The Revolutionary Act of Loving Yourself
Loving yourself is a revolutionary act. It’s revolutionary because to do so you have to take strong action and you have to go against a culture that doesn’t understand or support self-love. This revolutionary act however, will transform your life on every level. Once you begin to love yourself you will see your life falling into place. Your health will improve, your relationships will deepen, your work in the world will take on a sense of passion and purpose in ways that you can’t even foresee at present.
But loving oneself is not an easy path. Few of us have models who demonstrate what self-love looks like. Still fewer of us are told that we are good, beautiful, and whole just as we are. Instead many of us feel that we are not enough, that we aren’t worthy of love, that we need to conform to others’ ideas of us in order to be accepted. All of this leaves us feeling defective and lacking. It makes us believe that we don’t deserve goodness and abundance and makes us vulnerable to depression, anxiety, and addiction.
When we don’t love ourselves we put other’s needs before our own and seek their approval in order to validate our worth. We stay stuck in smaller versions of ourselves, afraid to expose our true self for fear of criticism and rejection. We settle for unsatisfying relationships and jobs because we feel that that’s all we deserve. We fail to make our dreams and desires a priority, thereby limiting our contribution to the world. We don’t show up for ourselves, and break our own hearts in the process.
To begin to change this harmful cycle we first need to commit to doing so. Then we need to practice continually making our needs and desires a priority. Doing so might mean that we need to set boundaries, saying no to what we don’t want and yes to what we do. Saying yes to ourselves begins to point us in the direction of whatever it is that makes our heart sing. We show up for our life in a way that is aligned with our authentic nature. We begin to see that when we love ourselves we become more loving toward others. We live from a full spring and not an empty well.
