Self love.
You might be asking yourself why is that so hard.... In part this is because of the way I was raised. I'm certain that my mother's mother and generations back taught their daughters that a woman's worth was measured in how they kept house, how well they cooked, how clever a seamstress they were and how well they raised their children. Both my grandmother's, now dead, suffered a variety of ailments throughout their lives as well as my own mother. These women were and are strong role models who did what they were taught . Good or bad they did the best they could. That being said, it's no wonder why I still struggle with this issue now in my 50's.
As children, we are captive to our parent's whims and demands. Do I say not as I do. My house my rules. Surely every child has been an unwilling audience to the litany of isms. But, at some point we are no longer hostages to our parents' rules.and we become the master of our own ship as it were. All that we are taught becomes habitual. Like zombies, we move through life doing "stuff" with little to no thought behind it. Wikipedia describes habits as: "routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously.Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habituation is an extremely simple form of learning, in which an organism, after a period of exposure to a stimulus, stops responding to that stimulus in varied manners. Habits are sometimes compulsory The process by which new behaviors become automatic is habit formation. Examples of habit formation are the following: If you instinctively reach for a cigarette the moment you wake up in the morning, you have a habit. Also, if you lace up your running shoes and hit the streets as soon as you get home, you've acquired a habit. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form because the behavioral patterns we repeat are imprinted in our neural pathways."
I digress....I have spent countless years wondering what true love feels like. My husband is incapable of showing love (100% his parents' doing) and while my children adore me, I do not ever feel loved. Granted, my parents love me and a handful of friends love me but the true love I am missing in my life is self love. How alien the concept! I've done the whole stand in the mirror and smile and tell the reflection you love it. Talk about awkward! What usually happens is several hours later I am yelling at the same reflection and telling it how weak and pathetic it is....talk about self defeating! I have slowly begun to realize that looking to my husband for feel good messages is as likely as me winning a three state billion dollar lottery. He has been right all along...only you can make yourself happy. RuPaul always asks "if you can't love yourself, how ya gonna love anybody else?" So several days ago I downloaded an Isochronic Tone package for self confidence. One of the tones was Love Yourself. Immediately I was struck with this overwhelming sense of euphoria. In that moment I felt as if I was being embraced by my mom and she sang Always Near as I rested my ears on her chest. That deep feeling of being loved, being sacred and being protected. With a change in my inner dialogue to include "I love you" as I listen to the tones I have begun to release the feelings of inadequacies, self hate, and self doubt. Am I cured? Hardly! My husband and son's make every day a challenge but at the end of the day I can still say I LOVE YOU and actually feel loved by the one person who will always protect me, who will always back me up, who will always be my greatest advocate......
ME!
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