Why is it so difficult to love ourselves?

I speak with countless women who struggle with the most basic of tasks:

Self love.

Now, to some of my people, self-love sounds like masturbation…but let’s suspend that for a moment and consider it for what it really is: having love for you. 

So why is it that we find it so difficult to love ourselves?

We can love our children, our pets, our friends, our partners. We have no problems having immense compassion for people suffering around the world. But when it comes to our own needs, we fall very flat.

We don’t move our bodies, we eat shit food, we don’t take time to meditate or center ourselves. We are hesitant to spend money on things we know are going to help us. But we’d have no problem doing it for someone else.

Why is this?

The path to self-love means you have to sit in both the good and bad sides of yourself. You have to open up and be vulnerable. You need to listen to those nasty voices in your head and then take action in a way that is so completely opposite to what you’ve been doing or been programmed to do (by witnessing your mom put herself last for example).

Looking at the deeper crevices of your mind, body and soul is scary. Maybe you look and find out you hate your partner or your job but that’s way too scary to look at because this means you have to look at leaving them, finding something new, taking financial risks. All of that is scary and so it’s way easier to complain or live in the misery because at least it’s safe.

I can tell you from first-hand experience that looking into these deeper corners of my soul and mind have been amazingly freeing. While at first they are terrifying to look at, and having to admit you’ve fucked up somehow is never an easy pill to swallow, but once you work through the guilt and shame and really look at the benefit of what you got out of the situation, and then start to make strides in the direction you want – it’s so freeing, beautiful and healthy.

When you start living closer to your truth, being vulnerable and honest, opening up about how you truly feel about something, putting yourself first for a change, your world opens up so beautifully that you wonder why you didn’t do this before.

Understand that we are literally wired and programmed to scope out fear. We have brain centers, called the amygdala that scopes out fear. This is such a primal instinct and what kept the human race from perishing. If we didn’t have this instinct, we would have died out at the first sign of a saber tooth tiger.

But the problem is that we no longer really need this instinct to be so strong. Yes, we need to know when a dark alley shouldn’t be walked down, we need to trust our gut when someone seems suspicious. But the fear takes over in such situations that can actually HELP us. Like when making sales calls (if we do this we make money, which in turn helps us support our family, which in turn helps make the world’s economy go around…), or when asking that guy or girl out on a date (if we do this we may indeed find love!). Or when trying to lose weight or be healthier, the fear, the doubt, the worry creep in – especially if you’re still using a stupid scale to weigh yourself every day (throw that damn thing out) – how does feeling healthier benefit you? In countless ways – confidence, better sleep, better moods, the ability to do things you never thought possible like join sports teams or take risks in your business or work.

The path to enlightenment is what we are all seeking, and it’s my belief we are seeking to rid ourselves of this fear instinct that is so strong and drives us. We subconsciously, and consciously, know that it’s stupid to be in fear, we hate being in fear. We WANT to love ourselves, be happier, fitter, healthier, richer – but that damn voice knocks us out every time.,

Maybe in another thousand years, with all of us re-programming our brains, our new DNA will have less of this fear and more enlightenment. That will be ideal. In the meantime, we need to be diligent.

Self-love is the path to this enlightenment. And it’s so easy to get there. All you need to do is reconnect. The easiest ways to reconnect is to literally do something YOU love. And when the resistance pops up about how you shouldn’t do that because someone else will suffer….think about the benefits to your loved ones if you were happier. Take a good look at your situation right now. Are your kids, spouse, friends happy when they’re with you, or are they worried about you, saddened by you, fearful of you because you’re so angry inside? How much different do you think your relationships would be if you took time for yourself to feel happier somehow. If you were less angry, or less sad? They would be happy for you – and isn’t that what you ultimately want anyway? Is for everyone else to be happy? Well my darling, that starts with you.

What are you going to do today to take one small step towards self-love? Comment below.