How to Love Yourself…And Why it's Central to loving your life

Self-love is the beginning of love that grows outward and heals the world…There are many ways to love yourself, of course. Maybe countless. But because it seems to be so hard for so many people, I’ve consolidated some important tips and practices for you below.

I want to start with a framework for why you should love yourself, and a model for cultivating self-love…

Why love yourself? Well, self-love brings happiness. Most of us recognize that external factors don't provide lasting happiness. And, as souls, I suspect that we are meant to go through times of unhappiness in order to appreciate the good things, to grow, and to have empathy for others. That said, I do think it's possible to be happy overall.

How?

Love. Of course, love is the answer. But that may not help you much. Love describes so many things, and can get lost in translation. Where do you start? How do you love?

I won't pretend to fully answer these questions that we must live for ourselves in order to find out. But I will point to a crucial first step on the path.

You got it -- it's you. This is where self-love comes in. You become the source of love, and all the beauty and healing the flows from love, in your world.

You Are Love

For a moment, imagine that you are here in this life to remember that you are love. And, as love, you can radiate healing, connection, harmony, and joy to others—in your own unique way. Wouldn't it make sense, then, that you have to start at home?

As a source of love, you can lose your way pretty quickly if you are judging, ignoring, controlling, or being aggressive with yourself. Perhaps you have noticed that when you feel frustrated with yourself, your patience and compassion for others are reduced. Real self-love, then, becomes a guiding star.

So what are the ingredients for self-love? In this simple model, I suggest that they are presence (being with yourself as you are), tenderness (opening your heart with courageous compassion to all that presence reveals), and integration (balancing and bringing together all parts of you in wholeness): witness and care for all parts of you, giving everything a place in the ecosystem that you are -- this is self-love. And self-love, enables big-L Love, which brings joy a deep and abiding form of happiness. Furthermore, when you are at peace with yourself through self-love, you are free to share your gifts with the world.

Awareness & Compassion

Healing is the process of becoming whole. To do so, we have to include all of who we are. The energies of awareness (masculine, left brain, yang, wisdom, mind, doing, sun, etc.) and compassion (feminine, right brain, yin, kindness, heart, being, moon, etc.) represent our polarities, which can move together in harmony or tear us apart in conflict. These energies exist in everyone and need to be harmonized for wellbeing.

In order to harmonize and love ourselves, we need both the simple, clear presence of awareness -- to see what is actually happening for us right now -- and the warm openness of compassion -- to accept, receive, and create our experience with love.

Activist and Depth Ecologist, Joanna Macy, expresses this beautifully in her rendition of the Shambhala Prophesy. As she teaches, in order to face the intensity of these times and transform suffering, we need to be aware (the words she uses to describe this are “insight” or “wisdom”). We need to look truthfully upon what we are facing and our vast web of interconnection. And we need compassion --  to give us the heart to respond. The imbalance of the two is problematic. Without compassion, awareness becomes cold and harsh. Without awareness, compassion burns itself out.

Embodied Integration

Our bodies (physical and subtle) also hold this sacred interplay of yin and yang elegantly. Yogic traditions recognize three main channels, called nadis, in the body. The right channel is Pingala, the masculine principle (awareness). The left channel is Ida, the feminine principle (compassion). The central channel is Sushumna, which means joyful mind. The central channel brings a joyful mind as it balances and integrates right and left.

Yoga is one practice for harmonizing our polarities. As a practice, yoga can activate your central channel, cooling what is too hot inside, and warming what is too cold. By thus creating inner harmony, we are able to evolve and move towards our potential. We are able to flow with life, vitality, Spirit, and love -- starting with self-love.

In light of all this, it has been my inspiration to create resources for people to develop their awareness and compassion, and to harmonize them as expressions of their potential as love. Start with self-love…

How to love yourself

So, getting back to how to love yourself. We can utilize awareness and compassion as our tools. Here are my tips:

1. Learn to Be There for Yourself (Awareness)

Have you ever been really hurting, and you just need someone to be there for you through it? This is the loving power of presence.

