Self-love is not an additional activity or object to make us feel better, to cover up the truth of what is going on in our lives and how we are treating ourselves and others. It is a natural feeling that comes from our sense of self.
This natural feeling can be distorted and covered up by trauma, outside influences, learned behaviors, and thought patterns, taught to us by parents and society.
This distortion can be resolved through meditation, by allowing you to get in contact with that natural feeling without the outside influences and negative thought processes.
This blog dives into what is self-love, how it can be affected, and how guided meditation can help undo the harm we have learned that has distorted our natural self-love.
What is self-love?
Self-Love is taking care of and responding to yourself naturally. It’s about all things, little and big, throughout your life.
- Resting when you need to rest.
- Expressing yourself in a conversation, or standing up for yourself on a larger scale.
- Choosing to eat a healthy meal rather than an unhealthy one, whether it’s a one-off or on a daily basis.
- Getting out into nature daily for exercise and mental health.
- Allowing yourself to maintain health for yourself. Being sensitive to yourself and those around you and responding through that sensitivity.
- Physical health is fundamentally linked to self-love. Ensuring your body is nourished and active reinforces positive feelings and a sense of accomplishment.
- Keeping up daily meditation to be at your optimum each day and to process what has happened in life so far. Meditating on a daily basis also allows us to delve deeper each day into ourselves to gain a deeper understanding, and heal any protective barriers and behaviours preventing us from living a fulfilling life from the sense of ourselves.
The differences between self-worth and self-love
Self-worth is recognising and expressing what are the core values and thoughts about ourselves. Self-love is embracing all of us, and constantly developing, challenging, and supporting ourselves.
In order to possess a great sense of self-worth, we must also possess a great sense of self-understanding and confidence within ourselves. Recognising our true sense of self, without the ideas or influences imposed on us by others.
Self-worth is not achieved through constant endeavors and testing our worth. It’s not how we evaluate our own capabilities and performance. It’s how we feel about ourselves deep down.
Self-love is accepting, constantly self-correcting, naturally loving, and responding to yourself and others. It’s taking responsibility and responding to your feelings, your body, and you as a human being.
Having restrictions in your life means that you have some unclear fear that dwells within you. Being helpless will not solve any of your problems, it will only dig a deeper hole. When you recognise your fears, and start to understand them. You will start to realise that when you are not attached to them, they are not unresolvable, nor are they that big.
Self-love is being able to know if the fear is about something now that you need to take action on. Or if it is just a feeling from the past that you can just be with that feeling of fear, without the thinking taking you off into a story about it.
Why is self-love so challenging?
Self-love can be challenging for some people as we have been taught that putting ourselves first is considered selfish. That it is egotistical to consider yourself and that we should always put others first.
We’ve been influenced into behaviours of comparison and self-judgment. This keeps us disconnected from our sense of self and our natural self-love.
Comparison is a harmful behaviour that stops us from looking after ourselves. If we are constantly comparing ourselves to those around us, then we are disconnecting from ourselves into ideas about ourselves and the consideration of what others think or do.
For example, that person doesn’t need to rest as often, and seems to be able to work out more, why can’t I? This is truly overlooking the full picture of what is happening to the other person. We don’t know their situation or what’s happening to them.
None of it is relevant to us and is a distraction from how it feels in us. We need to respond to ourselves, what we’re going through, and what works best for us and simply resolve any distress this brings up for us. Another person’s behaviour or life is completely irrelevant to us.
Regular self-assessment allows us to understand our growth, challenges, and the areas we can improve in our journey to self-love.
Additionally, in the digital age, social media plays a significant role in influencing self-perception. It’s essential to be conscious of social media’s impact and ensure we don’t measure our self-worth by online standards or comparisons.
How trauma can affect self-love
Trauma is another way that distorts our natural self-love and self-worth. When we are traumatised, especially at a young age, that trauma distorts how it feels to be us, changing the physical sense of ourselves.
Until that trauma is resolved our sense of self is tainted by it, causing us to want to disconnect and get away from how it feels to be us. This is what causes us to dislike ourselves.
This effect and trauma can be resolved through meditation. The act of sitting physically still with that feeling we dislike, without judging it or trying to change or get away from it allows the body to heal that feeling naturally.
It’s not the feeling of yourself you’re disliking, it’s the judgment and reaction to that feeling that’s causing that dislike.
Using meditation to activate self-love
Meditating on a daily basis is the key for self-love and self-worth.
Starting your day with a dedicated morning routine that includes meditation can set a deep connection with yourself for the rest of the day, nurturing self-love from the moment you wake up.
You don’t need any fancy self-love scripts or meditation techniques, just sitting still with the physical sense of yourself in silence or with a guided meditation, will allow you to be with you and all that is going on right now.
