Fed up and looking for change? Yes to the freedom and transformative power of authentic self-love.

One of the most important and yet challenging things in life is to learn how to be truly be compassionate with ourselves. The relationship that we have with ourselves has a huge impact on our lives and affects our relationships with everything and everyone. I’m not talking about loving ourselves only when we feel we are ‘loveable’, loving the ‘good’ aspects of ourselves and shoving the ‘not so good’ under the carpet, giving ourselves a hard time when we feel ‘not good enough’. I’m not talking about loving ourselves and not caring about others. I’m talking about genuine self-love and self-compassion for ourselves that naturally extends to others authentically.

It is of course true that it can be very challenging at times to love ourselves especially the bits of ourselves we are less fond of but if we are picking and choosing what we love about ourselves-is that really self love? Self-love is all embracing and about loving ourselves even if we are finding it very difficult to do that. Have compassion with that part of you that is having difficulty with doing that. In order to be more compassionate with ourselves we can try to be kind to ourselves, accept that we are imperfect and embrace the freedom of living more fully in the now. We don’t need to run from our emotions but rather befriend them and take care of them by being really kind to ourselves. Self-compassion means loving and accepting oneself fully- the ‘good’ and the ‘not so good’. When we accept ourselves as we are, we open up to transformation- we can experience a lot more peace and freedom. We also begin to free ourselves from judgment: both of others and ourselves. What is there to judge and why? When we are self-critical or critical of others we increase stress hormones in the body and we are sending the body into the fight or flight response. Acceptance is hugely freeing. Accepting the things we cannot change makes space to change the things we can change.

The talented psychologist Robert Holden once said that ‘illness has a very basic cause- lack of self-love’. Self-love and self-compassion are hugely empowering and hugely healing. We simply cannot underestimate the power of genuine and true self-love and compassion. Certainly its easy to love ourselves when things are going well in life but I’m talking about the type of love that can embrace even the most difficult of emotions: fear, anger, grief, distress etc. Self-compassion is not some airy-fairy concept that is a waste of time. It means being very real and true to ourselves and takes honesty, commitment, dedication and responsibility. Self-care is a huge part of self-love.

Self-care means taking proper care of yourself and treating yourself as kindly as you treat others. It means that our emotions and ourselves are well looked after. It also means making you a priority. When we find ourselves focusing more on others than ourselves, we become worn out, stressed out and run down. For those of us who spend time helping and caring for others, it is too easy to neglect our own needs. It’s like “running on empty” when we don’t take the time to re-fuel. The truth is that you are a precious person and you deserve your own love and appreciation as much as anyone. Many of us know this and yet so many of us do not act in ways that honour ourselves. Why is this?

95% of the day our mind is operating from subconscious thinking- this is not such good news if we grew up in difficult family circumstances. In truth, we are only controlling our thinking 5% of the time so as much as we want to change, as much as rationally we recognize how we could change- our subconscious programming can sabotage happiness in our life and cause us to act in ways that are unhealthy and that relates to the past even if we genuinely do want to change and recognize how to do that. Subconscious programmes are learnt mainly from our family of origin and date back to our earliest years. We experience things that we soak in and then play out later in our lives in ways that most of us don’t even realize. If someone grew up in a less than ideal family environment they will have a tendency to recreate that difficulty throughout their lives and recreate situations that are less than loving unless they are aware and get support around this. This does not mean you have to be a victim but it does mean that you will have to take responsibility for yourself if you wish things to change. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) can play a huge part in helping us with loving ourselves and stepping into more freedom in our lives. It is such a joy to see people get great, quick-acting and effective results through this work. EFT has an influence on our Subconscious programming and helps us move forward in more empowering ways.

Listening to and honouring our needs along with being true and authentic to ourselves really enables us to be fully there for ourselves. We begin to step into emotional freedom. We can then let go of things or situations that we don’t truly need or stop frequenting people who don’t align with our values. We can create situations in life that are more positive and frequent people who we truly love, who care about us and who we feel great with. This helps us to be more at peace with life and let go of struggle or numbing activities that we may be engaging with (drinking too much alcohol, eating too much, engaging in unhealthy relationships, spending too much time on the internet, watching too much TV, frequenting people who don’t truly value us…the list goes on and on). Some people spend their whole lives not truly living the life they wish or running from what they feel. It can be difficult to face challenging emotions but the truth is: we cannot truly heal something that we are unwilling to acknowledge or feel. The good news is that this can be done both gently and effectively. EFT is a very gentle and yet powerful therapy. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you wish to step more fully into self-love and freedom. It is possible. What I love about EFT is that its a very quick acting and self- empowering tool that you can learn how to use at anytime in your day to day life. Get in touch with me for a free 20 min trial. I look forward to hearing from you.

Contact: Emer (083)4631710 or emulla8888@gmail.com

I am available for private sessions at the end of June and July and I have a women’s nurturing day coming up in July: a nurturing day of yoga, meditation, chi self massage, dance, mindful movement, playful creative practices and coaching ideas. Come along if you feel drawn to experiencing such a day of well being, empowerment and fun. Please get in touch for more details.

Soulful Living