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How to learn self-love ... and make it last.
By Pernilla Lillarose — Written on Jun 22, 2017
Feeling bad about yourself doesn’t do you any good, nor does it change what it is that you feel bad about. In fact, it does the opposite: It tightens the grip around the very thing you feel bad about, and keeps you stuck.
When you enter the ‘feel bad about yourself’ cycle, it can only go downhill.
The further down you go, the faster the speed and the harder it is to make a turnaround, or as I like to all it, "making a U-ey".
I would like to invite you to enter a new cycle called ‘how to love yourself’, which can only go upwards.
But how? How can you suddenly make a U-ey when you don’t even know you are going full throttle in the wrong direction? How would you know how to practice self-love, or even know what self-love means or looks like if all you know is how to feel bad about yourself?
I mean, if you could have known how to love yourself, I am sure you would have, right?
So you want to know how to love yourself?
I know for sure that most of us cannot just turn such a strong momentum around without some powerful and essential preparatory steps.
If you feel open to learning how to practice self-love, you need to first become aware that you are doing this.
If you are judging, doubting, shaming, even hating yourself, you are probably not fully aware that you are doing it.
When you take this first step and consciously realize that you are doing it, you will also become aware how you are doing it, when you are doing it, and why you are doing it.
Let’s cover the ‘it’ for now.
Are you feeling bad about yourself?
Most of us would admit a ‘yes’ and this is a good start, but we need to go a little deeper.
Let’s make the "it" more conscious.
Pause for a moment, listen to your body and notice:
Why do you answer “yes” to feeling bad about yourself? Who inside of you is saying “yes?”
What information do you have about yourself that makes you say “yes?”
Where does this “yes” live in you? What does it know?
What is it about you that makes you feel bad about yourself?
Is it your looks? Your age? Your teeth? Your insecurity? Jealousy? Feelings of inadequacy? Your anxiety? Feeling less than others? Your lack of being successful, rich, pretty, intelligent?
Oh, the list is endless!
What is your pet peeve about yourself?
I really want you to fully acknowledge that you are doing this ‘feeling bad about yourself’ in a very conscious way. When you use these questions above to get a reality check with yourself, you will be able to get the "Aha!" moment that I’m going to describe below. That’s when you’ll be able to stop.
Feeling bad about yourself is an unconscious habit.
I’ve been a strong self-love advocate for many years, because I grew up doing the exact opposite. Probably like you.
Unconsciously, I was feeling bad about myself most of my life.
I didn’t really think about it. That’s just how it was. I hated myself, felt embarrassed about myself, didn’t like myself and simply felt bad about being me!
It felt horrible, but I didn’t know there was another option. I had resigned to this feeling. I had bought into the belief that this was the truth about me. It had become an unconscious pattern.
As I’m writing this, I feel an immense compassion descending over me. How could I be so hard on myself?
Well, those days are long over now. I know they will be for you, too.
You don’t need to feel bad about yourself forever.
You can turn the tide, as I did. You just need to know how.
When you unconsciously carry such low esteem about yourself, you cannot even imagine it can be otherwise.
I remember that clearly but I know better now and, I promise, you don’t need to live like that for the rest of your life. It’s actually not so hard to make these behaviors conscious.
It’s just a matter of being willing to admit to yourself what you are doing in a conscious way. Once you do, I have a very special remedy called "self-love" that will take care of the rest by applying it daily.
How I learned to love myself:
After too many years of feeling bad about myself, one day I had some kind of a wake-up call. My self-criticizing, self-doubting, beating-myself-up behavior was suddenly staring me in the face. Whoa!
I suddenly Felt what I was doing! I Felt the impact of my own harshness. I became aware of how I treated myself. Trust me, it didn’t feel good, and it wasn’t just an, “Oh, yes, I know I do that.” No, I felt it and it hurt! It hurt bad and I wailed.
If it weren't for this wake-up call, where I finally felt the impact of that self-loathing, I might still be doing it today: Unhappily minding my own business, unconsciously feeling bad about myself.
I’m the first one to admit that it doesn’t feel great to realize and feel such unkind behavior towards yourself. But it’s completely worth it.
