The 4-Word Shift Toward Self-Love
As I've been connecting with my lovely one-on-one coaching clients who are beautifully committed to softening into a more unconditionally self-loving relationship with themselves — accepting all parts of themselves — this Truth recently dropped into my awareness:
The shift from “How does it look?” to “How does it feel?” is the pathway to self-love.
Our attention is trained largely externally from the moment we're born for reasons both (usefully) survival-related and (less usefully) ego-related. Our brains are wired to turn our attention outward to scan the horizon for dangers both physical and emotional; both real and imagined.
So the practice of repeatedly and consistently withdrawing our attention from what things look like outside of us and turning our attention instead inward toward what things feel like within us, while at first glance a seemingly subtle shift, is actually quite revolutionary.
Because self-love is a natural byproduct of self-intimacy.
Self-intimacy is a natural byproduct of self-friendliness.
Self-friendliness is a natural byproduct of self-awareness.
So all self-love begins with self-awareness — noticing our habits of mind and feeling and action, paired with an intention of self-friendliness (even if we don't feel particularly friendly toward ourselves at first).
When we pause to get familiar with what's going on in our inner landscape in a given moment, that's actually a profound act of self-intimacy.
And the gateway into self-intimacy is through the physical body and the senses.
So we can begin to deepen our intimacy with ourselves — and by extension nudge our way toward greater self-love — by practicing tuning into what's happening within our body (which is of course the vessel for our being) from moment to moment.
THESE TYPES OF INNER INQUIRIES (aka Interoceptive Awareness Enhancers) MIGHT SOUND LIKE:
What sensations are present in my body right now?
What emotions are swirling within me right now?
What am I noticing I'm hungry or thirsty for?
What energy is reverberating through me in this moment?
Where am I aware of tension in my body?
Where do I notice a sense of ease in my body?
What are my eyes seeing in this moment?
What are my ears hearing in this moment?
Where do I notice warmth or coolness in my body right now?
Getting familiar with subtler and more nuanced layers of our inner experience naturally ripples out toward greater self-understanding; and nonjudgmental self-understanding naturally radiates out toward greater self-affection and self-care…
So if you've been craving a deeper sense of self-love but feeling unclear or overwhelmed about where to start, use the body as the bridge to greater self-understanding and self-friendliness.
Tune into the subtle but vibrant, constantly streaming flow of energy experienced through the senses as sensations in your body as a starting point and trust that self-warmth, self-kindness — and yes, eventually even self-love — will flow from there.
With Love,