I’m not sure why, but I’ve written four versions of this post and I’ve been dissatisfied with every one. It’s probably because this topic is such an important one to me and I’m especially concerned about getting it right. In my mind, the doors to true love and compassion for others can only be opened once we have mastered these things within and for ourselves.
And, as far as I can see, self-love and self-care are so woefully lacking in almost everyone that, of course, our societies are struggling with racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and homophobia. When there is self-loathing, there can be no room to embrace others as they are and to see how each life is precious and worth honoring.
I warn you. This post is a long one, but I promise it’s worth the read. 🙂
My own personal journey to self-love began about a year or so after my Dark Night. That initial year or so was spent learning how to reprogram my thinking from constant negativity to constant positivity. It was about making active choices towards building my own happiness, my own future, and a new version of myself that I could live with.
When that early groundwork was completed, it became clear to me that there was work to be done when it came to how I felt about myself.
There are two pieces of this that are somewhat separate but closely entwined. The first is how I felt about who I was on the inside and the second was how I felt about my body and how I looked on the outside. I’ll tackle the first one first.
The Inside
I used to be pretty hard on myself. As far back as I can remember, I had a voice inside my head that berated me for every perceived mistake and embarrassment. I’d relive my worst moments in my head over and over again, torturing myself with my failings.
It was a compulsion that kept me awake at night and filled all of my quiet moments.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal until one day in my early 20s I was caught saying some self-critical words out loud in front of my twin sister, Tammy. I’ll never forget what she said to me because it marked the very beginning of my awareness of the matter. She said, “Would you talk to me like that? No? Then why do you talk to yourself like that?”
I’d NEVER talk to another person the way I spoke to myself…
Wow. Of course, I’d NEVER talk to her – or any another person – the way I spoke to myself inside my head. She was profoundly right.
Throughout the two decades that passed from that moment, I made very little progress on my way to self-love but my sister’s words never failed to follow me and whenever I began my internal self-criticisms, I did try to go a little easier on myself.
The real breakthroughs, though, were yet to come.
My immediate focus after my Dark Night had been on gratitude and that, along with some nudges from the Universe, led me to forgiveness. Most importantly, forgiveness of myself. With this accomplished in large part, I was being led to something more and the Universe delivered for me in the form of messages from a new friend.
In July of 2022 when I met my friend, Sarah, I knew right away that she would be one of my greatest messengers. Her free way of living, her laughing smile and zest for life, were so infectious that I was immediately inspired. I remember fondly our first meeting.
We met at a restaurant for brunch and ended up talking non-stop for three hours! At the time, she’d been on a sabbatical from work and was exploring her spirituality with an excitement and enthusiasm that had me stepping even further outside my own known boundaries.
“I wanna explore my inner goddess, too!”
I remember specifically how she laughingly explained that she was dedicating much-needed time to exploring and embracing her inner goddess and she was so excited about it that I said in a breathy, awestruck voice, “I wanna explore my inner goddess, too!”
I ate up the reading list that Sarah shared with me over the months that followed. One of the most pivotal for me was The Heroine’s Journey – Woman’s Quest for Wholeness by Maureen Murdock. Within the pages of that book, I saw things about myself I hadn’t seen before and, more than that, I found a pattern emerging for the way I and many other women in our society seek success and self-worth in a world dominated by men.
With the books I was reading and with the evidence of Sarah’s inspirational experiences of self-healing, it became clear to me that I had spent my lifetime stifling my femininity. From the place I was raised to the career I’d chosen for myself, I’d unconsciously come to think of anything “girly” as being equivalent to weakness.
And I’d learned to perfect a mask of pseudo-masculinity to appear strong, competent, and worthy of respect. All of this was unbeknownst to me. Never once had I made the connection that living in a patriarchy meant subtle (and not so subtle) influences in favor of abandoning all things feminine.
And I was a woman.
