How to love myself

[Preety_India]

How do I love myself more? 

This question is not about self image issues that girls usually have. I don't have issues regarding looks or body image, most of the time I am fine with it. 

I don't even hate myself. 

But deep down I feel like I don't love myself. Like it's all hollow there. There's no hate. But also there is no love there. 

It feels empty inside. I have empathy for other people and I quickly reach out to people who need help or support. 

One day a friend of mine said to me - "you are good at taking care of others, but you fail to take good care of yourself." 

I never feel like I'm important enough. It is always others others others. 

My family never taught me that I was important enough. In fact they always did the reverse. 

I was always told to sacrifice myself for others. 

As a result if I needed help, I never asked 

I would help others in my family but never myself. 

I would schedule appointments for my mother but not for me. 

If she needed to eat, I would go hungry that night 

 

The problem is that all this tendency has bottled up over the years to where I no longer feel myself deeply 

 

I feel like a dead tree dying. 

I feel like I never have myself. There is always something more important to do and it's not related to me. 

Deep down I feel tons of self pity because I was made to feel undeserving of anything good for years as a child. 

I was tirelessly nitpicked on by my mother, constantly criticised 

If I ate an extra morsel I was called selfish. I developed a shadow against self care and selfishness. 

If I felt uncomfortable doing something for her, I was labelled selfish 

If I felt lazy or unwell and did not schedule her appointments, I was called selfish and useless. 

It was as though my whole life was a duty to others 

I have come to realize that this pattern dominated my life and caused me immense suffering to the point that if someone showed me love and acceptance I would break down in tears 

I never felt loved and accepted by my family, except for my dad who died years ago and I don't have much of a memory of him.

Feeling isolated and disowned by my own family made me feel very vulnerable and unworthy. 

 

 

How do I feel strong enough to love myself from deep within? 

The inner  feeling of worthlessness doesn't go away no matter how hard I try 

 

[Preety_India]

@Marcel that is very sweet of you honey.

 

[AriSujan]

@Preety_India Praticing gratitude sure does the work!

[Cathal]

@Preety_India have you went into any catharsis recently? the thing is with these traumas you had as child, it's actually really hard to get into the pain buried underneath the hollowness because there really is some deep deep raw emotions that are incredibly intense, you still really resent and blame your family. i feel like you are very disconnected from your inner child and you are experiencing a big chunk of feeling present with yourself. it's like you look around and there's a lonely silence in your experience of life or something, that's what it feels like for me.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TanjaWindegger 

i really recommend to browse this channel, she's really good some good content on what you're experiencing.

what you describe is really like how i grew up,

well the most useful thing for me have been to see that how i feel right now is entirely my responability, being a victim of my family, society, conditioning and the fragmentation of my being was no ones fault, all of this pain you're carrying is your parents pain, it's societies traumas, it's really a very holistic understanding there is literally no one to blame and nothing to project onto, 

a constant reminder the outside world is a complete illusion and your repressed trash is finding ways to project.

mdma and psychedelics have been powerful tools of insight.

it's just as you keep working on yourself and trying to understand you gain insight and then you come to see things just as they are

through resolving traumas you notice a subtle connection to the present moment, it takes a long time. but it's the only thing really left to do, is to surrender, express your will to go into your pain and process it despite the fear, experience catharsis, let go of it all and glue yourself to the emotion > feeling alive and more like you're really here

[RickyFitts]

I remember when I was going through a really hard time a few years back, I'd ask myself when I was really struggling: 'What do I need in this moment?' Because I came to realise that I'd gotten into the habit of neglecting my own needs, though it took for me to be in a really bad way before I understood that. Just asking yourself the question can help you to become more aware of your needs.

[Hulia]

@Preety_India Dear Preety, if you look very closely, very quietly at the energy streams in your body and psycho- at your emotions like dispair, sadness, loneliness, you´ll see that they all are made of the same substance. This substance is love. Your are blessed with a lot of passion - a lot of love - lost in the labyrynths of your self-image.

