Shall we talk about self-love? Nowadays, this subject has been discussed a lot, which is wonderful, especially since it wasn't discussed so much… People just didn't talk about it. People have shown an interest in knowing more about this subject, especially in this era when things have become very instantaneous, influencing our pace both at work and in personal life, but I realize that people have a very wrong idea of ​​what it is. self-love. This happens because some confuse self-love with self-esteem and with ego, so they enter a duality. Some say it is important to have self-esteem to have self-esteem up there, others say that the healthy thing is not to have so much self-esteem, otherwise the person is “thinking they are the last cookie in the package”, but that makes no sense! Self-love is essential for you to build a good image of yourself (self-esteem), because you show yourself the same affection and care that you give others, then you build a positive image of yourself, which is externalized to people around you.
O ego (which, in Greek, means “I”) is part of the construction of our personality from the most primitive instinct, which is to “self-preservation”. The great psychologist and biologist Jean Piaget mentions in his social studies that we go through a stage in childhood in which we leave the sensorimotor phase, which lasts until the age of two, and then we begin to know the different forms in the world, as the body itself, all still very concrete.
Then we reach the stage where we center ourselves and the symbolic stage where we start to associate colors with shapes, then we center ourselves, what psychologists call “Beginning of Personality Building”. Yes, psychoanalysis has already confirmed that some people can't get past this egocentrism stage in childhood, so they bring it to the conceptual stage (ages 7 to 11). If parents or caregivers don't work to measure this side of the child, the person takes it to adulthood, in the last stage of cognitive development: that of formal operations. This is what explains some people being carried away by the ego, but psychoanalysts are the ones who can explain this better.
But the truth is that when someone feels this need to assert themselves for society, for others, it's because they don't really have any self-respect! It's one thing for you to feel good about yourself, it's another to assert yourself to others around you, so that there is validation and/or acceptance, which is very far from the true meaning of it. Self-love and good self-esteem do not require external validation, but internal validation, as no one can give or take away your value, as only you can define your value by the way you behave in society - from the way you walk to the way you talk . People respect more those who are stronger, who have control over their own lives; people who, when some adversity happens, know how to get around it all beautifully. People who are more confident, who show themselves more, who are strong… We find this more interesting and we are always inspired by people like that, isn't it?
So here we go: what is the famous “self-love”? Self-love is when you know yourself, accept yourself with qualities and flaws, when you value and respect yourself, in the sense of not judging yourself, not submitting to things and people that displease you and looking at yourself with compassion and empathy, taking care of yourself in all areas of life - physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual too, whatever your belief, philosophy of life - and keeping in mind that we are all here in this world to learn. Life is knowledge. Having self-love is not looking at yourself with judgmental eyes in the face of mistakes and failures that you have made or make in life, because mistakes should not be considered unacceptable, as they are part of our evolution, and it is not cultivating the thought of " I can't make mistakes, I can't make mistakes” that we will evolve, so stop pushing yourself not to make mistakes and freaking out every time you make mistakes. Start cultivating the mindset of “if I make a mistake, it's okay, because I'll learn from my mistakes”. That's living lighter. When you make a mistake, don't care about the people who judge you, because we all make mistakes and it's a fact that it's much easier to point the finger at a mistake than to show the mistake and teach how to get around this situation, because we often do things who are not so nice to others, which requires someone to give us a touch.
The journey of self-love is not easy... You need to know yourself, take off the masks, undress for yourself, undress yourself from labels, pressure and judgments, connecting with your essence. It's stopping for a moment, often for a longer time, making a diagnosis about yourself, about what you like, about what you don't like, about how you react to situations that please you, about how you react to situations that displease you, to go back from childhood and score the things and people that made you who you are today, analyzing your feelings and reactions in relation to that, both the people and things that made you good and the things and people that hurt you, because they are also part of your growth and your spiritual, emotional and psychological evolution in this life. Good things and people are learning and pleasant memories of life.
