How I misunderstood self love

Self love is a bit of a buzz term these days and it probably gets overused somewhat. But for a long time I totally misunderstood what self love actually is. I always thought it was the way you spoke to yourself and about yourself.

I didn’t hate myself, I didn’t hate my body. I looked after myself, ate nourishing and nutritious food (mostly!), didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, exercised regularly, got plenty of sleep, and was always really grateful to have been born into a naturally slim body (so it came as a complete shock when perimenopause meant I put on 8+ kilos - but that’s another story!).

Most of those things I’ve listed above are self care, as opposed to self love. I thought a definition of the differences between the two would be helpful here, and when I Googled the difference between self care and self love, the AI overview came up with this:

Self-care is the actions (eating well, exercising, resting) you take to maintain your well-being, while self-love is the underlying mindset of accepting, valuing, and respecting yourself unconditionally, flaws and all, which motivates those self-care actions. Think of self-love as the deep, foundational appreciation, and self-care as the practical, consistent ways you honour that love and keep yourself healthy and thriving.

My mindset was one of relative acceptance of myself. I saw myself as a good person, able to get along with everyone. I don’t think I really accepted my flaws because I chose not to look at them. In fact I’m pretty sure I thought I was all good and didn’t have a shadow side! Totally not true, but when you don’t know about or acknowledge your shadow side, that’s the kind of thing you think.

The bigger aspect

What I didn’t realise was that self love has a bigger aspect to it. It’s not just about how you think about yourself. It’s about how you act as a result of that - the unconditional love you show yourself, how you value yourself.

The little wisdom bomb that really made me see this is when someone in social media suggested that your dark night of the soul lasts until you love yourself fully and unconditionally. It hit me like a brick. I could see how true that was and was staggered that it took me 8 years, yes - 8 whole years!!! - before my self love was strong enough to end my dark night of the soul.

Dark night of the soul

Let me explain. For those that don’t know, a dark night of the soul is a profound spiritual crisis, a collapse of meaning and identity, that is often triggered by something external. It could be a divorce, a career disaster, financial collapse, a betrayal.

For me it was suffering a concussion injury that dropped me into my own dark night of the soul (you can read more about that in my blog post Concussion was my Catalyst). I didn’t have a clue what was going on at the time. Didn’t even know what a dark night of the soul was, but the first hurdle was making a full recovery from the concussion, which took 2 years in itself!

The concussion made me look at life differently. It lifted the veil on certain things and my first realisation was how negative I had become over the years. Gone was the lively, bright, chatty, happy person that I was. It had been replaced with someone who seemed to focus more on the negative than the positive. I was finding it hard to see the joy in anything and I was very much in productive doing mode rather than being present.

I also had a rather challenging spiritual awakening at this time. Again, I didn’t know what was going on and found it hard to find any meaningful help. I was on my own, struggling away, with those around me offering the best support they could.

Returning to my old self

Whilst I was out of action for some time with my concussion, once I could return full time to my life and my work I continued to show up every day and perform as expected. I returned to my role as a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, employee in the same way I had always done.

And this is the kicker, because that was the problem. For the most part, I was fitting in, people pleasing, keeping the harmony, doing what others wanted or needed, rather than what I wanted or needed.

Self love is not just about speaking nicely to yourself. It is actually doing what you need to do to truly be you. You can say all the nice things you want to yourself, but if you continue to put yourself last, to bow to others wants and needs, and to compromise in order to keep the peace, then what you are really saying to yourself is that you don’t love yourself enough to put yourself first.

As I have been told in my work in the Akashic Records, betrayal of self is the greatest betrayal of all and I can see how I was betraying myself by putting myself and my needs last.

What was required for me to finally break through my dark night of the soul, was for me to put myself first - in everything. It meant following the things that interested me, even when others didn’t want me to. It meant saying no to doing things I used to do when I didn’t really want to, and yes to the things I did want to do. It meant giving myself a voice at home and at work, and everywhere in between. It also meant re-educating myself and changing my career, redirecting it into work I find profoundly rewarding and fulfilling.

Plus it required exploring myself more so that I could understand what I actually wanted and needed, which is not something I’d ever thought about deeply. I was so used to being what others needed, what I needed didn’t really come into it. The truth was, I hadn’t actually thought about it.

But everything’s fine, isn’t it?

On the outside it looked like everything was fine and that I was happy. And that’s the weird thing. I hadn’t registered that I wasn’t happy. I had a good life but there was a growing frustration and resentment within me. I didn’t really think about it too much. I just thought it was normal day to day frustrations.

What that frustration and resentment was showing me, if I’d cared to pay attention, was that there was a level of unhappiness within me that needed resolving. Instead, I just ignored it and carried on, meaning the frustration and resentment got louder and louder.

The final piece in the puzzle was eventually coming to the conclusion that I just needed time on my own. I needed to recharge my overspent batteries and refill my emotional cup. I needed more time for me and less demands from others. I needed space, I needed quiet.

I need space

That’s literally all I knew - I just needed space. It became my mantra - I just need space. I didn’t know what would result if I got my space, I just knew it was something I really needed. It was like a driving force within me.

After a very long winded journey, I took a year out of our marriage - and then I collapsed in a heap of exhaustion. I hadn’t realised how depleted I was until I stopped. It took four months before I had any energy to drag myself back into my life and my work.

After the year was up I realised I couldn’t go back to the marriage. I was still depleted, so more time on my own was needed and I realised that, for various reasons, I couldn’t be my authentic self in that container. There was so much more about myself I needed to explore but I needed to do it on my own.

The hardest but best act of self love for me

This was the hardest, most challenging decision of my life. I didn’t want to make it because I didn’t want to hurt anyone or let others down. It was also one of the best decisions of my life because since that time I’ve found a new level of peace and happiness that I didn’t know I was missing until I found it again. And after three years, I’ve now got all my energy back.

In this instance, self love was about realising what I truly needed and acting on it, no matter how hard it was. It was being true to myself in every sense, and it finally closed off my dark night of the soul after 8 long years, allowing a new cycle to begin.

This new cycle includes more empowerment and sovereignty, more joy and freedom. I’m in no way suggesting this is what others should do, but for me this was my greatest act of self love - giving myself space, time, and freedom.

It’s more than acceptance

So where I went wrong was in thinking that my mindset of acceptance was enough. It wasn’t. I needed to SHOW myself love in more ways than just my normal health and wellbeing practices. I needed to listen to my inner voice, follow my heart, and finally do what I really wanted and needed to do, deep down inside.

Like me, you can say nice things to yourself and be grateful, but unless you take action and literally put yourself first, it’s like saying “I love you but…”

This can be really tricky to do, because we live in a world where putting yourself first is seen as selfish. Actually, it’s your gift to the world because when you love yourself fully, follow your heart and live in a way that’s authentic to you, your positivity, radiance, and energy flow out into the world supporting everyone who comes into contact with you.

So I would say that I now have a far better understanding of what self love is. I’ve embodied it, as they say. I understand it at a deep level, where it was just words before.

I can also say that unconditional self love is what created positive change for me. It wasn’t always easy, but it has been rewarding.

Kàren