A big part of healing isn’t just about exploring the dynamics we had with toxic people and how their actions left indelible marks on us. Those relationships became a breeding ground for self-resentment and show up in the little nuances that we don’t otherwise pay attention to.
The silent snide remarks we give ourselves when we have an awkward moment, the way we huff at ourselves when we make an easily fixable mistake, the way our jaw clenches when we don’t know how to do something as if we should have all of life figured out. It’s in the habits we’ve learned along the way, the stories we tell ourselves, and the way we only allow ourselves to love ourselves after we’ve proved we’re worthy of it.
We’re so quick to blame ourselves, name call ourselves, and treat ourselves like an entitled burden for wanting slightly better than mediocre. If we witness these traits in someone else, we’d call them red flags. When it comes to ourselves, we call it normal behavior.
Let’s rewrite a new story- a story where love isn’t conditional and kindness isn’t optional. A story where our relationship with ourselves is built on respecting our boundaries while gently pushing out of our comfort zone. Give the following tips a try to enter an era of falling in love with yourself and your life.
HOW DO YOU SHOW UP FOR YOURSELF?
Showing up for yourself is so much more than having a morning routine and healthy habits. It’s how you treat yourself when times are trying, how reliable you are to yourself when you want to give up, and how you get back up when an old toxic pattern sneaks its way back in.
- Do you treat yourself as an inconvenience or an adventure you get to explore?
- Do you show up with curiosity or resentment?
- Are you proud of yourself when you finally break a self-sabotaging habit or do you treat yourself like you’re weak for even having a bad habit?
- When you’re tired, do you berate yourself for not being on point or do you honor the times you need rest?
- How do you treat yourself in moments of doubt and frustration?
- How do you speak to yourself when you make a mistake?
- Can you depend on yourself to be there for yourself when you need you most?
REGULATE YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM
I know I talk about this all the time, but my healing accelerated when I got out of my head and into my body. And I still consistently have heavy and deep somatic releases.
We can’t think our way back to safety. We need to feel our way back to safety. And our capacity to overcome self-resentment is circumstantial to our ability to feel safe enough to expand beyond our current mind and body’s awareness of what safety is.
If you’re stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn- then you definitely want to try gentle movements to release stuck tension from your body. Ideally, we want to be in a rest, digest, restore, or heal state.
When you try to push forward no matter how hard you try, and it feels like something is even more stubborn, it’s because your body doesn’t feel safe enough to take that step. It’s protecting you. So what you need to do is protect your body by training it to feel safe.
EMBODY WHO YOU WANT TO BE
Would that elevated version of yourself speak to and treat yourself the way your current self does? No. They know you can’t self-hate your way into self-love.
You grow into your embodied self when you start thinking, acting, and behaving like them. Not that there’s anything wrong with your current self, but when we’re unhealed, we get triggered easily and react in ways we aren’t proud of.
Become the embodiment of who you want to be right now. When you fall back into old patterns and habits, remind yourself that you’re too healed to act unhealed.
EXPLORE THE WHY
We’re not born to be self-loathing. This was a learned behavior. Maybe we weren’t directly told that we should despise ourselves, but the same and consistent actions that we witnessed or experienced reinforced this belief.
Explore where and when you adapted this mindset. When we find the root of why we are the way we are, why we do the things we do, and why we behave the way we behave, everything comes into alignment.
You can see the bigger picture- how an experience or maybe multiple experiences weaved a reality that isn’t even yours. Someone else or again, maybe multiple people constructed their reality for you. Now you get to choose your reality, by rewriting your story one breath at a time.
I’ll see you soon…in the meantime, love yourself so much that even a Hallmark Christmas movie would be jealous.