When you show gratitude for the simplest of things or the extraordinary, you keep your vibrational energy up there in the positive emotions of the vibrational scale, so you attract more of that sort of thing. As you vibrate in these energies, the universe sends you more of that, as it understands that this is what you want. Bad things and people (that hurt you) are lessons for life. You give yourself time to feel these negative emotions, but set a limit (no more than 20 minutes). During this time, immerse yourself in that inferior feeling, express it, put it out even if it's writing in a journal, in case you, like me, don't feel very comfortable talking about feelings. This is serious! Nowadays, anxiety, depression, heart attacks, strokes and sudden drops in immune defenses have increased more and more in very young people, because of repressed emotions, for losing control over themselves and their own lives, and this is independent of issues. financial and social. In a study carried out by UNESP, it is mentioned how emotions can affect not only personal life, but also professional life. Respondents said that 10 years before acquiring these diseases, they went through affective problems.So don't ignore these signs, because when you least realize it, you're already in a bubble of self-destruction. When these negative feelings come, don't let them go unnoticed. Allow yourself to feel these emotions, set a time limit to express it in the best way and then, when you reach your time limit to vent, don't talk about it anymore. Breathe in, breathe in, breathe out and don't freak out. Don't vibrate in that lower emotion and cancel that feeling by rationalizing, changing your perception of it and your reaction. Try to see the lessons that this situation has brought you. Realize that you cannot change things that have happened and the actions of others, only your reaction to it and your actions from now on. Exchanging a negative memory for one that brings you positive emotions is the "final shot" you should take to raise your energy and vibrate good things. Again: NO! DO NOT keep vibrating in these negative emotions, as these emotions quickly take over, lowering your vibratory energy a lot.
An important point about self-love is to take responsibility for your life and be aware that you can't change your past actions and choices, so you won't solve anything if you blame and dwell on the past, because there's no way to go back and do it different. Cancel the thought of wanting to go back in time and do everything differently, because no, it wouldn't be different, otherwise you wouldn't be who you are today, because all this was part of your evolution process. You can do different today by taking responsibility for your own life. You forgive this situation, who was involved and yourself, to free yourself and free the other, then thank you for the learning it brought you. "I'm sorry, forgive me, I love you, I thank you." This part of forgiveness is complicated… There are situations and people that are difficult to forgive, but we need to forgive, so that our life doesn't become stagnant because of an unclosed cycle and for things to flow and change.
Be, first of all, the one who doesn't let anyone define you and define your life. Don't be the one who looks for blame for life or who blames himself.
Abandon this idea of ​​looking for villain and victim, because the victim, being helpless, can do nothing, while the villain is the aggressor, the culprit. Enough of that! Your life is yours and no one else's. Stop leaving your life in someone else's hands and take control of it. Ah, guilt is different from self-responsibility. Guilt brings out the villain and the victim. In self-responsibility, in turn, there is the understanding and reflection that, for life to be what it is today, choices brought consequences, even when there was no choice. Being indecisive is also a choice.
It sounds very simple the way I describe it, but it's not. It wasn't even for me, and I've never seen a case of a person who evolved easily in life, who gained self-esteem quickly. It's always a long process.
I, for example, took more than 20 years to start thinking about evolution and self-love. Actually, those were my “Achilles heels”, because I didn't know what to answer about.
In fact, from the time I was 15 to 19, I had no idea who I was, in the sense of having lost myself in terms of who I am.
Since I was a child I was out of the ordinary, with short stature because of a genetic condition called “Turner syndrome” and always being told that I was someone ahead of my time, precocious. People thought I was a grown woman in a girl's body and to this day they joke that I'm a reincarnation of a person from an earlier time. I was never the archetype of the good princess, after all I never really liked princesses and “girls”, because I never believed that someone can be 100% good or 100% bad; this dualistic concept is very relative. I can't forget to mention that these “nice” characters that they brought us were always the kind that waited for someone or something to appear in their lives so that it would be a game changer, so that there would be some meaning in her existence. Their personality, the strength of these characters, was only seen in the middle of the story or at the end, so I couldn't identify with them, because I thought it was all very surreal and distant, you know? I never wanted to be like them. There is no need to be like them to be a good-natured person. Life, being mine, cannot be left in someone else's hands. If I want something to happen in my life, I need to go after it to make it happen and no one completes me, because I'm already complete. The people I choose to be in my life are with me to complement and to add. Nobody completes anybody! Completeness is within us, the rest is complement. If we are left with this thought that someone completes us, then again we are throwing our lives into someone else's hands and, of course, putting the pressure on that someone to complete us. Stop and think: if that person leaves your life, is it all over? Do you only exist because that person came into your life? Of course not! You are a human being! This emptiness you have, only you can fill. The human being is complex, has ups and downs, which makes our species more interesting.
