We think we love ourselves to some extent, or at least parts of it. However when we dissect our thoughts and behaviours, it’s pretty surprising how much we consciously and unconsciously beat ourselves up, operating from an undercover place of a lack of self-love.
The human-conditioned avatar
We are not taught to love ourselves. On the contrary, turning within and self-love is often labelled as selfish. From a young age we are put on the rails towards scarcity land, in separation from whom and what we are deep inside.
We are primed and conditioned to chase what society labels as success, corresponding to specific societal standards and aesthetic criterion. We are told to please, to be critical with ourselves, and to compete and seek fulfilment in the outside world. Being born and bred to fear and be ashamed of failure, to hide and numb our emotions.
Through generations and without questioning, we are living up to other people’s expectations, existing through their perception of the world. We are told what to do, think and be in almost all areas of our lives. That has definitely led humanity into limbo and separation within ourselves as much as with one another.
We learn about love through a mind-constructed self, therefore falling into the trap of conditional love, or what I call substitutes of love. It is like building an avatar that shows on the outside what you think the world wants from you, but that is not you.
Substitute of love
Substitute of love is anything that is done on a conscious or unconscious level in order to fill up the emptiness that resides within, due to lack of self-love. Looking for someone else to make you happy, giving in order to receive, adapting to relationships or societal standards to be appreciated, running head first into the material world or activities to flee the inner void. Are we really able to give true love to each other if we’re not able to love ourselves? Or is it the avatar’s love?
Lack of self-love, the cause of many effects
Returning to our constructed self, not managing to fit into the expected societal box means that we have failed. What does failure mean in scarcity land? It means not feeling good enough, not feeling worth it, not deserving, not belonging to the tribe. Finally leading to the fear of being rejected, which is the equivalent of not being loved. What does all of that stand for on a more primal brain unconscious level? No tribe is equal to no safety, no food, no development and no reproduction. Thus meaning potential death. Whatever we call the above symptoms, lack of love and self-love are the mother roots of all.
This has a tremendous impact on our daily lives. It’s embedded in our minds and in our cells that if we don’t reach the outside world’s expectations, we are a failure. Let’s pause for a moment on these expectations. Who established them? In which era were they implemented? What are they based on? On who’s needs? Surely we can say they aren’t based on anything that would support a smooth and painless inner growth, a collective growth or unconditional love. Living by these conditionings generally leads to an endless birthing of our true selves with forceps.
A little trip from the outside in
Let’s have a play with perception here.
Scene 1
As you are reading, imagine you are with your child who is 5 or 6 years old. This child is a piece of you. You love him to bits, and you’re responsible for guiding him on his journey to discovering himself and the world. One day this child comes back from school in tears. He tells you that for the last week his teacher has been telling him how stupid and ugly he was. That no-one can like him as he is and therefore he is a failure. How would you react? You would go absolutely mad, no doubt. This would be as cruel as it is unacceptable.
Scene 2
Now imagine you are the one telling this same child to wear a large sweater to hide his fat little belly. To stop crying because it’s weak and achieves nothing. When he does so you send him to his room, telling him that he can only come back when he’s in a better mood. How would you feel saying these things? How would a child of this age feel hearing these words?
In what could appear to be just words, can you sense the broader meaning and energy that is carried out?
Hide your belly: you are not adequate, I reject this part of you, I don’t love you.
Stop crying: stop feeling, what you are trying to express is not wanted, you are rejected, I don’t love you.
Go to your room: you are socially evicted because you are not desirable as you are, I reject you, I don’t love you.
Scene 3
Now take a break and think about what you say to yourself regularly, if not on a daily basis. From these discreet little thoughts that pop into your mind inadvertently, to the conscious statements when you pass in front of the mirror. You notice a plump belly or skinny legs, you wish you were more assertive, less emotional. Maybe you call yourself stupid or weak because of something you have just done. That you are not as good as x. You think that you don’t deserve y because of z.
What do you feel when you have these thoughts? A glimpse of disappointment, shame, powerlessness, sadness? You think that you will feel better and love yourself more when it’s gone or if it was different? Or maybe these feelings about your inner talks are numbed, and you think that they are just words or thoughts. Nevertheless, whether they emanate from your inner chatter or from someone else, the impact is far broader than you think.
Our brain is a pattern master
What can seem insignificant becomes recurring thought patterns, and our brain is a pattern master. These thoughts and feelings produce a related inner biochemistry that leads to a state of being that ends up becoming beliefs. Yet not speaking of the effect that has on your cells. More about this particular subject can be read in this article. These beliefs generate specific behaviours, actions or reactions, that serve in keeping you separate from yourself. Therefore this perpetuates a constant conscious, or unconscious self-rejection, that is the other end of the pole of self-love. All that is because of a so perceived “default” that doesn’t fit the outer world’s expectation – expectations that you have taken on as yours without noticing. Nevertheless, you pursue ways in this same outside world to feel better, become better and be fulfilled. It’s the snake biting its tail.
Do others love you or your avatar?
Even if you do your best to please and attain what society tells you to be, think and do, it means that it’s not you that others are going to love and accept. They are liking the avatar you have built, this false face that you are putting on, the status you are exhibiting. Wouldn’t it be liberating to be who you truly are? To accept that if people don’t like you, well, that’s a natural selection. That they are not the ones who are meant to be in your life anyway. Yet, if they do like you, you know that they love you for who you really are.
You are vibrating love energy
As Rumi said: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
To me, what I call unconditional love is this undefinable state of bliss, of pure energy that just is, has always been and always will be. It is a deep inner knowing and feeling of connection with something far greater than our understanding. It is the source of all that is, where our mental constructs no longer exist. An infinite power station that resides at our core, from which beautiful by-products emanate, such as compassion, trust, authenticity and care. Love is a vibration, love is healing and infinite possibilities. That love, or what we have named as “love,” we can share and live by in our humanity.
I also think that one doesn’t give unconditional love. You are love, you are vibrating waves of love energy at the core. Therefore your vibrations are not only within yourself but in the field around you. Your intention makes you expand these vibrations to whoever or whatever you wish, sharing them with more intensity, in a more focused way. It is being in the present moment with no expectation except letting who you are radiate.
From that place you are not seeking fulfilment from the outside – you are sharing the wholeness of your being from the inside. The love and harmony you are within radiates to others, to the collective field and consequently in what you do. So let’s start a self-love revolution, lift the veils, love yourself and shine this true and amazing you to the world.
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