Next Level Self-Love
We’ve been taught self-love is immodest, vain, and full of conceit. This false narrative passed down through generations is a myth that needs some serious busting!
Loving yourself is not egotistical. Believing beyond the shadow of a doubt you are good and worthy of love is the most unselfish, altruistic posture you can take. It’s your gift to the universe, delivered with a ginormous, gold sparkly bow.
When you learn how to love yourself abundantly, you will trust yourself to step into uncomfortable emotions as well as difficult conversations and become an agent of connection rather than disconnection.
How do we reach this uninhibited, overwhelming state of self-love? And after we reach it, how do we maintain it?
Say hello to Next Level Self-Love: You no longer need the affirmations or the pats on the back, the reassurance that you are a good person, or the constant validation that you are enough. Sure, we need affirmations when feeling down, unsteady, or just because we want to affirm our goodness. I know I need them, but I do not rely on them because I know deep in my heart I am love; therefore, I am good. This is the ultimate emotional freedom; my desperate attempts to gain love diminish when I am secure in knowing I am love.
I don’t need something so badly when I already possess it.
One sunny, August afternoon during my weekly therapy appointment on FaceTime due to COVID quarantine, I told my therapist that I could feel I was about to step into a somewhat foreign state of liberation. I told her I no longer needed to find my worth based on others’ opinions of me; I no longer needed a place above or below you, or even above or below my own perception of myself. This led to a conversation about “I am” statements which were once valuable in my self-care regimen, but now placed in the backseat.
A friend gave me a deck of “I Am” cards years back. Each beautifully designed card has a phrase on it beginning with “I am…,” followed by an inspirational affirmation. My friend and I met six months before Jeremy died and she saw me through some of my deepest grief. I needed those cards and she knew it. A few years later, those cards became less necessary.
My therapist and I got into it…
We talked about the scripture “I am who I am,” which is believed to be what God told Moses to tell the Israelites. It means you are who you are, born of Pure Light. You are made of spirit, of love, everlastingly. This knowledge is a great step toward personal liberation, but how do we go from knowing we’re love to being love? We must become it.
When you become love, in alignment with your genuine spirit, you are not working so hard to be it. You need not convince yourself or anyone else of your goodness because you just are it, much like you are born in July, or have brown eyes, or two kids and a dog.
You just are, nothing more, nothing less; you are the stardust of the universe, the energy of love. Secure in this knowing turned into belief, you are enough.
When you reach a state of being where you do not need to continue telling yourself you are enough, you will be enough. No longer white-knuckling self-worth, waking each day starting at zero, grasping for good feelings about yourself, affirmations move from someplace outside of you to inside. You become them. Your self-worth goes from self-consciously reaffirming to secure trusting. Entering into a loving, accepting, empathetic relationship with self, you also enter into oneness with those around you.
At this point, universal love moves from somewhere out there to a place deep within. The “am” part of you is one with the universe. “I am who I am” becomes we are who we are, and you are safe in this eternal connection of love and trust.
