Starting Your Inwards Journey
Concepts of self-love are very common on the internet and within spiritual spaces. It’s preached from the rooftops that the key to happiness and life changing manifestations. Anything your heart, mind and soul could dream of is possible through loving yourself. It’s *just* that simple.
What about those who don’t know if they’re friends with themselves?
How can someone love themselves when they aren’t sure if they like themselves?
The first step on your journey to manifestation, dreaming your dream life and self-love is learning self reflection. It’s not a sexy practice, but it’s a mandatory step to get to the exciting boons at the end of your quest. I am not ashamed that there was a point in my life where I did not like myself. I did not like how I was behaving, choosing and interacting in the world. I was not a friend to myself: I pushed myself harder with stricter boundaries to be better without the empathy and resources that would aid me in making a change. I was treating myself as my own worst enemy instead of the closest possible friend I could have. If I had the ability to yank my consciousness a millimeter away from my own circumstances, then I would have slapped myself but I also would have the very thing that’s needed for change. Perspective.
Perspective is the most potent healing medicine that you can give yourself, and it’s the hardest to access. Traditionally we are not taught how to self-reflect and then to soothe and love ourselves as adults. Children are taught to soothe themselves back to sleep as infants but adults are rarely taught the skills and how to process outside of a therapy room. As much as your journey will be about heading towards self-love, it will also be about self-discovery, self-acceptance and self-guided. There is no formula or prescription for empathetic self-reflection, but there are steps you can take.
One of the first things that I experienced that helped me on my journey was journaling. It could sound like a broken record, but in the pages of my first journal as an adult I was able to safely share what half-truths had been my compass. It offered space to freely express and to not have to assign value on these crumbling pillars holding up my sense of self. Once it existed outside of me, and I could read them like a letter instead of it swirling around my head like a siren’s song I was able to get clarity.
The other tool I would highly recommend is meditation. I didn’t start my meditative journey under a wise oak tree surrounded by the calming sounds of nature. It started with the guidance of an experienced practitioner on the floor of my apartment in 2020. While the world was crumbling I was also able to let some old long-term beliefs fall away. Nowadays there are many ways to access practitioners for free and low-cost as well as find facilitators who align with your journey. I don’t think I would be able to truly let go of some of the deep rooted beliefs without someone remotely guiding me, unaware of the issues I was working through. There was a sense of comfort in anonymity while also taking action. Some of the paths that interested me were hypnosis and self love, but there is a sea of variety available to you at your fingertips.
The other low-cost resource I would recommend would be podcasts. They are a growing phenomena and can give a lot of value to you in your journey. That being said where there is a lot of good advice there is an equal if not higher percentage of bad advice. Some of the ones I recommend are “Date Yourself Instead” with Lyss Boss and “Open House” with Lousie Rumball. Date Yourself Instead is the advice you would give your healing best friend - an excellent voice to model as you start to give love and kindness to yourself. Open house goes deeper and is hosted by a wonderful human Louise who openly shares her struggles alongside interviews with leaders in various fields from psychology, neurology, somatics (holla!) and men’s health. She injects humor and real-life scenarios to this deep content and I love her personal updates.
If you’re at the end of this and still needing additional guidance, that’s where I would recommend investing in a one on one, private coaching session. There are many different practitioners who can help you and I find myself lucky and honored to be one as well. It’s not something that I talk about often on here, but I do offer ad hoc 1:1s and consistent 1:1 appointments with clients for a discounted rate. I am certified as an Embodied Wisdom Facilitator so my style of counseling is a mixture of active - trauma informed listening and coaching as well as recommending somatic therapies to do solo or while we’re on a call together. If you’re interested in learning more, I have my offerings linked below along with the virtual journal workshop I’m hosting from March 7-21st, 2024.
