Powerful Women Empowering Each Other: Being Worthy of Yourself- Part Three

On Thursday, we had our Powerful Women session, it was part 3 of our 5 part series on ‘Being Worthy of Yourself’.
This session was on Self Love: Acknowledging your true value.
There was a large group of powerful and extraordinary women who showed up and actively participated, having them there made a positive difference.

We started with a simple definition of how self acceptance and self love are different.

Self acceptance being defined as the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable, to be in agreement with, to be with one self as she is. While self love can be defined as an intense feeling of deep affection, warmth, compassion, tenderness, kindness.
So by looking at these two definitions we can see how acceptance is needed before love can appear. Love in this context is really a step further.

I shared two quotes from Kristin Neff, Professor of Education Psychology who created the Self-compassion Scales.
“People who are more self-compassionate are actually more motivated and more likely to pick themselves up when they do fail.”
“Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness, concern, and support you’d show to a good friend. When faced with difficult life struggles, or confronting personal mistakes, failures, and inadequacies, self-compassion responds with kindness rather than harsh self-judgment, recognizing that imperfection is part of the shared human experience.” (Neff & Dahm, 2015)

The question posed to the group and to you is:
When you fail at something do you treat yourself the way you would treat a good friend? How do you treat yourself at challenging times?
Many of us are not self loving and compassionate especially in times of failure or inadequacies. In challenging times the majority of us are self punitive rather than self loving.
Ask yourself now, when a good friend of yours was in a challenging position how did you respond? Did you tell her she was pathetic or did you tell her she is human? Did you put her down or remind her of how amazing she is?

Well the next time you fail at something try trusting that everything is exactly as it is meant to be. Failing is proof that you are creating new things in your life and not just regurgitating the same life results over and over again.

“This place where you are right now. God circled on a map for you.” Hafiz

I get chills when I truly take in this quote. It reminds me that everything is part of a bigger plan, and I am exactly where I am meant to be. You are too. You reading this in this very moment is perfect. God has “circled (this moment) on a map for you”.

So what are some benefits of loving yourself?
Research on self-compassion shows that it is associated with:
Less anxiety and depression
More optimism
Better recovery from stress
Better adherence to healthy behavior changes, such as exercise or diet

How can we practice self love on a daily basis?

Well many of these suggestions are part of mindfulness. Here are some recommendations:

– Let yourself feel bad: Just be fully in the bad feeling. Accept it, honour it, but don’t get stuck in it. We can have a bad feeling without becoming attached to it and then can even let it go.
There is a practice where we identify the bad feeling and connect with it physically. So for example, the next time you feel bad try to locate where that feeling shows up in your body and then just sit with that pain fully. If we truly allow space for our pain it will dissipate in a few minutes. Our pain lasts longer because we are not in acceptance and love of allowing it to be and have it’s space.
– Thank your inner critic and ask it to move along.
That inner voice that is a critic is there with helpful intentions. But, intention and results are not always the same. That inner critic does what it does because it (you) really believes that by punishing yourself, being judgmental and critical will be good for you.
– How many times do you say something unloving vs. loving to yourself a day? Catch it, then go for 1 to 2.
This can happen in a couple of steps.
1. Notice how many times you have an unloving internal dialogue with yourself. Even doing this step can have a huge positive impact. Noticing how harsh you are with your amazing self.
2. For every time you notice an unloving thought then replace it with two loving thoughts.
– Write yourself a love letter.
A study at York University showed that writing yourself a comforting letter every day for a week can make you feel happier for up to six months. You could even mail the letter it to yourself.
One of the participants shared that she sends herself encouraging or loving texts and it helps her feel better. What a sweet loving playful gesture!
– When you fail, give yourself a treat.
We are so used to punishment as a way to motivate ourselves. This harsh unloving behaviour is counterproductive. Instead, when you feel you have failed treat yourself to something nice and loving, don’t beat yourself up about it. The example in our session came up about eating healthy. That when eat unhealthy and feel physically bad from it, we have a tendency to then put ourselves down and beat ourselves up. But in fact, if we are feeling physically unwell, this is the time to give ourselves more loving care, not less of it. We tend to have a false belief that by telling ourselves off we will accomplish more. False! By loving ourselves more, we will be left empowered to move forward.
– Invent a self-soothing gesture.
I loved that on of our participants says she uses this one, she gives herself a tap on the back to help her along. There is evidence that the human touch assists us in positive ways, even if it is our our touch. You could try simple gestures like placing your hand over your heart or patting yourself on the leg.
– Be your own cheerleader.
Try speaking to yourself out loud the way you would to a close friend. Mirror work is also very powerful. Lousie Hay advocated mirror work for daily self love.

We ended this session with an individual exercise, you can try it now.

Write down 10 ways you are not currently being very loving to yourself.
Once completed, go back through your list, take a look at each point and imagine what would happen if you loved every single one of your supposed flaws.
Write down exactly how would your life be better and how it would change the lives of the people around you.

The second part of this exercise is really powerful, and it’s easier to just do the first part and forget about the second. We are so tuned into putting ourselves down, it takes a lot more effort to build ourselves up with self love. So please, do the second half of this exercise. You are worth it!

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked.
Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” Louise L. Hay

“Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.” Ram Dass