The more we tolerate self-love, the less we tolerate abuse.

This week I made an important discovery:
The more we tolerate self-love, the less we tolerate abuse.

And the opposite is true too of course, the more we tolerate abuse, the less we tolerate self-love.

This became very clear to me when I had 5 of my grandchildren over for the weekend.

I had them for a whole 48 hours and they ranged from 11 down to 8.

I noticed that they were much more comfortable with all forms of abuse than with shows of love and self-love was pretty much a foreign concept.

There you go… it only takes a few short years to become allergic to our true nature and to forget who we are at our core which is unconditional love.

By the time we are 7 or 8 we have already gone into a deep sleep, from which we may never wake up, causing us lots of pain and suffering.

By the time we are 8 we are convinced we are fundamentally flawed, there is something wrong with us, we need to cover up, we need to hide our true feelings, we need to stuff our emotions.

By the time we are 10 we are pros at it.

We are doing this unconsciously all the time.

This slows down our energy flow because all these stuffed emotions get stuck in our tissues.

If we are lucky, we don’t have any aches and pains till we are 40, but by then, our internal stress buckets are well and truly overflowing.

We have been abusing ourselves for 3 decades by then.

If you don’t believe me, check the statistics.

50% of marriages end up in divorce.

80% of businesses fail (Warren Buffett said, “Until you manage your emotions, don’t expect to manage your money!” I think Warren Buffet is worth 82 US billion. He reads 8 hours per day or 500 pages per day. Could reading and investing in yourself be a form of self-love?)

30% of Americans are on some form of antidepressant medication.

70% of Americans are overweight.

These are symptoms of abuse, not self-love.

We’ve got it all backwards. We haven't been taught emotional intelligence.

We have been taught to be 'rational' to 'think' and to ignore our feelings.

Yet our un- investigated thoughts cause us the most suffering.

So how can we do it differently?

By truly listening to ourselves.

Initially it is going to hurt a lot.

It’s like any muscle you haven’t trained, it is going to resist.

Acknowledge that some damage was done somewhere along the line.

That you might have wasted good years of your life, acting out of character and not being true to yourself. Always being polite or politically correct instead of being authentic.

Perhaps you married the wrong person.

Or you invested in the wrong career.

Or your uncle/cousin/ family friend abused you and you stuffed it away, pretending it didn't happen.

Most of us act from two fundamental fears: I am not good enough and I am not lovable.

We are always busy distracting ourselves so we don’t have to experience our fears, hurts, sadness or anger, shame or guilt.

Pretending everything is perfect, but bleeding on the inside.

Back to my grandchildren.

By the end of day one, I was sick of the name-calling and the teasing (normal kids play, Peter would say, but I wasn’t happy)

I got them to stop, sit around the kitchen table, look each other in the eye and call each other all the names and swearwords that they had ever wished to say but never been allowed to.

I was giving them exactly 5 minutes to drop all pretense.

Before long they were into it… Screaming at each other at the top of their voices.

For good measure, I gave them a few pillows to punch as well, and after 5 minutes the storm had blown over…. And Bobbi informed me happily that this had been the BEST THERAPY session ever.

Unfortunately, Ethan the oldest had refused to join in. I guess he thought it was rude and inappropriate to name call each other out loud.

No sooner had the kids gone outside when 3 of them came racing back to tell me that now Ethan was calling them rude names while they were jumping on the trampoline.

I told them that this was a good lesson.

If you don't empty out your anger buckets in and intelligent or safe way, you are going to trip up in your relationships.

It is going to spill over somewhere sometime, usually when you least want it.

We had another screaming session the next morning after breakfast.

This time Ethan was comfortable letting out all his ‘ugly’ emotions.

I gave them exactly 5 minutes to let it all out.

It's good to give our unconscious mind a time frame because it loves order.

The screaming session was followed by morning tea.

While they were munching contently and I told them how deeply and utterly I loved each one of them and how special they were in their own way.

There was a stunned and uncomfortable silence.

That’s when I had my AHA, how easy we tolerate or are accustomed to abuse, and yet when it comes to accepting an expression of love, we almost have an allergic reaction.

Thankfully I had another practice up my sleeve.

continued...

https://www.purplehousenaturaltherapies.com.au/self-love-or-abuse/