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About being out of the norm, this is a very strong aspect, which interferes with our self-esteem and, consequently, our self-esteem. When it comes to women, there is one thing that is taught to all of us from childhood: we need to be nice (in the sense of being submissive) and passive in any situation. We are taught to be disgusted with ourselves – from our bodies to aspects of our personality. Many of us spend years without knowing each other, not knowing our own bodies. How many times do we not hear from people around us that we should behave in such a way. They institute norms that define what we should talk about, how to talk, our personal tastes and even how we dress. It represses us. Who hasn't heard, "This is not for girls/women"? Well, we are labeled all the time. If we talk about sex and then about more serious subjects, people are already confused, because they have a fragmented view of the human being. This also goes for when we talk about serious matters and then talk about sex. They age 11 and 12 year old girls and hope that 50 or 60 year old women do not age, but remain young and beautiful. This falls back on child hypersexualization, which does not fit the theme of this article. Aging is natural in life; there is no way to avoid it, because it is one of the great certainties in life. It's not worth fighting time and aging. This is not healthy for the physical or the psychological.
And the men? Since childhood, they are taught not to express feelings, encouraged to be more brutal, to accumulate lovers and to start their sexual lives early and forcibly. Again, the hypersexualization of children… You men have certainly heard the famous phrase: “Become a man!”.
We are influenced by these meaningless rules of society. In an attempt to conform to these norms, we are being undermined until we fall into causal amnesia, which is when we move away from who we are.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to get rid of this vicious cycle and these limiting beliefs, because the media works with people's dissatisfaction, both with their physical appearance and with their own personality. People around us pass it all on from generation to generation, so it spreads like a virus. We are induced to “run a marathon” so that we can achieve perfection. We compete with each other to be closer to this standard at a level where everyone is equal or better than everyone else. This is completely utopian! We are not the same. Each one has its particularity and it is the differences that make the human race so beautiful! It would be pretty boring if we were all 100% equal. No one is better or worse than anyone else, even if you are a good-natured person. Deconstructed from this pattern, do not fall into this illusion.
Okay, I've shown you how this cycle that undermines our self-love works, but I haven't talked about HOW to get out of this cycle yet. Yes, there is a way, but it's not a magic formula that works like instant noodles, which is ready in three minutes.
If you really want to change, you will need to have the courage to do so. So here we go:
How to get out of this cycle?
When you take a moment to breathe, analyze yourself internally, without masks or judgments, and find the person you are, reflecting on yourself, your reactions in various situations and what made you who you are, it is possible List your qualities and try to improve them. It is also possible to list your flaws and the ways to work with each one, without trying to be perfect, because nobody is perfect. This relentless pursuit of the pressure for perfection that we never achieve only destroys us. This attachment to this idea is also unhealthy.
I do not say that this journey is simple. Give yourself time to work on that self-love part, even if it takes years; after all, everyone has their time on this self-love journey. And it takes time, it's something procedural, that needs to be worked on today, tomorrow and after. I heard someone once say that if you've been building a mud castle all your life, you can't expect to be able to build a diamond castle in a day. That is, if you have lived within this cycle all your life, it will not be in one day that you will be able to let go of it. It takes patience and constancy, because at some point these limiting beliefs come back and we need to deal with them, cancel, keep away from them, canceling them or replacing them with a belief that opens the way.
Don't give up on who you are. You are important. Your life is important. The fact that you are living is a gift you should be thankful for. How many people can't say the same? And I don't mean this in the sense of feeling superior, but of being grateful for the simple act of living and breathing. When we are grateful for the things in our lives, the universe understands that because we are in this vibration, it sends us more reasons to be grateful.
If you are looking for more about spirituality, personal development and found the content of this site amazing, this is another reason to thank you, isn't it? I wish you good luck on your self-love journey.
Thank you for reading this article. Lots of light, love and peace in your life!
