Can we learn to love ourselves again?

What happened to our self-worth?

We sat in circle on Sunday, and like every circle I’ve ever been part of we listen to words about confidence, self-worth, self-love, body-positivity, and self-doubt.

Why don’t we love ourselves?

Why don’t we love our bodies?

Why do we believe that we need to be a certain way?

Why do these things matter so much that it affects our ability to be vulnerable and open even with the people closest to us?

Because we’ve been conditioned from birth that our looks matter. Advertising plays on flaws, and tells us we’ll be confident and attractive if we change that part of ourselves, conceal this part, and invest in age-defying products.  

A very narrow idea of beauty is fed through mass media. A particular type is seen everywhere and the beauty ideal is set. Then treatments, procedures, and products become available that can ‘help’ us achieve a similar look. A small few, but sufficiently high-profile, people adopt them and suddenly there’s enough demand to make various means of transformation very accessible. Suddenly that ideal is seen in various degrees everywhere.

There’s (growing) but very little appreciation of diversity beyond the slim yet toned, tall and leggy physique with a round and perky bum, a rounded and perky bust, flat stomach, the appropriate hip to waist ratio, clear slightly tanned skin, white straight teeth, and Bambi eyelashes. Probably less than 1% of the population fit this ideal. But regardless everyone else becomes to feel ugly in comparison.

We seek to change the way we look to meet the ideal. Believing that when we look a certain way, we will feel good.  

But really – isn’t it when we feel good, and when we exude self-ownership and self-worth and confidence that we look good, that we’re attractive? Being ashamed of our bellyrolls is far more unattractive than the actual bellyrolls. On one level we know this, but ultimately we don’t feel like that.

Where did this stem from?

The patriarchy. Man and woman have been led to believe that women are second class citizens, that we are the dumber, weaker, less dependable sex, and that our sole merit is based on how attractive we are to men and our ability to reproduce. Still today in some societies daughters and wives remain the property of men, laws are made against their autonomy and they are rendered completely dependable on men for survival. In developed western societies the inequality is far less stark but it still insidiously remains. Over thousands of years the patriarchy has thrived by disempowering the feminine. Our belief in ourselves and our sovereignty was eroded bit by sure bit. Our appearance and our ‘good’, deferential, and pleasant behaviour became critical otherwise we were outcast, even burned at the stake. The patterning is deeply ingrained. We don’t need a man to reject us, or tell us we are unattractive to feel unworthy and inferior, because we already believe in the core of our being that we are not enough.

Knock deep enough and you will find the hurt even amongst the strongest.

How can we reclaim what is ours?

How can we believe in ourselves? How can we learn to really love ourselves? How can we rebuild our self-worth?

We start gently.

We witness ourselves in another. This is why I believe that women’s circles or sacred time communing with other women is so important. Because you sit there and you see every part of your psyche reflected back at you, you hear your own hurt in another’s voice, you see your own beauty in theirs, that they still can’t see. You hear their fears and limiting beliefs and you want to scream at them and hold them and say “what?” you feel like that? You believe that? You are EVERYTHING! You are so BEAUTIFUL! You are so STRONG! You are SEXY! You have such depth. You are magic. And we sit there in silence and deep reverence hearing the other speak and we feel it, and I believe that just being present and witnessing that is healing.

We are willing to meet our wounded parts. We acknowledge the hurts and we tell our inner child what she needs to hear. When we are triggered we feel that trigger, and later when the emotion is integrated we see what it was that was triggered, we see that the comment from a friend that had you react with a kaleidoscope of feelings was at the core of it stemming from a fear of rejection. Then you can tell yourself that you are loved and wanted just as you are.

We allow ourselves to feel. Everything, the so called good feelings and the so called negative feelings. Bring your senses alive with the feeling of it, sink into it and allow it. Our human experience requires us to feel fully, it is the only way we can integrate and release our emotions. We can’t continue to push things down, bottle up, and forget. This leads to stagnation. Your body never lies, and this is part of the reason why we can be triggered so easily in the present day about something that happened in childhood.

We seek pleasure in all things. We follow our desires, we do what feels good to us, not what we ‘should’ do. Forget the rat-race and the aim for productivity, success, and perfection. Release yourself from this culture of punishment and victimisation. It doesn’t serve you. What serves you is living your life from a seat of pleasure. Pleasure is your birthright. You will thrive on it.

We flow. We use our internal cycle, our menstrual cycle, and the cycles in nature as our guidance posts to embrace the principle of flow. Rest and turn inwards when it is time to rest, rage and release when you are called to, sow seeds of creativity when the time is ripe, and ride high and celebrate the rewards when it comes. Allow the fall and know that from the period of rest and incubation life rises again.

We connect. With Mother Nature, and with other women, our community and with ourselves.

We understand with compassion. Know that we are products of conditioning and culture and inherited intergenerational patterning. A long time ago women were celebrated, the Goddess was worshipped, societies lived in balance and harmony, female and male in partnership. Then came the patriarchy and the repression of the feminine. Note it’s not men who are to blame. They have suffered too.

The system is against us, and can easily fool us into believing less of ourselves, but we need to meet everything from a place of heart-centered knowing. In the purity of our hearts, and in the sureness of our wombs we know that we are everything we can ever imagine and more. Honour and nurture every glimmer of hope. Just with this knowing ever-so-slightly we ignite our truth, and we each become catalysts for a ripple effect out to our loved ones, our communities, and the world at large.