Let’s be honest for a bit, we all have a little room inside our body where we hide parts of ourselves we are ashamed of. Parts we hope no one will see because we are afraid they will judge us for it. If we would only open up that room and let others see, we would find out by doing so these other people will find relief, realizing they are not the only one with a room like this. Therefore I’ll start with opening mine.
Self love
When you are on your healing journey you hit a moment where you learn about Self Love. But how the Fuck do you do that? Visiting a spa or taking some child free time didnt change the fact that I was ashamed of parts of my past. Spending money and going shopping did make me feel good about the way I looked with my new clothes on. But on the inside I still felt the same about myself and that wasn’t Love and Light.
A deeper connection
Self-love involves cultivating a profound connection with yourself that goes beyond external treatments. It’s about acknowledging and embracing all facets of who you are – the strengths, weaknesses, triumphs, and challenges. To truly love yourself, it’s essential to understand who you are at your core. This involves self-reflection, introspection, and a willingness to confront both the light and dark aspects of your personality.
In the journey towards self-love, it’s vital to acknowledge that we have all made choices in the past that we aren’t particularly proud of. Decisions that, in hindsight, we wish we could alter. However, understanding that at every situation in our lives, we make decisions based on the tools available to us at that specific moment is a key step towards Self-Love.
My shadow self
In my personal journey I have been able to find and heal a lot of parts of myself I actively tried to hide before. Some of these parts have been hidden away so deep I wasn’t even aware of them anymore. But these parts never really went away and kept showing up in unexpected ways. What you hide away about yourself you start to project onto others. One personal example would be me judging other woman for dressing provocative. Interestingly enough I found that this was because I had been hiding a part of my myself I was ashamed of.
When I was 15 years old I send someone a picture of my breasts. This person wasn’t interested in me nor cared about me and shared the picture with other people. This was a time before social media and wifi. But MSN Messenger was hot at the moment and my picture was shared widely on it. Just when I thought the worst was over mobile phones got BlueTooth and where now able to share pictures. One night someone told me not to enter a party I was about to walk into. The people inside where sharing my picture all over again. One year later, now by phone. Months after that I was getting ready to bike to school but my best friend called me to stay home. Someone had printed my picture and hung it in my school and all over town. In buss stops and on store windows. Years later when I was twentyone I went to Aruba fora n internship. Nobody knew me there but after sometime another intern from a different part of the Netherlands took me apart. He told me he had shared a group picture with me in it on facebook and someone from his school in the Netherlands had recognized me and send the picture of my fifteen year old self to him. Six years after sharing that picture, it was still hunting me even at the other side of the World. Luckaly this person told me he would show and tell no one and delete it. From that moment the sharing stopped. But what didn’t leave me where the feelings of shame and worthlessness. Who would love me if they knew about that picture going around. I hid this into the depts of myself, never wanting to think or associate with that fifteen year old girl ever again. She was stupid and unlovable.
The work
Once I started my journey back to my authentic self I discovered shadow work. Shadow work is the act of uncovering, acknowledging, and understanding the parts of yourself you instinctively want to suppress. Done at the right time it brings out self-compassion rather than judgment, self-acceptance in place of anxiety. With more self-compassion and self-acceptance you are able to grow your Self-Love.
One profound healing experience during Shadow work was when I took the time to go back into my past experiences one by one. There I found my Teen-Self. A girl who developed an eating disorder, was cutting herself, very insecure and hiding behind only black clothes. That girl never found peace but was instead hidden away never to be asociated with again. Until now.
As my present self I held this younger version of myself and told her that yes, I shared a picture of my breasts but that I need not be ashamed. Everything in life is a lesson that will lead us back to Love. Previous experiences in my life had let me to belief I was not good enough as myself but it is now time to let go of those beliefs. There is no need to fear the opinions of other people as that says nothing about me but everything about their inner world. Me understanding why I shared the picture in the first place and my reaction to it beeing shared by others is my work. It beeing shared can now be seen as a signal I had a belief unaligned with Love. Showing me, here, hereeeee it is, this insecurity needs to get rid of. Making this unpleasent feeling all of a sudden a gift. A gift with an ungly wrapper yes, but a gift nevertheless.
The fact that my picture was beeing shared is now nothing for me to worry about anymore. No one had the right to share my picture without my consent, not the person I send the picture to nor anyone after. But that is nothing for me to take personal. No one in their Loving essence would share that picture nor judge it. Like the last person who told me about receiving it and deleting it but just wanting me to be aware of it in case I wasn’t. You see only hurt people hurt people, with their judgements and their actions. As we portrait our own shadows, our own hidden parts onto others. Someone feeling the urge to seeing, judging and sharing this picture should look into what shadow they are hiding. That is their work.
Standing in front of the mirror
This last realisation opened up another gateway for self-reflection. I felt hurt by this experience and instead of healing it I had hid this part of myself. But as a result I was now judging other woman for dressing provocatively. By healing my inner teen I have been able to dismantling my judgmental attitudes towards others who choose to dress provocatively. Everyone’s journey is unique, and fashion choices don’t define a person’s character or worth. My personal growth has led me to a place of compassion, not only for my younger self but also for others navigating similar journeys of self-discovery.
There is a whole chain of events that leads you to the choices you make today. From how you experienced your childhood to what your proteins are coded for (epi-genetics) to how stressfull or relaxed the past three months have been to what sensory environment you where in the previous minute. Everything is connected and to find the reason behind a choice you have to include the whole creation of the Universe up till that moment.
We all make mistakes on our journey towards Love and Peace. Because that is what everyone ultimately is looking for. Sometimes we search for Love and Peace through the wrong places. Seeking validation from others, materialism and status, addictions, judgment. We are all on a learning journey. I got hurt but I have also hurt people on my journey. I send Love to all those I have ever hurt and wish them healing and Peace. Same for the people who have hurt me. May you shed your hurt parts and find your way back to Love.