Here is a music of autumn for you

 

[Gesundheit2]

It's a choice that you make.

Choose to love yourself, and you'll find yourself becoming better at it with time.

In fact, you've already made the first step right here. All you need now is time.

You've planted the seed, and it will grow. Water it, and nurture it. Rest, rise, and absorb light from the sun. You'll eventually bloom. It's inevitable.

[Loba]

This entire channel, not well known, is all about learning self love, on the physical, mental and spiritual levels - as being the most important part of spiritual practice.  I've posted some of her stuff below - she is about green/yellow and her videos are very informative for someone who needs help in this area.  These are all the different types of lack of self love I could think of posted down below.  Check out her channel if you have the time, she's quite "real", which is refreshing.  Good luck!

I wrote some notes on this very topic here:

Notes:

• Why self-love and nourishing who you are today (learning how to show up for yourself, internal self love) is the foundation for everything:
• You must learn how to become your own safe place.
• Everything is built on top of self-love and it will be very hard to fix yourself and change your habits if you do not love yourself - but with this tool everything else will naturally come.
• We don't need to force ourselves to become something and it does not work.
• Go slow on this path, this is the fastest route.  Embrace it.
• Your subconscious has been programmed for a certain action and it can unlearn it and learn a new skill.
• There is a reason for why we do what we do and none of it is that we are bad or wrong or stupid, incapable or self sabotaging or self hating - every reason comes down to this is what we learned in childhood, and if we want something different then figuring out what we need to do instead and get the body and brain on board with the new thing is difficult.
• If you just do this one thing - making yourself your own safe place, everything you are capable of; progress comes from this.  Without doing this, your nervous system will not let you do the other things.  
• Results will not be quick.  It will be the same thing over and over again.  Deal with your guilt and shame before working on other skills because if you try to fix yourself without this foundation then the other tools will not work.
• If we don't understand where the lack of self love came from and if we have confusion on what is good for us, where if we do things in the moment that feel good that have bad outcomes, if we do not understand why this is happening then none of this will make sense and will look somewhere else thinking that it is just a bad part of you.
• Everyone thinks they are an exception to the rule and the horrible thing inside of them must be fixed because of the negative outcomes, however this is not the case.
• There is no quick solution and you are not the exception.  This applies to everyone because although we are all different, we are not all that different.  So listen up!
• In our childhoods we are in a temporary reality, a codependent reality where we are not capable of understanding or meeting our needs and are completely dependent on our caregivers to meet them for us.
• That which is supporting our growth leads to pleasure.  That which does not support our growth causes pain - all living things share this in common, we want to grow and humans are very complex and so is life - it wants to express its potential and live.
• In order to live, we must be continually growing.  In order to be continually growing, we have to be taking in new information; feedback loops, cause and effect.  We are all evolving here on Earth.  This is the fundamental element of pain and pleasure.
• When we are children we are being programmed about how reality works.
• Children have a good connection to their instincts - pain and pleasure - because they have not been programmed yet, so their connection is stronger, but they are not more knowledgeable. 
• Caregivers are meant to teach their children how reality works, and to show us how to meet, to understand our needs.  We only have control over our expression of pain and pleasure in this lifetime.
• Our caregiver's approval means survival for us so from day one we are programmed not to pay attention to what our bodies are saying to us - when caregivers "go away", I don't get my needs met.  Needs get met from someone understanding me and meeting my needs.  When I am rejected I am at risk.  That is our first program.  Approval.
• What should happen in a healthy environment, we start to develop autonomy, we are given tools by our caregivers for understanding when we are in pain that a need is not being met, and to identify why there is pain and to be able to change it - pain and pleasure experienced in a neutral way.
• When we experience true pleasure there is no negative backlash, this is the different between real and fake pleasure.
• What actually happens is because humanity doesn't understand itself or how reality works - struggling to survive - and creating systems based on misunderstanding on how to survive, this complex web has created a consensus reality, which is "this is how you have to be, what you have to do, good, bad, ect. and through our growth process we begin to experience something called guilt, shame, abandonment and rejection.
• So as we are expressing ourselves, as we are growing and going through the learning process, we did things where we expressed and were told we were bad.  Or we were in pain and were abandoned or rescued and did not learn why we got hurt.
• This triggers the nervous system, "I am not going to get my needs met, I am rejected, so what do I need to do to to get back in their good graces?"  So now we don't know what the original pain was in the first place.
• "Who do I need to be, what do I need to do to alter my behaviour so that I am approved of again?"
