There are many things that get in the way to self-love? But I want to let you in on little secret. You CAN over come them. It’s not going to be easy. Unlearning social habits and conditioning is work. But you are worth it. So are YOU Ready?
Helmet – Check
Shoulder Pads ~ Check
Thigh Pads ~ Check
Knee pads ~ Check
Let’s Go.
Us women, have many hurdles to jump over in this society. There are common barriers to self-love that keeps us from having a healthy relationship with numero uno, YOU. It doesn’t take long for many of us to loose our way. And there are many reason’s our self-perception gets skewed. Growing up and in the learning process, unfortunately, our wrongness gets pointed out by one person or another, from one situation or another, or two, and we carry those things into our adulthood. And many of us struggle to overcome them so don’t feel alone… We all got some issue 🤣.
But the first step in overcoming anything, is to acknowledge it and so you can determine what it is that you are dealing with. From there you can make the right choice for you. If you can tackle, run through, and get into the end-zone, certainly a happier, more confident you, who is more able to give love to themselves and others is waiting.
So, here are some common barriers to Self-Love.
1.Toxic Self-Talk (Real and Imagined)
The theme songs we play in our heads can be very powerful. They can be uplifting or down right detrimental to our well-being. If we are constantly putting our selves down, how can you hear, be, and enjoy love. Especially love of yourself. So, it’s important to listen to your self-talk or how you talk to yourself in various situations such as when you make a mistake, feel sad, achieve something, or just when you are alone in silence with your private thoughts.
One thing I will ask of you is to listen to the voice. Whose is it? Is it your parents, a friend, a teacher, a mean girl in the 8th grade? Distinguishing who and working through those critical messages is a big part of letting them go.
Thus, when your critical voice is getting out of control, shift your focus to thoughts of encouragement and appreciation. I will not say totally rebuke it because that critical voice is there to help and protect us too and sometimes you may need to investigate it and not completely run away (another story). Dont go running to the hills just yet.
2. Not Believing You Are Worthy or Good Enough
You might feel bad about yourself and so unworthy to the point that you feel as if you don't deserve to be loved. Maybe your holding on to past mistakes, judgement of yourself, and regrets that you have not let go of. Even if you wanted to be loved you're not willing to receive the love you give yourself because it seems uncomfortable and scary. Scary to the point of subconsciously Self-Sabotage.
There are so many ways to tell yourself that you are not good enough. This is a mindset that literally has you feeling like you are an impostor in your own life. Accepting the fact that you deserve and are worthy of everything that life has to offer, especially the great things, is a pinnacle of self-love.
When you can trust your intuition, perception, and inner guidance you affirm and honor yourself.
Using words likes I should means that you are not listening to your heart and trying to fit into someone else’s mold.
3.Perfectionism
Oh me oh my, this was me. Not allowing yourself to fail and keeping yourself trapped in being perfect, or the illusion for that matter because we know no one is perfect, you end up not feeling or being good enough. I’ll reiterate, no one is perfect. And even though we can consciously say that, ‘no one is perfect’ on a subconscious level we try to be... The perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect employee, the perfect child, the perfect friend… having the perfect life. OMG, you will exhaust yourself. I know I exhausted myself, to the point of paralyzation, scared to may a mistake, so I was just stuck.
Give yourself the learning experience and vulnerability that comes with making mistakes and remember that failing is good for the soul and helps build character. The things that make you stronger are the things you overcome and if you are never willing to take the risk because you may fail, only keeps you small in the world.
Learn to let go of the critical judgement of others. What I learned is that I turned that critical judgement on myself and judged myself just as hard. More importantly I too learned that the more I was accepting of another person’s humanity, the more I accepted myself.
4.Body Shame
I don’t care who you are, how perfect someone may look, how good they may look to you… everyone has hang-ups, especially with their body. And those minor annoyances about our body comes and goes. However, when those thoughts become intrusive and pervasive, they can cause use to hate our physical selves which keeps us from inner self-love. Even in wanting to change some things about our body, we can still love it.
Take care of yourself. Get enough rest, eat a proper diet to nourish your body and your mind. When you treat you like you matter, regardless, you will be amazed at how much better you feel.
5. People Pleasing
People believe that they must make everyone else happy in their life and that it is their responsibility. That thinking can create co-dependent shackles in your existence that weights you down and make you forfeit your own happiness.
You end up putting yourself on the back burner and fail to speak up for yourself causing undue frustration and disappointments. But no one is a mind-reader no matter how much they love you. Loving yourself means that you become the advocate in your life that can identify and share your individual needs in any kind of relationship, may it be familial, romantic, or more important with yourself.
6. Inability to Accept Love
When you aren't loved in a healthy way, it's hard to know what love is like. I remember listening to the Miseducation of Laryn Hill and the young lady said, that maybe this person had never been loved, or experience loved, or knew what it felt like to be loved (deeeeeeeeepppp and so true)! It’s hard to experience, recognize, or understand what healthy love is if the way you were loved is stemmed from a form of negativity, violence, or put downs. It becomes EXTREMELY hard to know how to find love within yourself if you can't even recognize it.
Your family and loved ones were made to set an example of how to love, but if they are poor examples of healthy love, it most likely took away the lesson of loving yourself. Likewise, most of us learned that love is something you gave and received to and from other people and conditioned, socialized, and programmed to believe that loving ourselves is selfish, conceited, and self-centered. Consideration of or even talking about ourselves, even in simply taking a compliment, embarrasses many people.
We must get comfortable with appreciating and loving ourselves. When someone pays you a compliment, try to simply say, Thank You. Form a habit to write down things you appreciate about yourself. If you find it hard to think of, don't worry, many people do, just think of what people say about you and find evidence to support it (or not). This can include loving how cute your hair looks, setting a boundary or something you have been avoiding, or anything positive about yourself.
In no way is this list exhaustive. But these are common barriers. In the process of loving yourself, you will fall back into old ways, just as I have and still do sometimes, but I don’t stay there, and you don’t have to either. When you catch yourself slipping, decide to be kind to yourself and just refocus.
The more I learned to love myself, the more I am was open to good things coming to me. I work daily on loving myself and doing so has allowed life to bloom in ways I could not have imaged. You are worth breaking the old patters to become new in love with the most importantly person in your life and that is YOU.