There are many ways to develop presence, awareness and insight. Meditation is a powerful one, because it asks us to sit and be still with what is happening, and look deeply into our experience. 

The modern world is frenetic. Many of us are constantly rushing around, trying to do and get more. I am sure I am not alone in the habit of escapism -- habitually trying to run away from discomfort. The problem with this is that it results in disconnection from life -- from ourselves and others. 

But you are stronger than you think. You can handle so much more discomfort than you know. And it can transform you. Meditation is a way of training your mind to stay with what is, and to keep returning to the only moment you have, this one, right now. This is how you learn to be there for yourself.

Some other ways of developing awareness are mindful movement (e.g. Tai Chi, Yoga, Qiqong, etc), spending time in Nature without distraction, or witnessing another being's experience without trying to change it. Really, presence is available in every single moment, but it can help to train for it.

So why is this a means for loving yourself? Well, you have to see yourself as you really are in order to love yourself. The human mind can masterfully manipulate reality to protect itself. It develops all kinds of filters and judgments that distort how we experience our lives and ourselves

Looking deeply, through meditation or other contemplative practices, can help remove these layers of protection. And when you really see yourself, you can really love yourself. (Without compassion, however, this deep looking can be too harsh, become overwhelming, or slip into criticism.)

Exercise: Take 3 slow, deep breaths. Sense your whole body, exactly as it is right now, experienced from the inside. Notice any emotions that are present, and how they resonate in your body (e.g. sadness as an ache in the chest). Take your time. Notice thoughts happening.

Now, make your awareness bigger than all of these things combined. Be present with the whole of your experience. Notice the space around you --  the light, any sounds or scents. Observe how all of these things are connected to each other. Then say to yourself, I am here, with all of this moment. I am here for myself.

Actions you can take to be there for yourself:

• Breathe! I know it's simple, but your breath reflects so much about your wellbeing. When you hold your breath or breathe rapidly it creates stress in the body which communicates to the brain that you are unsafe -- and this has fallout for your mind and body. Breathing helps move you through challenging experiences.

• Pay attention to your body. Your body is always communicating with you. If you don't pay attention, the messages will get louder --  in the form of stress, pain, or illness. Listen to the messages of your body. Respond to them like a healthy, loving parent. 

• Check in emotionally. You can simply ask yourself, "what emotion am I feeling". The biggies are happiness, sadness, love, fear, anger, shame/guilt, excitement. Then ask "where do I feel this emotion in my body?" Once you have identified and felt the feeling in your body (keep breathing!), ask yourself if the emotion is telling you that you need something (e.g. rest, a break, a hug, etc.), or does it just need validation?

• Don't believe everything that you think. One of the things I really appreciate about meditation is that it provides some distance from the story our thoughts tell us. Believe it or not, your mind has a lot of fake news! Thoughts especially tend to be distorted under stress and with big emotions. If a thought is habitual and/or not helpful, you might consider saying to yourself, "that's just a thought." And come back to the moment.

• Imagine someone very loving there with you. This could be an actual person from your life, or an imagined or archetypal figure. It should be someone who can embody this capacity to just be there, in loving presence, with you as you are. Kuan Yin is a female bodhisattva of compassion that symbolizes this type of unconditional love for me. Mother Earth is another example. 

• Stop trying to "fix it." You can get to fixing it later if that is really what is needed. But in being there for ourselves, we have to practice "radical acceptance". This is how it is right now. This is how I am right now. Unconditional self-love has to include this.

  2. Practice Softening (Compassion)

Compassion comes from your heart. You cannot think compassion -- you must feel it. For many of us, it is actually easier to start with compassion for others. If your capacity for empathy is not entirely numb, you will be able to consider someone in pain and naturally feel care for them. (If you do feel too numb for that, I simply recommend taking some time to thaw your heart. This meditation can help)

Try this now. Bring to heart someone (person or animal) who you love. Consider some pain they may be experiencing. How do you feel? Where, in your body, do you feel it?

