my path to self-love
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“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.”
after a lengthy hiatus, i've decided to facilitate another sacred sister virtual circle. and the theme that's been tugging at my heartstrings is self-love.
you see, not loving myself is what...
...led me to swallow three bottles of sleeping pills on my 20th birthday.
...led me to (very briefly) let men shove folded bills into the band of my g-string.
...led me to tolerate narcissistic abuse in the form of raging, gaslighting, manipulation, and constant diminishing from a former partner.
...led me to apologize for how i showed up in the world.
...kept me playing small and not feeling worthy of taking up space.
...kept me from sharing my gifts with with others.
And then something happened: i came to love myself.
it's wild, though, because i never set out on a mission to love myself.
i just started to live in integrity with my true nature.
and the more i did this...
...the fewer disclaimers i began to offer for my decisions.
...the less i apologized for showing up as my authentic self.
...the less i tolerated those who expected me to play small or treated me as though my being me was weird. [side note: isn't it weirder to live your life pretending to be someone you're not?!]
...the stronger my voice became, the more okay i was with others not being okay with me (including my loved ones), and the more space i began taking up.
...the more vulnerable i was willing to get with people. [maybe that's why my email open rate is insanely high?!]
until one day it hit me...i freaking love myself!
i may have spent the vast majority of my life not loving myself, but now i do. and it's such a radically glorious, joyful, and beautiful place to be.
i wish i could time-travel and hold the little girl i once was, the girl who downed those pills believing that the world be a better place without her in it. [i'm actually crying as i write this. how terribly wrong she was, but she didn't know...]
i wish i could show each and every single one of you how beautiful you truly are. i want to look into your eyes so that you can see what i see in you - it's my reflector magic! your light. your capacity to love; to love both yourself and the world.
and with that...
if you don't love yourself, consider…
finding or create a soul-nourishing sisterhood. how? call a circle (it's truly not rocket science!) or come to one of mine!
reading books and blogs from authors like martha beck, tara mohr, liz gilbert, or any other woman who you find yourself inexplicably drawn to and who radiates presence, joy, and love.
making a promise to yourself to live in full integrity with your true nature one day at a time, by checking in with your body and allowing its cues to guide your decisions and actions.
taking daily turtle steps towards self-love. maybe you commit to exploring what self-love looks like to you via journaling each morning, or maybe you spend 15 minutes allowing yourself to be purely delighted by watching pollinators do their thing, or...
some of these items may seem nonsensical. like, how is reading a book going to help?! but what i've found to be true for me as i reflect back on my own life-changing paradigm shift is that it was a collection of "little" things that eventually changed my world.
each and everything i've been able to identify that i did was about living in integrity with my true nature on some level. and so, why not try starting with that...in whatever what that looks to you?
learning to love yourself is not a linear process, and it's one of those things where you may discover one day (as i did) that something's shifted; where you not only realize that you love yourself, but that you also experience yourself as love.
that is all.
thank you for reading! if you’d like to learn more about me (kristi amdahl), la que sabe (she who knows), and my offerings, please mosey on down to my about page. thanks!