So, in essence, I was unknowingly sending a huge message to myself – that I was not okay as I was. That I needed to be someone else to be enough. That I wasn’t good enough or strong enough to handle life as a woman.
How messed up is that??
This is when I began to abandon my wardrobe of black, gray, and navy blue t-shirts as a “fuck you” to the old paradigm and started actively exploring self-expression in the form of color, patterns, and embellishments.
This is when I started dedicating some of my free time to unleashing my creativity, which for me, is closely entwined with my femininity. And I began to read, journal, and meditate on the concept of the sacred feminine, all on my way to feeling whole for the first time in my life.
I wore nothing at all.
With every other weekend to myself (per our custody agreement), I started spending precious days dedicated fully to myself and getting in touch with my inner goddess. On those days, I’d nurture myself as though I were nurturing a beloved child. I bought myself flowers. I worked on creative projects.
And when I was at home, I either dressed up in something dramatic and feminine like a colorful kaftan with jewelry and makeup or I wore nothing at all.
It was during one of these days (February 5, 2023, to be exact) that magical, exponential healing happened for me.
Sarah told me that the full moon was in Leo, our birth sign. She urged me to honor the celestial event and, since I was up for trying anything new, I did a Google search for ideas. I bought myself some yellow and orange roses and set up an altar something like in the picture below in my living room. I took a luxurious citrus bath (citrus bath salt and orange essential oil with lemon and orange slices).
Then I dressed myself up like a goddess in citrine and carnelian malas and jewelry. I painted my face with gold makeup and put flowers in my hair. I prepared a cup of cacao and then sat in front of my altar.
With intentionality, I mentally scrolled through the many instances in my life where the people I cared about shut me down or refused to hear me. So many times, my voice was ignored by the people I loved.
And I had allowed myself to be treated similarly by acquaintances, friends, and coworkers. I saw all who failed me, including myself.
I saw the moments I silenced myself or told myself I was unworthy or not enough and the ways in which I continued to do so. I saw the moments I didn’t speak up for myself to say, “That’s not my nature. I won’t do that. I’m not participating in that.”
I reflected on the many versions of myself I’d been and I talked to a particular version that had gone through a period of suffering – my young 9-year-old self. I spoke of how perfect and brave she’d been when faced with the bullying that had her afraid of every day.
And then I talked to myself at other ages marred by hardships and began to recognize the steel in my spine and the incredible courage I’d had at each step in my life! I was astounded to see how many times I had stood up for myself or my loved ones and how, even when bullied and beaten, I still stood with my fearless heart and damned the consequences!
I triumphed quietly without anyone else recognizing how I won my battles…
After this long reflection whereby I recognized each past version of myself, truly saw how I triumphed quietly without anyone else recognizing how I won my battles, I was proud. So damned proud of myself!
As I started to fall under the spell of the plant medicine I’d ingested, I turned on my YouTube playlist of powerful music by women artists like Ayla Schafer, Anilah, and Ajeet and picked up my medicine drum to sing and play along. And a vision played out in my head as I did so…
In a late afternoon scene, on a path winding through rose-gold-colored meadows of tall grass, I saw children and women holding hands in a long line and laughing in excitement and joy as though they were walking and skipping along to some delightful picnic where they would all dance and play together.
I saw the children pulling on the hands of the older adults excitedly and the adults laughing indulgently, with love in their eyes for the children. And then I saw that the children were all versions of myself – my 3-year-old self, my 5-year-old self, my 7-year-old self, etc. and I saw that the adults were beautiful women, versions of my 20-year-old self, my 30-year-old self, etc.
And I cried at how nurturing we were to one another, like sisters, holding hands and laughing and talking and caring for one another. It was so beautiful!
And then I realized I was forgetting to honor and include my future selves! I welcomed my older selves in the line of women laughing and skipping down the road. And they were beautiful, too! Every single version of myself was fiercely adventurous, fiercely courageous, fiercely filled with the fire of life and love. And I LOVED them all!
