RADICAL SELF-LOVE: THE IMPORTANCE OF PROTECTING YOUR ENERGY
It's been about a year exactly since shelter in place orders were announced here in California. I don’t feel it's possible to even try to sum up what this year has been like. Just really, really hard. Sitting here in my apartment, I’m thinking about what real self-love looks like. It is easy to feel good about ourselves when life is moving along more or less as we predicted, but this past year felt like the challenge of a lifetime.
Collectively, we felt the heavy emotions of fear, grief and outrage. Navigating and responding to the pandemic, as well as social and political upheavals has siphoned off precious energy resources within all of us. It is now crucial that we protect what little energy we have left, and learn to become aware of the ways we allow ourselves to become drained. Radical self-love takes commitment to our emotional health and dedication to protecting our vital energy resources.
In times of uncertainty there is a lot of fear, and fear triggers our saboteurs. In my last post, I describe how our saboteurs (normal and healthy childhood survival strategies that as adults become maladaptive coping techniques and a hindrance to our growth) keep us from really knowing what we want in life. This past year of living through a pandemic got me thinking about how in our “new normal” we are being asked to develop new ways of coping with challenges we never before encountered at such an extreme. In an attempt to manage our fears that our lives may not going the way we had hoped or planned, our saboteurs scramble for solid ground and go into overdrive trying to keep us safe and in control.
To better understand this, here’s a quick check-in for you:
How do you treat yourself when anxiety arises because your “normal” no longer exists?
What do you turn to when your old strategies for self-care, routine, distraction and getting your needs met don’t seem to work anymore?
How do you talk to yourself when you are out of work, or grieving, or don’t know how to support the people in your life in the way you are used to because you’ve run out of energy?
If you were honest, you might feel a bit uncomfortable with some of your answers. Maybe you chastise yourself for not being as productive or happy-looking as your peers on Instagram. Maybe you turn to food, alcohol or TV to soothe your anxiety. Maybe your self-talk starts sounding a lot like your parents as they scolded you for being too sensitive and not trying hard enough. Sitting with the discomfort of this truth is radical self-love. It is in noticing our ego protection strategies and accepting our negative emotions that we begin to heal these old narratives and beliefs.
So often we are told to love ourselves; but with a society that always told us what we should look like, act like and want in order to be accepted and loved by others, many of us believe deep-down that our worth is contingent on how the outside world perceives us. Our saboteurs reinforce this belief. They are constantly monitoring our behaviors and choices to carefully ensure we are “good enough.”
The trouble with saboteurs is that unless we increase our self-awareness, we might not even notice them draining our energy. We spent a lifetime distancing from the parts of ourselves we were taught not to be. This constant vigilance takes effort and energy, and so in a way, we unwittingly become our own energy vampires.
Let’s look at two particular saboteurs that can easily drain our energy without us even noticing, partly because they are constantly validated by our society and culture. c
THE PEOPLE-PLEASER
(If you are naturally compassionate and empathetic this one may resonate). This saboteur feels other people’s affection and acceptance must be earned by helping, rescuing, or pleasing them. The underlying belief is that it is selfish to prioritize and ask for your own needs to be met. The fear is that people will reject or otherwise abandon you if you do not put other people’s needs and wishes before your own. The risk is losing sight of your own needs, and becoming resentful when you are taken for granted.
Self-inquiry: Are your needs as important in your relationships as the other party’s? What would it feel like if you stopped being what you thought other people wanted you to be?
THE HARD-WORKER
This saboteur needs to earn the approval and respect of others by constantly staying productive, which is usually measured by outside standards. The underlying belief is that a lack of productivity is lazy and pitiable. The fear is that you will lose self-respect if you are not performing at high-levels of socially-accepted standards. The risk is that self-acceptance becomes conditional upon external achievement, and you lose contact with your deeper feelings and ability to foster close relationships.
Self-inquiry: What would it feel like to stop being productive? Who would you be?
The hard truth is that we ALL have varying levels of these saboteurs. We are human, and it is part of how we are wired. But when your self-worth is tied to pleasing and performing for others, you are colluding with your saboteurs and draining your own energy.
The wonderful truth, however, is that we are all capable of learning greater self-compassion and self-love to encompass even our saboteurs, so that we no longer let the fears of rejection or abandonment motivate our actions. We can learn to believe so strongly in our own inherent worthiness, saboteurs and all, that we no longer need to prove our belonging.
Your energy is a finite, precious resource. I encourage you to examine how you might be allowing your saboteurs to drain your energy. Reclaim it by letting go of the belief that you need to hustle for your worthiness. Remember that you don’t need external validation in order to soothe your fear or anxiety. And please, next time a negative emotion arises, try not to judge it or resist it. Allow it some breathing room. This is how you start opening space to cultivate radical self-love.