About Self-Love - are you Enough or Not Enough?
Part 1.
Self-love is very underrated nowadays. No wonder most of us are self-medicating, running away into destructive behaviour, just not to face the feeling of emptiness, being not good enough, being not needed and appreciated.
It took me many years to face that feeling. It is painful. No external conditions, things and even people can give you love that you need and crave for.
If to strip away your achievements, money, friends, family members, what's left of you?
Scary, isn't it? When we try all our life to prove the world that we are worthy of love and then it is taken away from us.
The moments I least deserved love from the world, were the times when I was giving myself most love.
"We are made by those who love us, and those who refused to love us."
When is our sense of self-love being shaken?
When we go through a breakup, lose the job, have financial troubles, when our health is not at our best, when we are being betrayed by a friend or a partner. And I am sure that there are many other moments when life events make us feel exposed and vulnerable.
Those moments when we feel - the way we are now - is not enough.
It is not enough for the company, not enough for a guy or a girl, not enough for a competition. These are all the examples of the same problem. We were not shown the unconditional love when we were young.
I was pondering on the idea of success. Why some people seem to achieve a lot and with ease, while others are not going anywhere despite a lot of effort. And even if they achieve something - they are still not happy. What is the difference?
When we live in a way that our self-love depends on external environment, we will be always shaken by day to day activities. It's our worth that is on the line! Kind of a big deal after all :) We expect people to treat us in a certain way, we expect winning all the time, we expect do our best. If we don’t perform our best - correct, we don’t deserve to be loved. (Not true).
There is a huge flaw in this theory - you can't do your best all the time, you can't be 1st all the time. Even the best of the best always fall down. And if each time your deep sense of self-love is being damaged, you won't be even trying after few failures. That's when people accept the life of mediocrity - if they don't try, they won't fail.
Self-love is allowing yourself to be yourself. We don't need to improve, we don't change. All we need is - to accept ourselves as we are today and start moving forward in the loving direction towards our potential.
Eating healthy, training, reading books done from the place of love are all enjoyable activities. Doing the same things from the place of "not enough" - and they all become hurtful with the time.
Loving person who reads a lot shares her knowledge with love and humility, knowing that there are always more books to read, and she doesn't know everything.
Person who feels not worthy can read as well, and shares information with arrogance and pride, her insecurity causes the feeling of "never smart enough."
The same applies to the relationship, competitions, work, friends.
Enough and Not Enough people act from different places and get different lives.
In my life, as you might have guessed, I did both. That's how I know different parts of the story - I lived and felt through them.
Once you set a new goal, want another level - your self-love will be challenged. That's when we feel most inadequate, when we aren't doing well. Most of new endeavours require this beginning process, we must learn to be patient and compassionate to ourselves, otherwise - we won't expand to who we truly are. And that's not a pleasant place to be. When we know we can do more - but we are too afraid to even try. That nagging voice will turn into destructive behaviour - smoking, drinking, overeating, too much internet, too many movies. Unused potential is never forgiving.
I will finish today with my daily mantra. Words are powerful and especially words of love towards ourselves.
And notice how you feel reading these words. If there is any resistance - it’s time to forgive and love yourself as you are.
"I love myself no matter if I do well or not well, if I win or if I lose, if people love and accept me or not, if I earn and have money or not. I always deserve love no matter the external circumstances. I don't need to do anything for it. I am enough just the way I am."
with love and blessings,
your coach Irina