If you could have anything, do anything, what would you choose? What do you really want? What is keeping you from having it? Is someone else better qualified? Better looking? More financially stable? Do you have “problems”?
What if every limit you have, every chain that binds you, is only there because you believe it is? What if the limits disappear, the chains dissolve? Your life is alive with an abundance of possibilities, opportunities, and potential all you have to do is be willing to say “yes.”
The Selfish Self
Our minds are rapidly developing thoughts and many of those thoughts are often self-critical. Your inner dialogue maybe something like, “I’m not good enough. I’m too messed up. I have nothing to offer. It works for other people but it won’t work for me. It’s too late for me to change. I’m too old.” Sound familiar?
These types of thoughts of not choosing self love because they feel selfish are exactly what is holding you back. When you are consistently thinking I can’t because I’ll be self-seeking, inconsiderate, or money-grabbing then that is the outcome you will get because you have conditioned your brain on what to expect – whether that is the reality or not. Thoughts affect our body language, what we say, what we do, how we feel, our emotions, and most importantly, how to love because the images our thoughts create govern our behavior.
How Negative Thoughts Manifested In The Body
During orientation week for my dietetic internship, I felt that I wasn’t as smart as the other interns or that my views were different than theirs. I had allowed these limiting beliefs to disconnect myself from others by keeping quiet and distancing myself from the group. I was doing and experiencing things that attracted the thought that I wasn’t good enough. Although the negative impact of my self-criticism didn’t hit me right away, I was along for a long ride towards self-defeat.
At first, I had only twisted my knee in the gym during orientation week. Thinking nothing of it, I had ignored that my body was reacting to my negative thinking. I had continued with my self-doubts through my second rotation – clinicals. I felt that I had to hold a standard that was above me and to prove that I was intellectual and dedicated. However, I went into that office every day feeling discouraged and that I didn’t belong. Ignoring the problem only made it worse. This time I was waiting in the operating room to have a total ACL reconstruction and a meniscus repair. Twisting of my knee had developed into a total ACL injury in only a few months. Talk about how powerful our thoughts can be!
The negative self-criticism continued for several months. According to my mind, the thoughts of not being good enough were permanent. There wasn’t any hope. The results – I was drinking more often during the week, gained ten pounds, and started to get acne for the first time. I had channeled my self-critical thoughts throughout my body. My mind had essentially become a bully and manifested into a painful body.
Symptoms Of Self-Criticism
The more you continue to think about self-critical thoughts you are telling your brain to create that subconscious picture of yourself which determines how you behave and reinforces the self-talk to be accurate. You are training your brain to follow the same neuropathway of where you are today and where you are in your beliefs.
With the amount of research done on the brain, we now know that our emotions are reactions we feel that all stem from our beliefs and visceral experiences in the body. Our emotions send out vibration frequencies that attract people, things, and circumstances with the same vibration, such as when I attracted injury from not feeling good enough. This is called the law of attraction.
The following is a list of symptoms and disorders that may manifest from self-criticism:
- Acne
- Anxiety
- Anger management issues
- Alcoholism
- Back pain
- Blocking out childhood memories
- Body image issues
- Depression
- Digestion issues
- Disassociation from the body
- Dysfunctional relationships
- Eating disorders
- Fear of intimacy
- Fetishes
- Guilt, shame, and fear
- Injuries
- Low self-esteem
- Distrust in God
- Nightmares
- Numbness
- Paranoia
- Insomnia
- Sadomasochism
- Self-mutilation
- Sexual addiction
- Substance abuse
- Trust issues
- Violence
Do any of these symptoms resonate with you? Perhaps you have been experiencing these symptoms without realizing they are connected to your thoughts. Ask yourself what do you criticize yourself for.
Self Love Psychology
More often than not we don’t give ourselves enough credit that we are good enough and beautiful. The first step is to acknowledge your own judgments to change your thought process. Next, is to understand that you are never stuck. If you can shift your negative thinking to positive thinking, your brain will actually shift to receive positive outcomes. If you maintain a negative thought process, too often you have created an endless loop of limiting beliefs that have governed your behavior. This includes your relationships, jobs, decisions, the choices you make, and opportunities that arise.
With so many subtleties and sensitivities, most of us carry what others have told us or what society portrays us to be like. All of those conditions follow us our whole lives to the point where the baggage we carry is making our legs shake and crumble. Eventually, all of the stuff ends in our heads. At some point, there has to be a moment where you make a change and bust loose from those conditions that are attached to your life.
We often search from an outside source to relieve us from the baggage but end up acting out of fear, guilt, shame, and anger. Many have been conditioned to seek validation and approval from external sources. This can leave us seeking approval from others which risks the opportunity to get caught in situations where we could be easily manipulated.
On the other hand, one can ascend to a level where they realize they only need approval from themselves. This can ultimately free them to seek what they really want in life. It provides the structure to make them whole and to enter into a relationship in a healthy manner without codependent cycles. With expanding our expression and understanding of love we have found it to come from within to love ourselves.
Some exercises to help you identify where you can incorporate more ways to love yourself:
1. How to love yourself more is by taking responsibility of everything in your life. Doing your self practices. Getting up and doing your self routine – gratitude diary.
2. Self-care – eating healthy, gratitude, moving. Being aware of your inner dialogue. You can eradicate your self-criticism by being mindful. Setting an alarm on your phone to check in with yourself. Loving yourself isn’t egotistical.
3. You can love your body where it is now. It doesn’t need to be 10 lbs lighter or to have a certain physique. You can choose to love your body where it is now, today. By doing that, everything changes. You eat a certain why cause you love yourself, your workout because you love yourself, you love people because you love yourself.
Let me know in the comments if you resonate.
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