Becoming deeply aware and feeling how you treat yourself is what it takes! It’s not a mental thing. It’s a deeply FELT thing.
How would you feel about bravely touching in on the hardness around these painful feelings and bring some curiosity and kindness to them?
What would it take for you to take that step and be open to yourself in a softer way? A kinder way? A curious way? An empowered way?
Full throttle, out of control:
When you feel ready and able and willing to admit to yourself how you are treating yourself and how bad you feel about yourself, you will be able to change your life forever. Oh, yes, for the better, that is. It will give you the power to stop this unconscious momentum, and take your foot off the ‘full throttle.’
It’s like an out-of-control freight train going in the wrong direction. You need to fully realize that you are going too fast and in the wrong direction, before you can do something about it.
Before my wake-up call, I didn’t know how fast I was going or in which direction.
In the case of the freight train, it needs to take the foot off the gas/steam pedal, step on the brakes, and slow down. Then it can begin to stop. Slowly, little by little, until finally it completes its stop. Finally! Now it has a new perspective because it’s not going so fast. When we are able to stop like that is when we can notice what else is possible.
Then, we can turn around and go in a new direction.
How to stop feeling bad about yourself, step-by-step:
Your awareness of what you are doing will make you take your foot off the pedal and start slowing down. This slower speed invites more awareness.
Here’s the sequence to how it happens:
- Awareness
- Slowing down
- More awareness, more access to feelings
- Take foot off the pedal
- Put foot on the brakes
- Make a full stop
- Realize what direction you want to go
- Turn into a new direction that feels good
My real life sequence:
After my wake-up call, I had a new awareness, and frankly was a little shocked at what I realized. Holy Cow!
This slowed me down and made me even more aware of my self-loathing freight train. Now I Felt it. Deeply. It hurt like hell to treat myself that way.
I made a conscious choice: Every time I caught myself going down the familiar spiral again, simply out of habit, I would stop. I would say “No!”
I had what it takes to stop: awareness.
When I would catch myself putting my foot back on the gas pedal, I just took it off right away, before one more unkind thought about myself would get through. I would put my foot on the brakes instead, saying, “No more!”
Eventually, I came to a full stop. No longer out-of-control, I could take my time to learn what I wanted instead. What direction do I really want to go? Oh, that felt so loving!
I started turning around. I started building a new track to travel on.
This track is completely opposite of what I was used to. Here I take my time; I choose to love who I am no matter what; I feel empowered and I have totally dismantled the tracks that lead to … eh, what was that again? It’s just a faint memory now; something I never dwell on anymore.
Feeling bad about yourself goes beyond skin-deep.
OK, I know it takes more than just reading this sequence.
Feeling bad about yourself goes much deeper than skin deep. It has penetrated your cells and bones and unconsciously runs a barely-audible recording all day long, 24/7.
Because of the depth of this ‘feeling-bad-about-yourself’ pattern, you can’t just take it off like you would an old t-shirt you don’t like anymore.
These feelings of shaming, judging, criticizing and loathing yourself are more like a skin with deep tendrils, penetrating every cell of your body.
Don’t worry! There is hope. The hardest part is already over. True self-love can take it from here, and dissolve these tendrils with daily applications.
Let’s celebrate you:
You are aware now
You are conscious of what you are doing and can engage your divine power to choose.
You can now choose to take your foot off the pedal and put it on the brakes.
Soon, when you have slowed down enough, you’ll get curious about what you want to do now and take the time to listen to yourself and find a new direction that feels good!
You never need to choose to go back to feeling bad about yourself — ever
When you follow these steps, you are able to stop an out-of-control freight train. Pretty powerful, isn’t it?
When you feel ready, you can step into the next phase of your life where you’ll learn to choose how to listen to what matters to you, honor what you hear, and act on what feels good.
I told you: You don’t need to feel bad about yourself forever.
Pernilla Lillarose is a Self-Love Mystic & Mentor at Divine Feminine Flow. Feel free to contact her for a free 30 min. Discovery Session to learn if her Self Love Mentoring can help you experience more Love, Peace and Joy in your life and how true Self Love can turn your whole life around. Also, download Pernilla's book, 5 Steps To Dive Into The Divine Feminine Flow which will help with the next phase of self-love.
