Let’s talk about falling in love - not just with anyone but the person who we fall in love with last. If we ever do at all.
I'm talking about you… falling in love with yourself.
Some time ago I came to the realisation that for a very long time I wasn’t in love with myself – and since that time I’ve been able to create a sense of appreciation around that realisation and move through it into a state of really being in love with myself.
I'll also share with you a beautiful way to fall in love with yourself more and more every day.
It's really quite amazing how much judgement we hold about ourselves and how we've learned to be so critical of our own beingness. This may have come from a lack of not being told that you were loved, or whether it's from being put down about your personal achievements when you did things as a child. We've been accumulating this programming for a long, long time.
Accomplishment, and sharing and shining about accomplishments yourself, your own personal achievements, was ‘bragging’, and we might have been told not to be so full of ourselves. Perhaps it was ‘Well, you've done that. What about this next thing?’ And it was never quite enough.
I remember when I went back to university to do my Master’s degree, after the first semester I was really excited and nervous to get my results. I was sitting at home, got the letter in the post, and I opened it up and … I had a Distinction on both of the modules that I'd done in the first semester!
I was absolutely chuffed with having completed my undergraduate degree, while experiencing some really challenging health issues. I was so adamant to put my all into my studies for my Master’s degree, so I could achieve the highest grade.
However, my dad's first response was ‘Well, when are you going to get married?’
This was so conflicting for me. I'd just had this amazing news of my accomplishment - proving to myself that I could do better in university – but the first thing I hear from my dad is ‘When are you going to get married?’ It felt like, ‘Er, so what, you've got your degree. It's not enough until you are married.’
I know now having done lots of healing and release processes for myself, that my dad's intentions were entirely loving. One of his goals as a father is to make sure that his daughter is looked after and part of that comes with being married.
And that's okay.
But in the moment it was absolutely a feeling of not being good enough and continuing to reinforce feelings of not being good enough that I was already holding within myself.
It continues to amaze me when I hear the criticisms people make about themselves.
I'm amazed because these women who are sharing these criticisms with me are absolutely beautiful. I can feel it in their heart and their inner glow is so illuminating, but their conscious words are not very kind and loving of themselves.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have been, and often still am, my own harshest critic. Hand on heart I can say that it is nowhere near what it used to be. I am nowhere near as judgemental of myself in hateful ways. My criticisms are much more based on my ability to be even greater and achieve higher goals than I am at the moment.
For example, I was doing a cleanse and detox over a couple of weeks and it led to my body shape and weight changing a little bit.
I've had situations like this in the past where I've been through detoxes and my self-talk isn't about the ugliness, or the ‘lack of’ that I have in my body. It rather comes with the knowing that my body is becoming even more whole and alive and strong at the cellular level. And when I'm ready, I can start to exercise again more regularly and my body will be the shape it needs to be for me to be able to do all the things that I love to do.
I stroke my body every single day. I put oil on it and I'm so present with my body. It's strong. It's healthy. I love it. And it loves me.
I have done a lot of work on myself over several years: releasing attachments to past relationships that I felt I still had, any hurts that I had, really moving through into a space of peace, non-attachment and having appreciation for all of those individuals that have been in my past, whether it was for a short time or a long time.
Finding myself in a place where I have no attachments or desire to be with anybody from my past, has come from falling in love with everything that I am, who I am and learning to appreciate my own worth, to feel worthy of my own love and the love of others.
(I’m not going to lie, it’s all a work in progress, life still happens and new experiences are opportunities for more growth. This whole system that I call me is a Love in Progress.)
I’ve lived most of my life, 35, 36, 37 years of my life not feeling worthy of love, not loving myself. That brings a deep sense of sadness for everything that I used to be, for the child that I was, for the adult that I was.
The sadness was very much attached to having not been able to do this for myself much, much sooner. I had been this little child who didn't feel like she deserved to be loved. That I was this adult who had been on many dates, been around many people – whether relationships or friends – but had not felt worthy of love. It had taken me so long to fall in love with myself, to truly appreciate and know that I am deserving of and worthy of receiving love and giving it to myself.
With this sadness came a deep sense of appreciation that I can look back on my life and really love everything that I have been and how it has helped me to become the person I am now. A deep sense of appreciation that I do love myself now, and that I fall in love with myself more and more.
The sense of appreciation that I can look deeply into my own eyes in the mirror and tell myself without blinking, without a flinch, that I love me. That I truly, deeply love me.
Falling in love with yourself is not a journey that ends once you've done it by any means. Constant expansion and learning about yourself gives you more opportunities to fall in love with you in the same way that you would your partner.
I am grateful that I am able to move into appreciation for everyone and where they're at in terms of their own journey and the self-talk that they're doing, and be grateful that I've been able to help people to do this now for themselves as well.
Today's tip is going to allow you to create more loving language around yourself. You're going to do this as if you were talking to yourself, but in the voice of someone else - perhaps your partner or your best friend or a parent.
Imagine that you've just woken up and you've gone to the bathroom. You're brushing your teeth and you're sorting your hair out. Replay every thought that you have about yourself as if it was your best friend, your partner, your parent saying it to you. Replay it with the same amount of love, care, affection that they would say it to you, replacing the ‘you’ word with ‘I’.
So if your partner, your best friend, your parent says to you, ‘You look wonderful this morning’, you will say to yourself ‘I look wonderful this morning’ and really feel into the love and affection of the words as if they were coming from the other person but feel into them for yourself.
This can take a little bit of practise and that's completely okay. Get super comfortable with saying these things to yourself and about yourself.
When we start to reprogram the negative self-talk, we start to come back into this balance of self-love and that’s our natural state. You totally deserve to feel it, always. Why not feel it now instead of never?
Wouldn't it be an absolute shame if the last person to fall in love with you was you.
Sending you love, hugs and magic.
Bhavna xxx
Ready to reclaim your self-confidence and embrace a positive body image? Start your journey to self-love today - schedule a call now.
