Why it is important to love yourself as a woman

I will be sharing with you a point that is usually overlooked. Being aware of it can make a big difference in your life. It certainly did for me.

First, let me say this:

It is natural for us to love ourselves, all of us. Look at a baby or toddler who is welcome and wanted by her parents — what you see is a tiny human that is full of love, excited to be here, a being that wants to explore and to express her- or himself.

When we get around babies, we get this sense of awe, almost as if we are witnessing eternal life force coming through — eager to express herself.

And for a baby at first, there is no question of self-love.

Problems with self-love arise in early childhood. They come up when we have experiences that disturb the natural needs of our baby selves.

Strangely enough, as a society, we are only researching the natural needs of babies in the last 30 years. And one thing that we learn is that babies are fully conscious and register everything that happens to them. ¹⁾

Because of my adverse childhood experiences, I started paying attention to research that seemed to hold answers to my inner anguish, which had the potential to drive me crazy.

When I was about 18 years old, I also started an intense meditation and spiritual routine to pull myself back together, literally.

Between the latest psychological research and my meditation practice, I recognized how lack of self-love comes about, resulting in self-rejection of various degrees.

When we talk about why it is important to love ourselves, here is the most obvious reason:

When you love and approve of yourself,  you feel good about yourself!                                              

Your inner well-being stays intact when you love yourself, meaning you are not conflicted inside. Your entire personality is more stress-resilient, and you can make decisions that support you because you trust yourself and life. In other words, you will create a fulfilling life for yourself.

 

But when you don’t love yourself, you mostly feel bad, and you start thinking and feeling that you are not good enough.

Once you have adopted feeling bad about yourself, your inner self-rejection leads you to have problems and fears, be insecure, and very likely you will feel helpless when circumstances or other people are devaluing you.

So far, what I said is true for all of us, independent of gender. Most of us had experiences of negative conditioning in childhood one way or another.

This brings me to the main point that I don’t hear many people talking about:

As women, we are facing not only personal adverse childhood experiences that reduce our ability to love ourselves, but we also face social structures that are restrictive to the female gender. Depending on the country we live in, we may even face physical violence.

 

Women face two reasons for loss of self-love

1. Personal adverse childhood experiences
2. Social patriarchal systems which degrade women and feminine values

Let me repeat:

On top of your childhood conditioning, you experience the worldwide cultural depreciation of women and feminine values.

This collective stream of consciousness filled with the idea of female devaluation influences you daily in a subconscious way, suggesting that

‘you don’t count,                                                                                           

that you are not important,

that you don’t deserve the same amount of attention      

and support as ‘your brothers’. ²⁾

 

To me, this is the main reason why it is so crucial for women to practice self-love.

I remember being 11 years of age when I had my first taste of mainstream opinions about the supposedly lesser value of women. As women, we are confronted with these diminishing situations in all areas of life, professionally, economically, socially, and even spiritual teachings practice active depreciation of women.

There was a time when I was utterly upset about all of this until I realized that being upset doesn’t help at all.

What helped me was to find ways to stop seeing myself with the same eyes our patriarchal mindset would see me.

That is when my conscious self-love journey began.

In time I started feeling better about myself. I stopped focusing on my glitches and imperfections; instead, I learned to value myself just for me, just for being here.

I even learned to minimize my inner critic, who used to bring me to tears in the way it criticized the spirited aspects of me.

But there was that day when I recognized in one of my meditations that my inner critic was nothing other than the internalized voice of my hyper-critical mother and the voice of our dominator social system — all nicely entwined together.

And that was the day this nerve-racking voice in my head lost the upper hand over my life.

 

It was vital to recognize that some of my problems came from the collective consciousness of our culture and the way feminine values are not recognized.

For example, body image is a big part of patriarchal social conditioning. Just knowing where these beliefs of how you should look or behave come from can help you to no longer let them influence you.

Because it made such a big difference in my life, I like to share this with you.

If you are not aware of these patriarchal judgments, you may go on believing these crazy internalized voices that don’t serve you at all.

 

Coming to the end of this video, my main recommendation for you is to set a powerful intention to love, value, and honor yourself daily.

First: Set the powerful intention to love, value, and honor yourself daily.

There is a link in the description below to my guided meditation ‘Choosing to love yourself.’

Second: You can get the most powerful help for your self-love journey from your inner guidance or intuitive knowing.

Simply ask within— I mean stating the question is all you need to do:

“What is the most important thing I can do to increase my love for myself?”

You will see that you receive answers that may amaze you and show you ways you never thought of.

 

And one more thing:

Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself as if you are someone, you respect and love. Be understanding, compassionate, and endlessly patient with yourself because these are the main ingredients of self-love.

The main ingredients of self-love:

Be understanding, compassionate, and endlessly patient with yourself

You were born with so much love in your heart. And there is one thing I know for sure:
Self-love will return you to this inner loving state, and you will start feeling good about yourself — just like it is happening to me.

Thank you for being here. Please, let me know what questions you have about self-love. Write them down in the comments!

With love and delight!

Carola

 

Book Reference:

¹⁾ Welcoming Consciousness, Wendy Anne McCarty

¹⁾ The Secret Life of Babies, Mia Kalef

²⁾ Nurturing our Humanity, Riane Eisler

 

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