I am curious about your Love List. When I first did this, I had a profound realization that rocked my world. I have a feeling you may too, and I am not certain I will be able to soften the impact. It is meant to be impactful and to enact action toward change within us. Most things that create change are mind blowing or appear as epiphanies – the light bulb that pops on above your head.
So here it is.
Where on your list did you put yourself?
If you are like me, I almost burst into tears because I didn’t even consider myself for my Love List. Aren’t we supposed to love everyone else above ourselves? Actually, we might be taught that, but really, we needed to be taught that ourselves should be #1 on the list. Again, this is not narcissistic; it is necessary!
Take a moment right now, and put YOU at the top of your list. I want you to also note your emotions about not being on your list and what that feels like. If you were on your list but not #1, where were you and why did you not put yourself first? As you place yourself in that #1 position, how does that make you feel and what emotions are coming up for you around this? Are you able to acknowledge and express those feelings for yourself?
You may not realize it yourself, but energetically you are outside of your body. I feel the parts of you swirling around in the ethers trying to land but they are unable to. Why is that? We have been taught from a young age to abandon ourselves and to distrust our inner knowing in favor of logic. The mental body, where we currently ground most of our worldly experience is only one aspect and one “body,” if you will, of our Being. This mental aspect is heavily connected to our identity, and it is really intended to be a support system, working in wholeness, with our emotional, spiritual, etheric, and physical bodies.
In the process of training ourselves to rely upon the mental body, we are taught to systematically ignore, repress, and suppress our emotions. This is an act of abandonment. It creates a deep imbalance within the energetic systems of the bodies, and as a result, our energy bleeds outward. What does this feel like? It can show up as anxiety, depression, sadness, feeling lost, tense, stressed, over sensitive, sleeplessness, exhaustion, restlessness, and/or worry. Our energy is externally focused; it is scattered, and we feel lost to ourselves. This can lead to all kinds of dis-ease and dysfunction, and we may not even realize this is the root cause.
How many of us were told as children to be seen and not heard? Or to not be seen or heard? How many of us were only praised and shown love when we were in alignment with someone else’s expectations of who we should be? How many of us were encouraged to be proud of ourselves? How many of us were discouraged or punished for expressing emotion, especially if the emotions were those that the adults around us were themselves suppressing and repressing?
In each of these little actions, see as “discipline” or modeled as “proper behavior,” we are taught to abandon part of our truth. We abandon the divine feminine energy we are born with to fit into a belief system that we cannot trust ourselves, and then we are lead, literally, by advertising, by religious doctrine, and by the government into believing we are flawed, imperfect, sinful, unintelligent, and unlovable. We then seek love, validation, value, and worthiness outside of ourselves because we now have a belief that we are less than whole, we are imperfect, and we are unlovable. In this moment, we develop a voice of disdain in our own minds that reinforces all of this.
However, we are whole and complete exactly as we are. Do you believe that? Is this something you are able to allow for yourself? Do you feel you are worthy of being seen and heard? Do you feel your thoughts and words have value? The truth is, as a human, you are worthy and encouraged to express your emotions and to connect with your desires. Why else would we be given this divinity within us? Yes, I am calling emotions and desires an aspect of divinity within us. You are here to love yourself exactly as you are, and you have permission to connect with and love that child version of yourself who was taught to abandon the Self. In this moment, you are allowed to bring those aspects of you back into your body. You have permission to love yourself as the complete, whole being you are, right here and now.
The abandonment of ourselves is the primary root of duality, polarity, and separation on this Earth. We spend our lives trying to validate our worthiness by devaluing others. We seek our worthiness outside of ourselves creating competition and animosity with others when all along we have had our individual sovereignty. We had and still have the choice to proclaim our own value in this world and to love ourselves.
So, what does loving ourselves look like? Everyone is going to have a unique expression of self-love. What you do and how you do it depends on how far from yourself you truly are. This is a journey of self-exploration, and I can offer you this mantra as the starting point.
I am whole and complete exactly as I am.
The layers of self-abandonment will naturally begin to reveal themselves as you come back to yourself. This is an inward process and a deeply important one. Self-love is the base of our foundation which we will continue to build as we come back to ourselves. Self-love is also a foundational aspect of true happiness. Happiness is always within us. Happiness is making sure we care for ourselves first, that our needs are expressed and met, and that we are emotionally connected, tuned-in, and listening to the subtleties our bodies are sharing with us. We are acting to serve ourselves on a deeper level. You are meant to feel good under your own power. You are meant to feel good by the choices you are making. You are meant to feel honored and respected by your own Self through your choices, actions, and deeds.
Returning to self-love, and building that foundational piece is key to allowing ourselves to trust ourselves. We aren’t able to trust ourselves when we are constantly seeking validation of our whole and completeness outside. This is something we will now begin to unlearn. It is time to come back to ourselves. It is safe to be who you are. It is safe to love you.
I am whole and complete exactly as I am.
I invite you over to my YouTube channel to ground yourself into your body, and to begin calling your energy back to yourself through meditation. If you would like to go deeper, DM or email me at andara@andarahawaii.com to schedule a remote energy reset session.
Andara Hawaii YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZMTG095G3FMUc0EipCIs_w