One of the biggest stumbling blocks in life for many people is a lack of self-love and self-worth.
Deep down we feel so many of us don’t think we’re good enough. We cannot love ourselves, let alone value ourselves.
Conversely, one of the major keys to happiness is being able to love and accept ourselves. We all need a good healthy sense of self-worth. This does not mean an over-inflated or narcissistic ego, but a balanced sense of who we are and our own value.
But there is a big catch here.
There is a part of all of us that is very good at self-sabotage, that is very good at telling us we are not good enough, that there is something wrong with us, we are imperfect or even bad.
This is our shadow side, small or lower self at work.
We all have our own shadow side. That’s the little voice in the background, busily undermining us, saying things like “see, you’ve done it again…you’re not good enough…etc… etc…nah, nah, nah, nah, nah”. A voice that will just not let up. Even if we see through its façade and choose to ignore it, it will go away, regroup, and come back in another disguise.
And we often make the very human mistake of believing what it tells us.
I remember reading one of the early books by the self-help writer Louise Hay. She helped me to understand that I wasn’t the only person in the world who deep underneath thought that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t good enough.
What a liberating realisation that was. It changed my life.
Our shadow side is part of our human nature. When our souls come down to be born into a human body, we leave a world of light, and descend into a world of heavier, lower vibration, a world of duality, light and dark.
We come here to experience, learn, and grow. Our journey is back towards the light.
When we understand that we all naturally have both light and dark, good, and bad, within us, we can begin to accept ourselves. We can stop thinking that we are somehow lacking, wrong, bad, or even sinful people.
We can also see that within each human being, every single one of us, is the potential for good, positive, or negative, even evil as the world calls it. We all have the potential to be wonderful, loving human beings, or we can let our shadow side win. Each of us has the choice to listen to our shadow or ignore it.
This is a personal battle that we fight daily.
And because our shadow is such a big part of us, we quite often loose the daily battles. That’s Ok. It’s part of being a human being. We just need to be kind to ourselves, forgive ourselves, try to learn from our experiences, and keep on going.
The world also tells us how we are expected to be. It sets the standards for the perfect lifestyle, family, work, and social life. We are social creatures, and of course we want to be loved, accepted, and approved of by our family, friends, and the wider world. We put ourselves through all sorts of hoops to achieve this, to get the approval we need.
But the world has the habit of setting us up, just as our shadow does. We often struggle to live up to its demands and feel bad when we fail.
I find it interesting that throughout history societies have set standards for physical beauty that are often difficult, or even downright dangerous, to attain. For women the tiny but painful bound feet of high-status women in ancient China, the nineteenth century fashion for tiny ‘wasp’ waists, the pale complexions coveted in times when most women had to work outdoors in the fields. Men also have their own pressures to attain that toned, masculine physique, or keep a full head of hair.
Food for thought.
There is much stress and pressure in our modern lives, both from the outside world and our own inner worlds. This stress spills over into dissatisfaction. We could always have handled things better, done things differently. Everyone has their own back story they tell themselves.
This lack of self-love in turn makes our lives uncomfortable. It affects all aspects of life, including relationships. When we are content with ourselves, we are then able to have loving, rewarding relationships. A lack of self-love leads us to criticise and judge others, spoils our happiness, and can cause a deep uneasiness, lack of content, which often results in actual disease.
People are sometimes so afraid of getting things wrong, making mistakes, that they become almost paralysed by this fear, and unable to create the life they want.
But what if we knew that it’s OK not to be perfect? What if we accepted that it was OK to make mistakes, in fact we need to make them to learn and grow? What if we acknowledged that this life is not always easy, and simply forgave ourselves? What if we acknowledged that we all have our shadow? What if we understood that other people are also struggling?
What if we loved and accepted ourselves exactly as we are?
How different would our world be then?
Article by More to Life Elder – Kate Quartermaine
Article published in More to Life – Edition 64