Meditation allows you to sit physically still with your sense of self, letting all the negative thoughts, judgments and criticisms fade into the background. Without these thoughts, you’re able to experience how you’re really feeling. And that natural feeling, without the thoughts, is perfectly fine.
While meditation is a powerful way to find your true self, there are times when seeking professional help, like a meditation app, can be beneficial. It provides another avenue to address deeper issues and reconnect you with yourself, helping you go through the process of healing.
These thoughts that come from outside influences and behaviours are what stop our natural self-love. As those influences drop away during daily meditation, your sense of self is revealed and you’ll be able to respond to life and yourself from a natural self-love.
Guided meditations for self-love
If you have trouble sitting still or staying with your feelings without getting caught in the thoughts, Undo has many guided meditations that can help you.
Undo’s guided meditations are based on the natural meditation approach which was discovered by Undo’s author, Matthew Zoltan.
The guided meditations will allow you to take your meditation deeper and gain a deeper understanding of yourself in the process. They’ll enable you to resolve and heal the influences, ideas and even traumas that have distorted our natural sense of self and therefore our natural self-love.
Setting boundaries
Boundaries are an important factor in self-love.
Without boundaries we are a free for all with anyone and everyone.
Once you gain a deeper understanding of yourself through meditation, boundaries won’t be as necessary, as you’ll be naturally responding to every moment in life from your sense of self.
But for now, setting fundamental boundaries for yourself will help you understand what is right for you and when you’re putting others before yourself.
Boundaries can allow us to recognise our truth in each moment.
For example; if a co-worker is getting a little too close and making you feel uncomfortable. Listen to that feeling and set a boundary by speaking up. If you allow them to continue being too close and too personal is completely going against your sense of self and therefore your natural response of self-love.
By stopping them the very first time they do it, you’re acting out of your natural self-love.
Through daily meditations, this gets clearer. What’s important here is recognising the warning signs, and not worrying about being ‘too sensitive’ or ‘too egotistical’ or whatever thoughts stop you from listening to your natural sense of self-love.
By acting on the warning signs straight away, each time you’ll also learn which ones are ‘correct’ and which aren’t.
Accepting yourself
Self-acceptance is both a thought process as well as something we demonstrate through our actions.
The self-acceptance thought process involves being able to accept ourselves as we are now, without feeling like we have to change anything about ourselves at all.
It’s about understanding that we are the way we are and there is nothing wrong with that. Once we start to want to change the way we are, we’re disconnecting from the sense of ourselves.
Accepting ourselves is staying in touch with that sense of ourselves and living life from that. As a practice, self-acceptance is demonstrated through unconditional self-regard. Meaning we show ourselves kindness, compassion, and respect at all times.
This doesn’t mean we have to be overly positive towards ourselves, but just be understanding of what we’re going through or why we’re feeling the way we are. Respecting ourselves is respecting how we’re feeling in each situation and being sensitive and responsive to that.
It’s also valuable to acknowledge and appreciate small successes in our self-love journey. Recognise our progress, no matter how minor.
Tips on how to active your self-love
1 – Meditation daily
This can be you just sitting quietly on your own for a planned time period each day, or sitting quietly with Undo’s guided meditations.
2 – If you have a negative or self-depreciating thought don’t say it aloud
This will just confirm it. Stay with the feeling underneath the thought, and understand that it’s an outside influence, something someone told you, it’s not a natural thought coming from you. Therefore it’s not about you at all!
3 – Set boundaries
These can be physical and mental boundaries. Put these in place to make sure that you’re listening to your body and your natural sense of self when doing or responding to anything in life.
4 – Surround yourself with honest people
It’s important to create an environment that supports your self-love journey, whether that’s through cultivating a calm living space or engaging in groups that encourage you to delve deeper into your sense of self.
Surround yourself with people who understand you, and themselves and are open and willing to help you out and be helped out by you. If you are struggling with issues you don’t want to be around people who are harming you, or undermining you at every step as this will hold you back.
5 – Understand yourself
No matter what has happened in the past, dwelling on it and continuing to punish yourself today isn’t resolving the trauma for you. It’s making you and your life miserable now, and that punishment isn’t resolving the issue it’s just dragging out your reaction to it.
It’s easy to focus on what we want rather than what we have. Instead, we need to stay with the feeling that trauma or past painful situations have left within us and resolve that by simply feeling that.
Conclusion
Finding self-love is a combination of staying with the pure sense of yourself, your actions, and deep self-understanding. It’s about letting go of what others think and getting back to our true sense of worth. By making habits like meditation, especially with the help of Undo’s guided meditation for self-love, you can slowly uncover and recover the natural self-love that’s been hidden.
As we move forward in this process of self-acceptance, each tip from this article can be helpful. Whether you choose to use one or all of these suggestions, remember that learning to love yourself is ongoing, and every step you take makes you feel more and more genuine.
