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WHAT IS SELF-LOVE
Self-love is our innate ability to appreciate ourselves, accepting who we are authentically and making life choices that are nurturing to our inner growth.
As natural as this sounds, most of us are either unfamiliar with self-love or are struggling in practising it.
This missing link is often cause by a lack of emotional affection during our most nurturing stage as a young child. Subsequent heart-breaking events in life, that create shame and guilt, can also erode our ability to love ourselves.
When we stop loving ourselves, we start to spiral into a series of low self-esteem, self-doubt and even self-abusive behaviour.
LOW SELF-ESTEEM
Having low self-esteem is having little appreciation or acknowledgment of your own existential value and worthiness. Due to this self-perception, you may tend to see yourself as not good enough to deserve the better things in life.
Low self-esteem may not necessarily lead us into failure, but it certainly hinders our growth and success, resulting in a highly demoralising life.
Usually, we may find ourselves being afraid in speaking our mind or being in the limelight. We may end up isolating ourselves, staying in the comfort zone to play safe, avoiding judgment or possible humiliation.
This way of life may work as temporary shelter from getting hurt but in a world where human interactions is inevitable, the emotional pain of having low self-esteem will eventually create further emotional issues in life.
SELF-DOUBT
Self-doubt stems a lot from distrusting one's ability to make good judgement or choice. As a result, this often leads to the painful emotional pattern of indecisiveness - wavering between choices, stressed from over-analysing, feeling great anxiety when making decisions and overwhelmed with worries after a decision is made.
The lack of self-trust can be a result of long-term oppression when growing up, given little chance to decide for oneself. Or it can be also due to certain bad experiences such as falling from the wrong guy, a failed marriage, being betrayed, getting fired at a job which resulted in self-blaming for making poor choices and being undeserving.
Love and hope are built upon trust.
Not just inter-human trust but more importantly, trusting your own universe, your life, yourself. If this fundamental sense of inner being is lost, it will lead to subsequent life situations where you will feel vulnerable.
SELF-NEGATIVITY
Self-negativity includes, having constant negative self-talk, self-criticism and allowing oneself to be abused emotionally or physically.
There is an inner child living in all of us. This inner child seeks unconditional love and constant nurturing, no matter how old we have grown. If we have disliked how our parents had treated us with little respect, affection and love, it is the same as how our inner child will feel sad and hurt through our self-abuse.
When such self-negativity becomes continuous, it may turn into inevitable emotional stress or chronic depression.
LIFE IMPACTS FROM LACK OF SELF-LOVE
The ongoing internal struggles of feeling lowly of oneself is a painful dilemma. On one hand, we refused to accept ourselves, and on the other hand we are hurt that people are not accepting us.
When we lack self-love, we often find ourselves entrapped in continuous life experiences of being unappreciated, bullied, dis-respected and perhaps even abused.
We also suffer from uncontrollable emotions of envy, resentment and bitterness when we see someone getting what we have wanted for ourselves. This is very common emotional pain when it comes to the workplace where another colleague, you feel undeserving, is being promoted. Or in love life, where you see your girlfriend marrying her prince charming, while you are stuck in singlehood.
All these sufferings are unnecessary and can be eliminated when we recognise our underlying self-love issues.
RESTORE YOUR SELF-LOVE, RECLAIM YOUR SELF-WORTH
To work on self-love issues, we need to first heal the wounds that first created the gap. This could be childhood experiences, abandonment by someone you loved or continuous failures.
You have to understand that all these painful experiences are meant to serve as valuable life lessons, not eternal punishments. Hence, you can be fully liberated as soon as you heal these memories and release the old belief systems wired into your mind.
When you restore self-love and reclaim your self-worthiness, you will witness your ability to create the happiness that you seek.
If you are unsure whether you are dealing with self-love issues, here are some signs you can check-in on yourself:
When you look into the mirror, the first thing you do is frown at something imperfect about your face, your hair, your body
You always prioritise other people's needs before your own because you feel bad and selfish for doing otherwise
Even when you know you are being emotionally manipulated or taken advantage, you still feel confused and allow the treatment to continue
You always blame yourself for everything
You are fearful to speak your mind and question the truth, despite it is something very important to you
You do not mind being hurt and abused
In a way, you enjoy being sad and sorrowful. You spend most of the time alone, in self-pity
You are unmotivated about any activities that is related to health and wellness because you do not consider them important
You are always over-working yourself, refusing to take a break
You craved to be loved and wanted, so you cling on tightly to everything and everyone that come your way, even if it hurts
The lack of self-love can disguise and manifest itself in many forms in our regular lives, above are just some examples.
If you notice or agree that you are struggling with self-love issues, do not let this state of mind spiral further. Get healed now and enjoy the happier life that all of us are entitled to live in.
EMOTIONAL HEALING THERAPY
Silvia Siow
Emotional Healer & Coach
shan@shan-living.com
If you are seeking positive change and ready to release your emotions, I welcome you to experience the unique power of Emotional Healing Therapy.
The therapy engages holistic and intuitive mind-body techniques to help you reveal and resolve the real underlying causes of your emotional issues and life challenges.
If you are unfamiliar with this school of healing modality, feel free to book a non-obligatory call to find out if my healing and coaching approach suit your needs.
Otherwise, do continue to check out more information in this website that may help you gain more understanding about emotional healing.