When you are in Flow, you embrace that love takes many shapes, forms and appearances. If you are fully engaged in the act of self-love, in Flow, then you are dropping away any judgements of or resistance of the path to self-love, or attachments to what it SHOULD look like. You’re fully present with what is arising, even discomfort.
Being in Flow is recognising that you are your own unique being, not an imprint of your parents, siblings, friends or society. You have a special set of needs and desires that change constantly, sometimes slowly, sometimes within a few seconds, and THAT IS OK!
However, to accept this as a felt-sense reality, an embodied self-love, it can be a challenging road. To step out and accept ourselves unconditionally sometimes means a shedding process of where love has been conditional. Conditional love is not love. Conditional love creates shame, shame creates guilt and ultimately guilt creates fear of the unknown, the fear of what unconditional love feels like. To rebirth into something new requires a transformational process – the butterfly in the chrysalis.
So when we step on a journey of self-love, we step on a journey of unconditional love. Deep down, we know exactly what unconditional love feels like, so whenever it is absent, there’s a part of us that craves it. Unfortunately, we are taught by society to seek love outside of ourselves – the fairytale prince/princess that will save us from suffering and adore us forever after! Wrong! So long as we yearn for completion outside of ourselves, we will never know the unconditional love that we inherently know deep down inside. An eternal self-love that has no comparison.
Your journey of discovering self-love is an ongoing process, like a relationship in itself – a dynamic, shifting relationship. New experiences bring new feelings develop, new desires appear, old ones fade, and all you have to remember is keep feeling, keep opening and letting go of any fear, guilt and shame that arises, with love. Be gentle with yourself. When there’s moments of self-loathing or discomfort, just know that this is a process of what is NOT love. If you judge yourself, your looks, your actions of the past, or you resist your desires or your needs, then stop, take a deep breath and remember: this too will pass. The resistance or fear of change is only because the experience of the new has yet to be felt. The mind will scream, creating illusory stories of fear. It’s ok. It’s ok to be afraid. You have the courage to go deeper still.
You can take another deep breath and tap into that space in your heart that yearns for love. What does it want to hear? Whisper it to yourself: “I love myself. I accept myself. I am here, and I am never going to leave you again. I embrace my desires, my needs and I am willing to explore them, without fear, guilt or shame.” Find some loving affirmations, repeat them out loud in the mirror, or set reminders throughout the day. Write them down. Perhaps write down what you DO love about yourself, or what desires or needs you have? There are many, many self-love tools, techniques and methods out there. Explore, follow your heart and intuition to find the ones that resonate with you the most. Start with the ones that feel the easiest to implement, then build up to ones that you have more resistance to – see if you can let go of the stories that don’t want to let go of you.
You’re enough; perfect just as you are. There’s nothing that needs fixing. You have a beating heart and a song on your lips. Find your song. Start singing your love song to yourself.
It all starts with one action, one decision to start loving yourself even more this very second. And know that the first step is the hardest. Well done. You’ve got this. You’re stronger and braver than you could ever imagine.