The Outside
I’ve been very fit most of my life. But here’s the rub – even when I was at my fittest with 6-pack abs and muscles for days, I’d hated my body. I have an athletic build and I’m short at only 5’1. I have broad shoulders and narrow hips. I have a flat butt. So, even at my best, I fell far short of society’s definition of female beauty and that reality colored how I viewed myself.
Of course, now I’m even further from that unrealistic ideal as a mature woman. It was a process to come to terms with seeing an older version of myself in the mirror when I walked by rather than the young woman I still somehow expected to see.
It was like a switch had flipped; one day I was young and one day I wasn’t. It was a tough transition.
My perspective has huge ramifications for how I judge my physical appearance.
But one of the great side effects that came from the positivity and healing that was happening for me was that I started to like the way I looked. My perspective, I came to learn, has huge ramifications for how I judge my physical appearance.
For example, on a single day a year or two after my Dark Night, I walked by the mirror when I was feeling positive and happy and saw a beautiful woman looking back at me. Later that day, after I let myself fall back into old patterns of negativity, I walked by that same mirror, wearing the same clothes, and saw every ugly thing I hated about myself.
This was a HUGE eye-opener for me and yet another reason to keep my focus on the good.
When I began to work on bringing my femininity into the light after a lifetime in the shadows, I started to spend a lot of my alone time in the safe space of my home naked. The unfamiliar and delicious feel of the cool air on bare skin that had rarely been exposed became addictive.
With no one near to judge and stare, I let it all hang out. I didn’t suck anything in and I didn’t sit in flattering ways for an audience that wasn’t there.
And when I turned 50, I said a loving goodbye to my youthful maiden for good and welcomed with open arms my wise crone. I buzzed off my dyed brown hair in a divine ceremony and let my gray roots shine.
Now, I very much am over chasing anything that society says I need to have or be to be considered beautiful. I’ve come to hate being told what to do. At my age, I think I’ve more than earned the right to be comfortable in my own skin at last and deciding that has made all of the difference.
The more time I spent alone without clothes on and without self-judgement in the safe confines of my home, the more my body’s shape and size became just something normal and natural and beautiful to me.
And when I left self-criticism out of the equation, I could appreciate the miracle of the body gifted to me. I could cook and create with these hands. I could go on long walks at sunrise with these legs. I could hear achingly beautiful music with these ears. I could see the miracles all around me with these eyes. What a gift this body is!!
When you love something, you nurture it.
And the more I came to love my body, the more I naturally wanted to take care of it. I feel an urge to eat well, take my long walks, work out, cut back on drinking, and get as much sleep as possible.
When you love something, you nurture it.
I also began to honor my sacred feminine by listening to the needs of the woman within. I could see how, with the sun and moon and my own menstruation, there were cycles to my energy levels and emotions.
In the past, I ignored these as silly “weaknesses” but now I see them as proof of my connection to Mother Earth and the planets around me. My body observes these sacred dances of the cosmos as a natural way of things. I truly am a goddess, as all of us women are! How incredible is that?!
And with all of these realizations and understandings, I began to treat myself very gently indeed with love, compassion, and perfect acceptance of my imperfections.
If I’m feeling down, which happens rarely these days, I imagine two of me. I face my sad self and tell her I’m proud of her, that she’s amazing, and that she is so strong she can overcome anything. And then I hug her. I hold her through all her sadness and tell her she’ll never carry her burdens alone.
In other words, I love myself.
I Have Been a Thousand Different Women
by Emory Hall
make peace
with all the women
you once were.
lay flowers
at their feet.
offer them incense
and honey
and forgiveness.
honor them
and give them
your silence.
listen.
bless them
and let them be.
for they are the bones
of the temple
you sit in now.
for they are
the rivers
of wisdom
leading you toward
the sea.
// i have been a thousand different women
