Dare to Be Brave: Practice Radical Self-Love
Jackie Capers-Brown - Be You Bravely
Award-winning Executive * Self-Leadership Success Strategist * I Teach Women, Teams & Leaders How to Get Unstuck, and Brave Their Greatness to Achieve Uncommon Success.
The best and most beautiful things in the world, cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart. -Helen Keller
Our desire to feel loved is a primary human need. Love is essential to our emotional health. Most of us don’t think twice about expressing acts of love toward those we care about and love. It’s second nature. Our ability to be empathetic and caring towards others helps to deepen the connection we experience in relationships. Research has found that the level of connection we feel in our relationships plays a crucial role in our sense of well-being.
As children, many of us were told by our parents and other adults that it is better to give than to receive. So, many of us internalized this thought as a way of BEing. As a result, we developed a tendency of spending a lot of time, energy, and resources meeting the needs of others while putting our needs on the back burner. Can you relate?
When we fail to take care of and love ourselves, we fail to relate to ourselves with compassion and loving-kindness. How can we truly open our hearts to another person if we are afraid to first open our hearts to ourselves? And so the first call of being brave is to open our hearts fully to ourselves.
A Return to Self-Love
Inside each of us is an invisible emotional tank.[i] When our emotional tank is full, we feel more secure within ourselves, so, we exhibit a greater measure of self-acceptance and self-love. On the other hand, when our emotional tank is empty from all of the energy we’ve spent meeting the needs of others and placing our needs on the back burner, eventually we either start to feel as if we’re not deserving of genuine care and concern or we begin to feel resentment toward others. When we choose to put our needs on the back burner, these actions often lead us to feel as if we’re not worthy or deserving of the same in our relationships. If we don't take action to re-fill our emotional tank with acts of self-care and compassionate love towards ourselves, our thoughts and actions are much more likely to be dominated by the voice of our inner critic.
When the voice of our inner critic dominates our way of thinking and being, we beat ourselves up with harsh and critical words that we wouldn’t dare speak to someone we love, and, yet, we have no problem speaking them to ourselves. Wouldn’t you agree? It is only by developing a practice of demonstrating acts of self-love toward ourselves that we can befriend ourselves, be empathetic, and demonstrate loving-kindness toward ourselves, just as we would for a family member or best friend in need of support and care from us.
Self-Acceptance is Key to Radical Self-Love
It's important for us to practice self-acceptance to embrace radical self-love. So many people strive to achieve the impossible goal of being “perfect.” Too often, we aren't mindful of how our lack of self-acceptance diminishes our ability to demonstrate radical self-love. We are accustomed to focusing on our “doing” instead of our “being.” Unfortunately, too many of us think and believe that by being critical of ourselves we will be motivated to be better and do better. Truth be told, this form of motivation often adds to our misery. Dr. Kristen Neff states, “Self-criticism makes us anxious, and stress and puts us in the worst possible mindset to do our best.”[ii]
You’re not going to get any brownie points for causing yourself to suffer. You’re not going to feel better about yourself by bashing yourself because of your imperfections and mistakes. You’re not going to try new things, have difficult conversations, and do what makes you feel uncomfortable or open yourself up to honest feedback from others about yourself without being brave.[iii] And you’re not going to be as brave as you’re capable of becoming without accepting all of you – your light and your darkness, your failures, and your successes. Relating to yourself with kindness and compassion helps to develop self-acceptance and self-trust. Both of which are important to harnessing and unleashing the brave in you.
Loving Yourself with an Open Heart
Jack Kornfield states, “When your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” What often derails us from loving ourselves are the “love” messages we have internalized as part of our conditioning as children. It is important for each of us to understand that there is no one on this earth that has gone through childhood to becoming an adult without experiencing some heartache. In many of our lives, the heartache we experienced came as a result of being exposed to people and environments that didn’t fully support our need to feel seen, heard, and accepted with unconditional love. This wasn't because we didn't deserve it. It was primarily because people see others as they see themselves and what they believe they deserve. This is all the more reason we need to own our power and choose to give ourselves the compassionate care we need to feel loved and lovable.
Living a loving life includes loving yourself. Loving yourself requires courage. It requires that you decide that you are worthy of unconditional love and you will give it to yourself regardless of whether someone thinks or feels you are worthy of unconditional love. Loving yourself requires that you become aware of your intrinsic worth which is not defined by your position, possessions, wealth, status, class, race, or any other social label. You are worthy of unconditional love simply because you are a human being with intrinsic value and the power of Divine intelligence within you.
I am not suggesting you should think or believe the world revolves around you. It doesn’t. It won’t. What I am suggesting is this, you can become a warmer, more loving, and compassionate person towards yourself. Then you will have a greater measure of warmth, love, and compassion to share with others.
Just know that the only person's permission you need to love yourself unconditionally is yours. You don’t have to wait on someone else to express love toward you before you believe that you are deserving of being loved. You can decide right now at this moment that you will be just as diligent toward loving yourself as you love others.
It takes a brave heart to love oneself unconditionally. It always has. It always will. We live in a world where many people view self-acceptance and self-love as selfish. So when you begin to express acts of unconditional self-love in a deliberate way, some people might say, "You're changing." Meet their feedback with a "Thank you." The people who believe in and genuinely want the best for you will see your self-care practice of loving yourself unconditionally in the highest regard.
