You Gotta Get, to Give!
How can you really show unconditional love to others if you don’t receive it yourself?
I see this paradigm in so many of my students and clients.
They assume that they will feel loved and receive love if they give, share and do things relentlessly for others.
But relying on others to reciprocate can be a tortuous situation.
To hope for love in the same way and depth that it is given is really blind faith.
It can leave us feeling empty…and we are.
A Love Imbalance
Some call it ‘woo-woo’ or ‘out there’. But there’s no denying the truth of the body, mind, emotion, spirit connection. To me, metaphysics is where scientists and the mystics concur.
Louise Hay and other profoundly successful teachers and healers have been shouting these messages from the rooftops for many years. And it’s an essential part of overcoming emotional eating. In fact, it’s the secret sauce to success.
All of the clients that I have served have had an imbalance of love, either withholding it or not receiving it.
Food As Love
Often, we retain our excess weight as a way of loving ourselves. Now and again when we feel strong emotions, reactions to everyday challenges, we confuse this with a lack of love and we ‘comfort eat.’
We are feeding ourselves with love in the form of food.
This is unconscious. It’s a way of keeping us safe. We are just not aware of it.
It’s a deep part of our make-up that is a much stronger instinct than the intention to diet or to lose weight. So we retain the weight until we learn how to lose the blocked energy, which is holding on to the weight in the first place.
Love is higher and much more powerful than the emotions.
Love is far more subtle, yet an extremely more-powerful force. It is the reason for our very existence. Without love, however subtle, there would be no desire, no procreation and therefore our human existence would be doomed.
Even then, there would still be love. Because, depending on your beliefs, your soul and your connection with spirit, God, Allah, Rama, whoever you see as a higher power has, at its very essence, love.
Unconditional Love
I often hear from my clients that they feel imprisoned in their bodies. One even joked that she feels there is a slim, gorgeous and extremely happy woman living deep inside her. But she just cannot seem to let her out!
I really believe that in all of us, there is a beautiful (whatever beauty means to you) soul who feels safe in her environment, loved unconditionally exactly as she is, and is able to show love without shame or even embarrassment.
First, we have to understand that this is our true nature, our birthright.
We are made to love and be loved!!!
Parental Love
It’s a sad fact of life, that the first time we’re scolded for doing something wrong as a child, we feel a lack of love. Most parents seldom realise that in our simply-organised brains at such a tender age, when we are told off for ‘misbehaviour’, we only understand that, in that moment, we are no longer loved.
It’s one of the greatest tragedies of growing up that our parents did not understand this.
But what else were they to do? It is their job to teach us right from wrong.
And we as parents, doing our best, can never be sure of any lasting detrimental effect our words have on our child. We can say the same thing to two identical young twins and it may have a totally different effect on one to the other.
If we assume that at some point, you have felt the feeling of not being loved, how might this have affected you in your relationship with your partner, your family, your friends and your peers?
What aspect of your life might you have you numbed down with food?
Where are you withholding your purest love?
Love Yourself
You may have heard that you can’t ever truly love anyone unconditionally until you love yourself.
I never really understood this until I overcame emotional and binge eating myself. It took me over thirty years of self-loathing before I really worked it out. You can make the discovery for yourself TODAY!
One tiny step towards that love is a little practice that will make your life throb with every heartbeat. You might find this difficult in the beginning. But if you are committed to living your best life, you have to find a way to let go of the hurt of the past and enjoy the most awesome gift that we all have right now – the present.
Moving Forward In and With Love
If we are ready to stop the torture of yo-yo dieting and self-degradation and focus on living our best life in health, healing and happiness, what can we do differently?
Well, for finding freedom from the struggle, I offer many techniques in my book:
BodyMAGIC! – A Blissful End to Emotional Eating, is available on Amazon in print and on Kindle.
I’d like to offer you just one simple technique today…
This is a Mirror Practice, using affirmations. I do believe that ‘the eyes have it’ phrase is so true.
I truly believe that your eyes are the doorway to your soul. So first off, you have to look into them. It might feel weird in the beginning. You may feel a mix of feelings, from really horrible to really happy ones.
You may giggle! This is normal.
The process, however, is very simple. Just look in the mirror and start to talk. I’ll give you the lines! You can work through the script one line at a time or you can pick and choose the easiest ones, to begin with.
Try to make it fun because you can!
When you get used to talking to yourself in the mirror, try and tackle some of the more difficult ones. Repeat each line up to seven times if you want to. But don’t rush this. Feel your words. It’s better to say it once with total sincerity than twenty times with no feeling.
This clears any energy blocks to your progress and the strong reactions from your unconscious mind that fear change. These blocks are normal. But you will move forward quickly if you can clear these obstacles as you go.
A little record of how you feel is not only releasing but you can look back and see the progress you’ve made. We tend to forget how far we’ve come, in even a short space of time.
Say Some of These with LOVE !!!
Here are a few you can try. Some are in the first and some are second person.
Start with the easiest ones and the others when you’re ready.
“I love you (your name), I really do!”
“You are wonderful (your name)”
“You are my best friend (your name)”
“You rock (your name)!”
“You’re alright you are (your name)!”
“You have so much capacity for love (your name) ”
“You are a limitless being (your name)”
“You are loved (your name)”
“You are safe (your name)”
“You (your name), are awesome”
“Whatever today brings, it will be for your highest good”
“This too shall pass (your name)”
“I’m so full of love, I’m bursting!”
“I have so much to give today”
“I know that things feel tough but in this moment, I am loved”
“I know that I’m a good person. That is what matters”
“I am good. What others think is really nothing to do with me”
“I feel nothing but compassion for (name of the person who’s hurting you). They must be really in pain”
“I forgive and release you. And I am still full of love”
“Love is my very essence. I love within and without”
“There is love all around. I know this to be true”
“I am open to love”
“Love is limitless. And I love myself unconditionally so that I can share it in abundance”
Keep In Mind
Remember, that you are talking to your soul.
This soul holds all of the wounds, some of which you may not even be aware of. Neurologists will confirm that they are held in your unconscious mind. Therefore if they are unconscious, you will not be aware of them.
This is why we learn how to meditate in the BodyMAGIC! Journey. It taps into the unconscious mind and raises our consciousness (awareness) of what’s really going on.
This practice will talk to your unconscious mind. It will reassure you on a deep level that everything is really OK. You are loved and you are safe. You have everything you need, right now in this moment. And that this moment is the only one that matters.
It starts with you.
It always has. YOU see my friend…
Give yourself a little gift this Valentine’s Day.
Commit to 21 days of this practice. It takes this long to create a new pattern, a new way of thinking. And it takes, on average 66 days to create a habit.
Can you do this for yourself?
You do deserve it! This pure love for yourself, from your heart to your soul and right back.
May St. Valentine remind you that unconditional love can only be shared when it is received and held in abundance.
You ARE love!