• So now we are two layers removed from real reality.  An appropriate response, "I still love you, you are still loved and safe, how does it feel to have hit the other child for the toy?"  Children would tell you that it does not feel good and would learn that hitting and taking the toy is a negative action.  "You hit because that was your instinct."  Then you can teach them to share once they learn the source of the bad feeling, if it is not covered up by shame, fear, guilt, ect - their nervous systems can learn to enjoy sharing.
• This is real learning, the child then becomes more complex through that interaction.  Most interactions do not go this way - this takes away the empathy because all they feel is fear from the situation and freeze.
• What looks like self sabotage in adulthood is actually your body doing what it learned in childhood over and over again, now as an adult.  Most of us as adults do not learn to be autonomous and to meet our own needs, with or without acceptance or approval of others.  We take the codependent approach and think others hold the keys to what we need.
• So rather than becoming an adult and communicating and understanding our needs we become codependent with everyone around us, and when we are in pain because we learned in our childhoods that pain is wrong and bad, we connect to consensus reality, which is made up of stories and fantasies.
• "We are wrong or reality is wrong."  That is how we learn to interact with pain.
• The shame and guilt always comes from "I am in pain because I am bad and did something wrong."  Why do we do that?  Because in childhood we only have control over our behaviour and nothing else, so if something goes wrong we assume it is our behaviour that caused it.
• So we all collectively move and act from the false assumption that pain makes us bad and wrong and so we project it onto ourselves or others.
• Self help, spirituality and self-improvement come into play with this because they are riding on the idea that the pain is your fault.  Something broken and wrong about you because you are in pain - it all plays on your insecurities.  We want to believe it is true because it makes it simple.  "If I just do this, just fix this, then everything will be better."
• There is no questioning of the system.  "You are deficient and here is the fix."  And that feels good because it is familiar conditioning.  Adaptation.
• This creates a learning trauma.
• Real reality is: it's either supporting your growth or it is not, and some of the things we are doing to cope are because we exist in a system that doesn't work for people, the rat race does not align with who most people really are.
• We are disconnected from our true selves.  Being.  Instincts.  Pain and pleasure.  We don't have the tools to learn what we need to learn from the instincts we are born with.  We were trained to disconnect from the instinct to fit in, so people will meet your needs, so you feel safer.  It becomes a loop of trying to fit in. 
• The internet creates echo chambers where people who only interact with those who have ideas like theirs because we are so afraid, we don't want new information, we don't want to believe that the way we are seeing things is wrong because if we are wrong then we are bad and this is shameful and we don't know how to learn from that because we then have to learn to change and our bodies don't want that so we join echo chambers, and the world just keeps getting more divided because we are all stuck in nervous system trauma.
• The more we operate from, "How do I show up for myself right now?" and "What do I need to feel safe?" and "Why am I doing what I am doing?" and assume innocence and a good reason and it is not always my fault. 
• Most of humanity is taught the wrong way.  Pain = shame.  Half the people = I am bad.  Codependent.  Half the people = you are bad/at fault. 
• Pain really means something is out of alignment and what do I need to do to get into alignment.
• This is a long process to learn what these things mean to you.  Reprogramming base nervous system programming from childhood takes a lot of time and it is hard to do, and is the foundation on which you have built ALL your other behaviours.
• Everything that you resist comes from not questioning your reality.
• If you were to accept yourself as who you are right now as loveable and good enough, that is what takes your nervous system out of fear and then you can start the process of learning from your experience.
• When we don't have this foundation, all the tools do nothing because we are triggered into a state of fear that forces us to do the same thing over and over and over again.
• This is why becoming your own "safe space" is so essential.  It is not one and done.  It is a continual practice of learning to show up for yourself when in pain, pleasure and be in the moment and as, "What do I need right now?"
• Start with self compassion.  This gets rid of fight or flight, and then we can learn but it takes time to learn to stop abandoning yourself when you are in pain, so be patient.
• Investigate.  See that you don't die.  Be there for yourself.  Do it again and again.  Investigate, investigate, investigate.  Assume innocence within yourself. 
• If a program is stimulating your nervous system and disconnecting you from yourself, it is not for you - esp. if it is based on "There is something wrong with you."
• "What did you learn?" "Why am I in pain?"  "Take as much responsibility for myself as I can."
• Self help can keep you stuck in a state of self-obsession, so try and use your time to contribute towards better things.
• You feel safe when you feel loved, so love yourself.
• It is a lot of work.  But it all comes down to showing up for yourself with compassion and curiosity and assuming innocence.  This is all you need.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Loba

