If you hate yourself, than it’s highly unlikely you’re going to love your body. If you hate your body, than likely you hate yourself. You can’t extricate one part of your being without it affecting all parts of you.
When you look in the mirror in the morning and tell yourself how fat you are, or how horrible or how old you look, whether verbally or in your silent negative self chatter, you are denying your very existence. Nothing can be crueller than shaming yourself into feeling less than and insignificant.
In order to start to love yourself, you need to respect and honor yourself as you would the person you love the most in the world. Would you speak this way to your child, your best friend, or your partner? Hopefully, your answer is “Hell, no!” If that’s the case, then you need to start to shift how you speak to yourself.
Start to increase your self-awareness about the critical and judgmental words you use to describe yourself. Write them down! Don’t keep them in your head, as you need to start to challenge your thoughts. Writing them down helps you to more clearly see your distorted thinking. Write the negative thought on one side of the page, and then on the other side, write all the ways that disprove that thought. For example, “I am stupid” to “I graduated high school,” “I went to college,” “I have a successful career,” etc.
When you catch yourself saying something judgmental, immediately say “Cancel, Clear, Delete.” What you put out to the world is what you receive. You are intentionally telling the Universe that you suck and it’s going to bring you more instances that confirm your bias. Next, replace the words with more truthful, kind, and gentle words. For example, if you tell yourself you are ugly, first, say out loud “Cancel, Clear, Delete” to that thought. Than speak out loud a statement that is more accurate. For example, “I am attractive” or “I am lovely.”
You’ll likely not believe the statement. In order to confirm whether or not the statement is being integrated into your body, close your eyes and say the new positive statement out loud. Notice the sensations in your body; if you feel nothing, you may be checking out or numb to the new positive belief. If you feel any tension, uncomfortableness, or heaviness, it can go into your energy body, but you are still unable to integrate it as truth. If this is the case, then state: “I am learning to recognize my beauty” or “I am working on seeing my beauty.” The body will feel more at ease with accepting either of these two statements until you fully believe it.
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels
The second part of loving yourself is setting boundaries. When you set boundaries with other people you are telling them you are to be treated with respect and that your thoughts, opinions, choices, and decisions matter; that you have value, worth, agency, and free will. No one, and I mean no one, gets to step over your boundaries. Boundaries need to be established in the following six areas: mental, emotional, physical, material, sexual, and spiritual. Learn more about setting and maintaining boundaries in my book Embodied.
Self-love is about speaking kindly to yourself, not letting others treat you disrespectfully or manipulatively, and treating yourself with respect by establishing boundaries and taking care of yourself and your needs first. Do not sacrifice your well-being to please others!
Find out more about negative thoughts/limiting beliefs, boundaries, loving yourself, and connecting with your body in the multi-award-winning book Embodied: How to Connect to Your Body, Ignite Your Intuition, and Harness Universal Energy for Healing.
If you are looking for more help clearing your limiting beliefs, please contact me to set up a free 15-min phone consultation to discuss how I can support you.
With Blessings,
Vicky xo
P.S. Check out tomorrow’s post on How to Love Your Body!