There are no right answers here. You will likely either notice empathy, love, and care, or you will find some kind of protection (like anger, numbness, apathy, anxiety) arising to shield your heart from the vulnerability of loving. Whatever you experience is sacred, and is your doorway to compassion. 

Many of us will be able to find compassion for someone else, but may find it difficult to turn the same caring heart towards ourselves. This is why compassion is a practice, and one that needs to be directed towards ourselves. My recommendation is to start by just setting the intention to feel compassion, breathe into your heart, and then see what happens.

My personal experience with this has been that everything in me that does not feel loved will surface first. Although this doesn't feel great, it is really helpful for developing compassion, because it shows me where love is needed. 

So, when you practice compassion, let it be imperfect. And try softening to whatever comes up. Avoidance comes up -- soften to that; tension comes up -- soften to that, etc.

You may see how the awareness practice is needed here -- so you can courageously look at what is happening without ducking behind your thoughts and judgments. Then, whatever you find, soften your body in response. Intend compassion, breathe into your heart, and soften your body. Do it again the next moment, and the next. 

Exercise: Ask yourself, "what is stopping me from loving myself right now?" Whatever comes up, try saying "Even though I [fill in the blank with what's holding your back from self-love], I completely love and accept myself." You may not believe this at first, by try saying it anyway. The words have power in your psyche. If it is really too hard to say, change it to "Even though I [blank], may I someday soon completely love and accept myself."

1. Reclaim Yourself (Integration)

What have you disowned in yourself? What have you banished, judged, hidden, rejected, ignored, undermined, attacked? These aspects of your wholeness might not only be negative qualities. Many people learn to fear their power, strength, or vulnerability.

Learning to meet all of these parts of you with awareness and compassion is self-love. Learning to be there for your real, messy, human self -- as you are right now — with kindness — is self-love. It’s not about getting to a future self that is better and has sloughed off the things you don’t like. In fact, those things are key to the refinement of unconditional love —  for yourself and others. When I include my habit of procrastination in my practice of self-love, for example, I can more easily love others who procrastinate. 

Your potential requires all of you. The real you. This you.

There is a paradox here — because the only thing that has to change is your relationship to what is. And your training as a warrior of the heart is in finding a way to love every single damn thing. 

Please don’t mistake this as a license to do whatever, enable harm, or condone what is not love. It is possible to say no from a place of love. In fact, sometimes that is the most loving thing to do.

Journal Exercise: Make a list of the “parts” of yourself you reject (E.g. love-handles, fear, self-sabotage). Now imagine each of these parts as a small child. What do they look like? What are they doing? Hold their hand if they will let you. Ask them what they are feeling, what they need, and what they want. Do not argue. Just be there with them, and hear them out. Then acknowledge what they want and give them what they need if you can. Now, ask if they are willing to help you. You are all on the same team. Once they have what they need, is there a way they can contribute to an outcome that serves all of you?

This article is just a beginning. Learning to love yourself is an imperative. If you can do that, you can:

• stop leaking energy in self-aggression and self-betrayal

• harness your unique potential

• be a force of unconditional love in the world (which will deeply serve all beings and the planet herself)

May you love yourself as a microcosm of this wonderous universe and become the love this world so needs!

Namaste,

Jeanine

The long version is an in-depth 3-month Holistic Life Coaching program I call Awaken, which goes much deeper and further with the above-noted themes, and much more.  I also have a number of free resources towards this end on my YouTube Channel. Click the links for a guided meditation that supports awareness, one supports compassion, and a breathing technique that helps with integration. 

Jeanine Ten Broeck, MA, LPC, RYT-200 is a Healing Artist, licensed psychotherapist, registered yoga teacher, poet, and stewardess of Mother Earth.

Poetry

Hungry

I will not starve a dark wolf

She too is hungry

She too was born of Earth, of starlight, and the endless space between

She too has a place here

I love the White Wolf yes

But my secret

Is that I love the rich-furred wild Black Wolf equally

I need her

And I want her

It is she who protected me

And kept me alive

When the rabid packs were circling.

