Self Love

Self love.

Two words I feel like can be found everywhere. I either see them written down or hear them being spoken about and myself included because I, also, write, talk and think about self love quite frequently. 

While growing up I have learned self acceptance, self worth and self love is the foundation I want to build on. It definitely doesn’t mean it is always easy or that I am always living my day to day life out of a place of self love or that my self built foundation is always as strong, vivid and profound as I would love for it to be. But, it is always in the back of my mind. It always has the strength to pull me back in. It always reminds me I deserve my own love in great abundance. It tells me to be gentle, soft and kind towards myself with each stroke, each touch, each thought, each feeling and each word I tell myself.

These past few months I have realized something. It is so much easier to fully accept myself, to have self worth and to feel loving towards myself when I am living a life I feel I can be proud of. So when all that disappeared and when I didn’t know what I was doing or feeling any longer, when the things I did that made me feel like myself disappeared (the things I felt I could be proud of), I felt I was left empty handed.

 What was there to love? What was there to feel worthy about? How could I fully accept myself in my purest form of being when all I felt proud of and everything that somehow allowed me to love myself was no longer there?

All gone. Empty handed. It was like I found myself in the driest desert and even the dry sand I was trying to hold onto desperately was running through my fingers unapologetically.

Well, maybe that’s where the healing starts.

Who am I without anything external defining me? These past couple of months haven’t been the easiest. So much pain, confusion, anger and unspoken words were just spilling and spilling out. Tears spilling over, drowning my heart. My internal eyes felt so hazy. My internal view felt extremely fogged up.

Step by step, day by day I am seeing more clearly how feeling so internally disoriented was exactly what I needed. I have realized when I, at times, still feel like this I can directly draw a parallel to not trusting myself and the Universe.

When there no longer were external duties and when I had endless amounts of time I had two options. 1. Bury myself with distractions or 2. Sit down with myself and do the work that needs to be done. Option one was comforting for a while until I realized ‘I am digging a deeper hole for myself to climb out of’. I knew I had to face option two at one point. Still there were and are days where option one sounds like the perfect plan. So that’s where I am finding myself, most days trying my best at option number two but trying not to be too hard on myself on the days where I choose option number one instead.

 At the moment there are two things that stand out, first: I had to recreate, rebuild and rediscover my inner foundation of pure self love. I visualize it, I talk to her, I ask the Universe for guidance, I ask for assistance from sacred plants, flowers and herbs. Especially through meditation I found my inner sacred space I can turn to.  To calm myself, to nurture myself. A sacred space where only pure love exists. Which exists within me, which connects me to the Universe and yes, as I am her she is me. So to continue with the second thing that is really helping me is to talk honestly. I have to speak my own truth. Talk into the voids that hurt. Talk about what is. Talk to the people I need to talk to. By doing all that I feel like I am consciously working on relationships and you know, they always need tending. Relationships to me are two people co-creating some kind of magic into existence.

I have re–found and rebuild my inner space where my self love blooms. Where my self love thrives. 

It is still a process to not be too hard on myself, to allow myself to fully follow my own pace. One thing I learned these past couple of months is that Spring and Summer are not eternal and they also ought not to be. Going slow, taking my time, learning the purest form of self love by just being is how I am building my foundation. This is what truly helps me: to sit still and in silence, to meditate, to drink my tea with my full attention and by moving my body. And, to start paving a new path built on pure intuition and trust. Let me say this, if you ask me, that requires the highest form of self love.