A Return to Self-Love Action Guide
The following actions will help you to see the brilliance in yourself and be kind and loving towards yourself on a consistent basis. They will help you develop a more compassionate voice towards yourself and empower the brave in you.
When you find yourself being very critical of yourself Dr. Kristen Neff suggests that we take a self-compassionate break which includes the following two actions:
1. One of the quickest ways to shift from our critical voice to a more compassionate voice is through a physical gesture. Neff suggests that when we begin a self-critical rant, we can put our hands on our hearts, or caress our arms or the side of our faces as a way of soothing ourselves with a warm touch. She points out, “As mammals, we respond to warm soothing touches.”
2. Speak a loving-kindness phrase to ourselves.
Here’s one of my favorite loving-kindness affirmations by Jack Kornfield: [iv] “May I love myself just as I am. May I have a sense of worthiness and well-being. May I trust the world. May I hold myself in compassion. May I meet the suffering and ignorance of others with compassion.”
3. Be open to the practice of mindfulness with the intention of embracing the emotions you feel and developing a compassionate voice towards yourself. In the midst of a self-critical rant, make a physical gesture of sitting in stillness and allowing what you feel to unfold. Don’t make attempts to suppress your emotions. Allow yourself to feel and embrace them. It is only through the practice of allowing your feelings to emerge and dissolve without resistance you are able to heal the parts of you that need to feel compassion and unconditional love.
4. As an author, speaker, mentor, and trainer, I’ve found that sharing information about the common cognitive distortions we are all subject to experience throughout our lives, helps people feel empowered to better manage their thoughts, mood, and mindset. Based on the work of Aaron Beck, psychiatrist David. D. Burns M.D. discusses 10 forms of cognitive distortions in his book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy,[v] they are as follows:
Note: Each of us has one or several of these perceptions about ourselves, others, and life at various moments in our lives. If you recognize that any of these cognitive distortions have become your default way of thinking on a consistent basis, perhaps you may need to reach out to a trained mental health professional for support.
5. Tune in to what lights you up. One of the keys to a healthy practice of self-love is maintaining a sense of purpose and passion in life. Your involvement with tasks and activities that are in your strength zone builds your confidence and courage. And developing connections with people who sincerely care about your well-being reinforces the fact that you are worthy of being loved and cared for.
Answer the following statements. They will help increase your awareness of what fires you up from the inside out relevant to yourself, life, and work.
1. I am passionate about my life/work when I think…
2. I am passionate about my life/work when I feel…
3. I am passionate about my life/work when I do…
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4. I am confident about myself when I think…
5. I am confident about myself when I feel…
6. I am confident about myself when I do…
Tom Rath, author of Strength Finder 2.0 says, “You cannot be anything you want to be – but you can be a lot more of who you already are.” This is an important truth. Too many people fail to get to know themselves, so they proceed to work at becoming someone they are not.
Reimagining new possibilities and occupying your strength zone requires that you become attuned to your innate passions and strengths. Tasks and activities that cause you to feel strong and allow you to regularly experience a flow state represent your strengths. When you spend time engaged with people and tasks that support the expression of your innate strengths, you will feel happier, fulfilled, and confident.
In Conclusion
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we will ever do,” asserts Brené Brown. Your capacity to consistently practice radical self-love starts with a personal belief that you are important and worthy of unconditional love.
As much as I would love for everyone who reads this article to embrace radical self-love as a way of being and living, I know there is a persistent attitude in our society that promotes the pursuit of perfection. And it is this attitude that has so many people feeling bad and judging themselves – "I’m not good enough," "I need to do more," or "The problem is me."
Dr. Kristen Neff states, “When we criticize ourselves we reinforce the illusion that we are in complete control.” This illusion results in self-deception, ego-centric beliefs, and ego-driven actions. The one thing that most of us are in complete control of is how we respond to what happens to us in life.
As much as you would like to believe that you can control everything that happens to you, if you were truthful, you would admit that there have been numerous times in your life when you’ve planned and taken what you believe to be the appropriate actions and the situation still did not unfold as you’d hoped or planned. This is a fact of life that happens, not just to you, it happens to all of us.
It’s enough that you feel at times like you’re in a battle with life. You shouldn’t have to feel that there is a constant battle taking place within you. Don’t you agree? Practicing radical self-love is your solution.
Reflect
1. As a result of reading this article, what intuitive thoughts and actions did it inspire within you?
2. How can you begin to apply the information from this article in your life?
3. What challenges would you face applying the information from this article in your life? What are some actions you can take to overcome these challenges?
Respond
What benefit and value did you gain from this article? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share them in the comments below.
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Sources
[i] Chapman, Gary. The 5 Love Languages. USA. Northfield Publishing. 2010.
[ii] Neff. Kristen. Sounds True Self-Acceptance Project. Web.
[iii] Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly. USA. Penguin Group. 2012.
[iv] Kornfield, Jack. A Wise Heart. USA. Bantam Dell. 2009.
[v] Burns, David D. Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated. USA. Harper Collins. 1999.