She stood beside me, teeth bared and coat warm

In the coldest lonely winters

She belongs here too

And has a home within my breast

I will not starve her because she frightens you

And you would have what you call purity only

I will not betray her because you have forsaken what is wild

I will not forget her

Even as she walks unseen in sea of blind men

Her heart beats just as yours does

And she is made of the world

And belongs as every tree needs a shadow

Every mountain a cave

Every ocean her depths

Every day its stunning death into night

I am the mother of every wolf

And I fold this dark one in next to her sister the light

Both suckled with the milk of love

Both mine

I claim her.

Ensuen~o

How the wind as she flies

Up the cliffs, from the salty

Dove waves, stormy mar 

de cortez

Ocean mami

To kiss many besos

My throat

In this Latin dream,

Ensueno, 

with ene

Her music sweet-sliding.

How gray in the sky

Competes

With the ocean

To signal the storm

Her darkness still forming

How violent the pink

Of bouganvilla y fachada

How deep dive the dolphin 

To unknowns with bravada

My window is crooked

The glass, it is drafty

I hum out of tune

With a salted Sol melody

I tell you of nothing

But bring you here with me

I love all of everything

If only this instant

The palms, they are quaking

The maelstrom is building

I dance in monsoons

My dress, wet and clinging

You sigh for my body

Our sweat is commingling

We love like the mourning

Of doves in the evening

The dogs, they are howling

Iguanas up-downing

The streets though they’re cobbled

are trash-filled and dusty

My home, it is nowhere

While church bells are ringing

Our lives, they are melting

While the children are singing

Slip now between waves

Through the portal

Of dreaming

Come here, be my witness

The door, it is closing

I laugh, while my hair flies

Wild as the ocean

I love you in secret

And pretend it is nothing

We sway with el vino

But no one is watching

The moon calls the blackbird

And mountains are burning

We cry for the poor ones

And then we go numb again

I know that you love me,

We fight, and make up again

Leap now, through the crack

In the sky

It is narrowing

Our home, she has died

And the dream may be ending.

The Middle

i have been grieving

while the moon grows fat

i have been doing Nothing & Everything

but grieving

Meanwhile a reservoir

an aqueduct, of mourning

steadily rises below

i will say Anything Beautifully & Mysteriously

but not so plain

Plain is as it is

this Dreamland we have come to

i’m sorry, you could say,

sorry, but i cannot Dream this

for your eyes

or sing it for your ears

my countless flow of cells

receive the flood of this Time

without warning or explanation.

i’m sorry but you

cannot

ever understand

though if you open the ears of your body

you may Know.

I keep forgetting her name

Because she has forgotten her name, her

Heart

Lying there on the table

“Look” she says, it is broken

She can’t see it

The starlight winging it 

To the center of her

She can’t see, just yet

That it is a jellyfish

Swimming floating wandering

The sea of her life

Tethered to home

Anisoptera

Dragonfly landed twice

On the silver edge

Of my laptop

Modern times seem

Unromantic

But anisoptera lingered

And loved here

Just the same

Later, two wasps fell

From the sky

Locked in battle, or maybe love

Maybe both

On my table

I can hear the freeway

From this suburban cafe

And yet Apocrita

And her foe

Burst through

Now ten or so

Starlings

Dance and flutter awkwardly

On these berried branches

Listening to poetry

Ignoring the exhaust

Racausly flaunting

Their Sturnidaen freedom

Once I dreamed

That every painting

Is a portal

To another world

Ecfrenus, thank you

For the reminder

The story of initiation

I don’t remember a home

Other than a watery view of stars

A pleading

And longing

The cavernous heart-place calling my soul back

So I lied

And i betrayed myself

And so i died

And woke up screaming

And so it began. 

The places I failed away from

The failing that save my life

The sacred solitude where I knew myself

A little

The stripping away of all that danced on the surface

Of my love that was so much deeper

Than I knew

The distance from those ocean depths.

I am a mystery to myself.

Why should you know me

Take down my weapons

And throw me naked into 

A world

That is real

Tell me to wake up

Or die

Both.

To live

In the shadows

Where i can see

And don’t have to lie

Where I can hear the trembling heartbeat

In all things