I hate the rhetoric on self love. I hate the narrative of you have to love yourself before you can have anything or do anything or heal anything…
Children, like me, who grew up in a home where it was normal for a parent to tell you what you think or what you believe, or that you will be nothing, have nothing, do nothing, do not know how to love themselves. They were taught that trusting what they think about themselves isn’t real. They were likely told their reality was false.
Their sense of self is based on information from the outside world, while they are likely getting invalidation of positive feelings.
This is in contrast to another dynamic, other families, who may have been more nurturing and approving, and allowed their children to express themselves and their emotions. Those kids grew up with an internal sense of self worth and trust within themselves that was supported by their caregivers.
When our first instinct is to tell someone that they “need more self love” it can be very shaming and damaging – especially if they hear that from everyone else, every Instagram post, every self help book. The abused/abandoned child is sitting there screaming HOW?! EXPLAIN. THE. FUCK. HOW! And also, explain what that even means….
Most people don’t know how to build up their own self worth. I’ve had my own battles with self love, self worth, self esteem and self care. I certainly didn’t resented all of the words associated with it. When I was healing, all I knew is that I wanted to be able to trust myself.
When I work with clients on this, I always come from a place small steps. I don’t use the words “self love.” I don’t tell them they need to love themselves to move forward.
I work with them to build trust within themselves however we can. Whether that is making a smoothie first thing in the morning, or committing to a journaling practice, or deleting social media for a while, or reading 1 page in a book, whatever it is – whatever is true for THEM.
We work on establishing that, and detangling the inner monologue, that is likely in someone else’s voice telling them who they are. Book a Clarity Call here.