I spoke to a client this week and she asked “When I feel so far away from loving myself, from accepting myself, even truly wanting to get to know myself…where do I even start?”
Start with little pieces of love. That’s where you begin.
As soon as you make the choice…this means you’ve lovingly begun to make change. You know that how it is right now cannot be how it continues.
When your first step is already perceived as the start of Everest, you look up at the peak and can’t even see it beyond the clouds. It may feel inconceivable that you’ll ever be able to accept your full, naked self in the mirror and find love, tenderness and acceptance in that moment. So this might not be your first step.
So where do you start? What’s a little piece of love you could show yourself here…enough to challenge the current status quo, but also meeting yourself where you are in that moment so that you will actually do it.
I know this well. After years of harming my body through diets, pills, laxatives…to stop and accept that:
my body is getting damaged, I must stop
I cannot sustain an outward image of togetherness and normality for much longer
I have a choice to stop this
I have a responsibility to stop this behaviour. Otherwise it’ll be passed on to others, including my daughter, and its effects will be as I know, incredibly damaging
Here is the “why” the motivations that cannot be ignored…even with these identified, how do you begin?
It took time and consistency to build my foundations first. Consistent little pieces of love and trust and faith. It’s only from stable foundations could I begin to face the harsher and more ingrained beliefs and the traumas I held.
Just like a new vitamin we’ve become deficient in, we must start introducing it gradually until our dose becomes our new normal, our new base line. Our ability to absorb and assimilate and benefit from this new vitamin grows over time. It starts with a little piece of nourishment.
A little piece of love might be rubbing coconut oil on your hands after a bath.
Sitting with eyes closed, you might scan down through your body, noticing sensation and breath, and say to every piece of your body “Thank you for working with me today”
Bring to mind a kindness you’ve showed someone else, a success you’re proud of from anytime in your life…write down the positive qualities of you that made that happen.
Form them into affirmations for each quality…
“I am XxInsert your quality hereX and today, that is my truth”
“I have XxInsert your quality hereX and today, that is my truth”
You can repeat them through journalling, repeating out loud, recording them, repeat them whilst tapping on the EFT acupressure points (see a simple sequence at the end of this article), surround yourself with them by writing on posits and places around your home/office so you see them as often as possible.
EFT Point Sequence:
Karate Chop at Side of Hand
Between Eyebrows
Temple
Under Eye
Upper Lip
Chin
Under Collar Bone
Side Body
Crown of Head