Do You Love Yourself?
FREE Self-Love Reminders Printable PDF below!
I used to loathe myself. Love was a word that didn’t compute. I could never truly accept love because I didn’t know how to feel it for myself.
As babies we are born happy, loveable and wanting to love.
But what happens when we experience feelings of neglect, criticism or abandonment in our childhood…. that we feel the hurt so strongly and intensely as children we appoint ourselves to blame and internalise our pain?
As we grow, a part of us begins to believe we are unworthy of love….
That inner child who felt unsafe and ignored
That tormented teenager struggling with rejection and disappointment
That younger version of our adult self still feeling the pain of never measuring up
When we don’t believe we are loveable, we struggle to allow anyone else to love us, thinking “How could anyone love me when I don’t even love myself?”
So we push love away. We don’t trust love – or ourselves.
We self-sabotage and fight against our very desire to meet that need we are so hardwired to crave the most.
We might start believing that we’re only loveable if we behave a certain way, weigh a certain size, or when we achieve a certain success.
Loving yourself may seem daunting.
In fact, for many clients I first work with, they don’t even like themselves at the start.
I remember a significant experience many years ago in a moment of true despair. I was flushed on the floor exhausted from a horrendous binge and purge…
All of a sudden I clambered to stand and turned towards the mirror.
I stood for a moment in disgust, yet was searching for some hope, reasoning and still, someone to blame….
At first my anger kept me from seeing anything worthy about myself.
It was painful and hard, and I wrestled with every urge to turn away and not face my own feelings.
But I forced myself, willed myself to stay and face the mirror.
What kept me standing there defiantly was my desperate need to find something worth loving, because I had finally realised that abusing myself with food was simply not making my life better.
I wanted more than anything to feel something positive about my life.
So I stood there for over an hour, staring at myself.
First into my own eyes, then at my skin, my features, and finally my fears….
And after what seemed like days, something profound and unexplainable happened and everything else started falling away.
My anger turned to calmness. My fear turned to hope, and my disgust turned to kindness…
I could see beyond the pain that my inner child had been carrying all those years.
I began to feel compassion for how alone and empty she must’ve felt.
It was the beginning of my inner journey to first like, then gradually learn to love and accept myself whole.
In the spirit of giving and receiving, I made this self-love affirmation poster for you to print out and work with in the mirror so you too can have that moment with yourself.
I hope you print it out and put it near your bed.
I hope you start gently, being patient with any aversion to it.
I really hope you try to read it aloud and come to feel its’ truth in your heart. If not now, maybe one day soon.
Whatever you do with it, please know….
You are already worthy of love.
But to receive it from others, you must first give yourself permission to receive it from yourself….
PRINT YOUR SELF-LOVE PDF HERE
It’s made with love….
Transformational Coach, Counsellor and Therapist
Freedom and Recovery from your Emotional, Weight & Eating Issues
Viki Thondley is a Rapid Transformational Therapist, Holistic Counsellor & Meditation Therapist specialising in self-worth, stress, mind-body connection, subconscious reprogramming, depression/anxiety, body-image & eating disorder recovery. She is Founder/Director of the MindBodyFood Institute & author of the Holistic Life Coach & Mind-Body Practitioner certification course, plus several coaching & whole food books.
