The Self-Love Struggle

Why is it so hard for us to truly love and accept ourselves? Why is it that no matter how much we say "I love myself" there is always a disconnection, a knot in our stomachs, and we still don't believe what we are saying no matter how many times we repeat it?

For the most part, we approach loving ourselves as a habit that needs to be learnt, which is usually accompanied by the thought "I need to learn to love myself." The truth of it is that loving ourselves isn't actually something we need to learn to do. It's an un-learning that needs to happen. Let me explain.

We were born already knowing

The place we currently find ourselves, for most of us a place of not fully accepting who we are and struggling to connect with genuine self-love, is a learned response. It was not how we arrived.

At the moment of our birth, we absolutely love ourselves. We come in carrying this incredible energy of unconditional love, for ourselves and for others. I always know this to be true because when you look at a baby, you can feel it. It emanates from them. Babies embody this beautiful energy of love, and it invites everyone around them to love them too.

We do not lose that capacity by accident. We are slowly, quietly, taught to look outside ourselves for it.

How we learn to look outward

As we grow up, particularly in the first eight years of our lives, we model our behaviour on those closest to us. We learn how to walk, talk, engage and respond to our environment by watching and mimicking others. What we also learn in this period is how to earn the love and attention of our parents, our siblings and our wider world through action.

We learn that in order to feel "loved," we need to do certain things, behave in specific ways, or align ourselves to the desires of others. While we are doing those things and gaining their approval, it feels wonderful. But when they withdraw that love because they changed their mind, or we didn't live up to an expectation, or we simply failed to deliver what was asked, we are left feeling empty, alone and sad.

Through our upbringing, we learn that love comes from outside of us. We unknowingly create an attachment style that finds love, joy and happiness in external things. We attach these feelings to things like:

• The approval of others
• What other people think or say about us
• Living up to a certain definition of success, whether that is a degree, a good job, getting married, buying a house
• Material possessions
• Food, activities, adventures, even holidays and milestones

None of these things are wrong in themselves. The problem is when they become the only source of the feeling we are actually craving, which is the unconditional love we were born with.

Self-love is not a practice you add on. It is a conditioning you peel back.

Truly connecting with self-love and self-worth isn't about learning to love yourself. It is about unwinding all of the habits and beliefs that caused you to fall out of love with yourself in the first place. This process takes time and is a journey, not a sprint. Here are some places to begin.

Shift the question

Instead of asking "How will they feel about this?" ask yourself "How do I feel about this?" Try to move from measuring yourself against what others think and toward how you actually feel. How someone else responds has everything to do with them, their experience, their beliefs and their standards. To measure yourself against that is to hold yourself against a ruler that was never meant for you.

Question your beliefs

Get really clear on what it is that you want from your life. Take a good look at the things you believe you need in order to be happy, and ask yourself honestly whether those are really your beliefs, or whether they are simply things society handed you and you accepted without questioning.

Remember that self-love is the foundation

How can you genuinely expect or receive love from someone else if you haven't yet arrived at a place where you love yourself? It starts here. Everything else is built on this.

Accept all of yourself

Everything. Even the parts you would consider flaws. There is only one you on this planet. No one else is quite like you, and who you are is unique, beautiful and exactly what this world needs. If that wasn't true, you wouldn't be here. Own it. Live it. Love it.

Stop taking everything personally

Everyone is carrying their own life, their own experiences, their own unresolved weight. If someone snaps, gets nasty, or says something unkind, it has far more to do with them than it does with you. Have you ever met someone for whom nothing and no one is ever quite enough? Do you think the hundreds of people who haven't measured up in their eyes are all failures? Or is the common denominator simply that one person and their lens on the world?

Extend to others what you want to find in yourself

As you begin to look at others with more love and more acceptance, you will find that same quality starting to grow inward. The way we see the world is often a mirror of the way we see ourselves.

Be kind to yourself

Treat yourself the way you would treat a child you love, with patience, compassion and understanding. You are not behind. You are not broken. You are unwinding a lifetime of conditioning, and that takes time.

Sometimes you need a little extra help

Clearing energetic blocks with the Emotion Code is one of the most powerful ways I know to unwind the past and release the old patterns that are keeping you from experiencing genuine self-love. We carry trapped emotions from every significant experience we have had, and those stored charges quietly shape how we see ourselves, often without us realising it at all.

If you feel like you need some extra support on this journey, please reach out. This is exactly what I do.

And always, always, enjoy the ride. Stop to smell the roses. Fall in love with the process, not just the outcome.