[itachi uchiha]

@Preety_India if u r desperate and can take some partiarchy

 

Then try to apply redpill principles to your life

 

[Flowerfaeiry]

@Preety_India find special little ways to care for yourself throughout the day. What are some things that make you feel special? Tune in and ask "what would someone who loves themselves do"? 

[Preety_India]

@Marcel @AriSujan @Gesundheit2 @Flowerfaeiry thank you for the responses. 

@Loba  your response is really helpful. Thank you for the time. Really appreciate. 

 

 

[Loba]

@Preety_India You're very welcome, I'm in the same boat; it takes time but the results are worth it and you will see results pretty early on, too!  It's super important to learn on the path, it makes spiritual awakenings much easier to have with that self love in place.   Self love over time, will make things like this image come alive almost with the energy of pure love, beauty, truth and warmth.  Self love fixes so many things, and opens so many doors as far as seeing with clarity goes, it's the first and most important step.  Take all the time you need on this, but if you feel a lack of self love I would strongly suggest starting a self love practice, something to feel within you every single day.  To put it simply, your entire power as a human, and as a spiritual being rests in this one step.  Because everything is You, if you separate something as less than, it can no longer be a unified field of consciousness.  You see?  You are it.  That's the cure!  Love unifies everything.

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Loba

[Preety_India]

@Loba I agree. Trying hard to get to it. 

[Loba]

@Preety_India You will!  The unified field is within self love/love of all things equally, you'll get closer the more you love yourself, life will feel more clear.  What we are underneath all of the social/familial stuff  that was imprinted on us is actually is pure magic!  It's like liquid gold.  All people have access to it, too.  

Edited September 17, 2021 by Loba

[Preety_India]

5 hours ago, itachi uchiha said:

@Preety_India if u r desperate and can take some partiarchy

 

Then try to apply redpill principles to your life

 

Can you elaborate please? 

How did red pill make it's way into this thread. 

 

 

[itachi uchiha]

@Preety_India there is a book called no more mr nice guy.it destroy all nice guy traits in a man and fix him.but it is wrote for men.if u can apply its principles then your people pleasing and being a doormat traits will be fixed

[Preety_India]

@itachi uchiha thanks. 

 

[RickyFitts]

@Loba Thanks for taking the time to break it all down like that, super-helpful!  

[Loba]

@RickyFitts you're welcome. ?

[Nahm]

@Preety_India

I don’t have a clue how I would go about loving myself, since I am already myself. Instead I pour that which is myself into this life / experience via a dreamboard, consciously creating life / experience. I’ve noticed telling the story of wanted becomes reality, whereas telling a story of a past creates the experience of the same, or, the same old experience. The dreamboard makes it so easy, effortless, to be focused only on what I do want. And it does indeed manifest as such.