as not good enough, not successful enough, not smart enough, not beautiful enough. When we aren’t belittling ourselves with these self-destructive beliefs, our egos convince us to toss this pain outward onto others.
If the ego lives on the main floor in our inner emotional house, the basement is where the pained inner child hides. Here, deep down within us is where we stash our unprocessed emotions. This is the foundation that feeds the ego. The basement is the reason for the ego’s existence.
The ego is the voice in our minds that judges everything and everyone (including ourselves). The ego is an aspect of you, but it is NOT the real you. When we are entrenched in our egos, we are busy defending, blaming and attacking. When we react to life from our egos, we push, control, demand and criticize. With the ego, we operate out of a place of fear.
Loving the Inner Child
In my work as an intuitive healer, I repeatedly witness that underneath the vicious and suspicious ego is a hurt child who is longing for love and acceptance. Little boys and little girls who are longing to feel safe and longing to be seen and heard.
At some point as a little boy or girl, we felt it was unsafe to keep our hearts wide open. It hurt too much to be vulnerable. As little ones, we wanted to avoid feeling more pain, humiliation and shame. So we built our walls. We hid our precious hearts behind our shields. Here the ego begins to take its shape.
If you ignore the lonely child in the basement and neglect to clear out the old boxes of unprocessed emotions, attempting to love yourself and accept yourself is a futile endeavor. In order to love and accept ourselves as the women and men we are today, it is essential that we love and accept the little girls or boys inside of us. Unless we love and accept the little ones within us, we can’t truly love and accept other people either.
So how do we learn to love ourselves unconditionally? As adults, we need to lovingly parent the little boys and girls within us. It’s up to us to gently reassure them that they’re safe to open their hearts. We need to shower them in love and promise them to always be there for them. To never abandon them.
In order to love yourself and accept yourself, you need to give your inner child permission to be who she truly is — a radiant expression of creativity, joy and love.
Love Yourself Accept Yourself
Within each of us is a glowing, radiant light. A lighthouse of love, hope and compassion. This is where inner strength, confidence and courage reside. Learning to love and honour ourselves require that we return home to this inner light.
(Photo: Jamie Street)
We’ve been fumbling around in the dark, trying to find our way through life, feeling disconnected from ourselves, our source and our purpose. All the while this radiant light has remained steady, patiently waiting for you to remember that you are a brilliant, compassionate, creative, infinitely loved and powerful soul.
Imagine that we’re digging for treasure, but the X that marks the spot of the hidden treasure is in the opposite side of the yard. The X is always there for us to see. But we don’t see it because we are blindly focused on digging for treasure in the dirt pile that only has buried bones of resentment, self-punishment and meaninglessness.
When we reconnect with our soul, we begin to see that our struggles, fears and negative thinking are merely distractions keeping us from our light. The ego uses these distractions to prevent us from knowing and being our authentic selves.
How to Love Yourself Unconditionally
When we begin to see that our inner light is the very same essence as Source, it seems silly to continue to beat ourselves up. When we realize that who we truly are is so brilliant and brimming with love, it feels inappropriate to taunt ourselves with stories of unworthiness.
Meditation is an awesome tool that guides us to a loving, peaceful place where we can let go of worry and self-doubt. Meditation helps us come home to ourselves, the radiant light within us. I’ve recorded a short meditation (six minutes) to help you align with your inner light. I encourage you to give it a try.
To listen to the meditation, please click here: Turn Up Your Light.
(Photo: Pete Shoniker)
In order to love and accept ourselves, we need to roll up our sleeves and pull out the mangled mess of weeds from within us. Holding our inner child’s hand, we want to consciously replant a thriving garden of beautiful flowers. This healthy garden within us becomes our foundation for how we feel about ourselves and how we react to life.
When we live in alignment with our true essence, our whole world changes. We experience inner peace, self-love, compassion, joy, courage and trust. As an intuitive healer, I am here to hold your hand and guide you on your path to self-love and happiness. I am here to support you so that you may shine bright in this world.
If you loved this article, I would greatly appreciate if you share it on Facebook. Thank you!
Much Love,
Rachel, Intuitive Healer & Clairvoyant
About Intuitive Healing
If your desire is to feel truly alive, joyous, abundant and at peace, healing is the road that takes you there. In my work as an intuitive healer, I help you release underlying fears, stored emotions and negative beliefs. We stop feeding the ego and deconstruct the walls around our heart, offering our spirit space to shine. When we commit to our healing, we feel lighter, calmer, more centred and happier. We begin to tap into an undercurrent of peace, self-love and trust.
To view testimonials, please click HERE.
To experience an intuitive healing session with me, please reach out: www.rachelshoniker.com.
