How I perceived the world was a reflection of my own reflection in the mirror that day.
All of the answers of who I would be and how I would show up could be found by staring into the judge and juror that hung above my bathroom sink.
This was not new. This was how I had always lived my life. How many of us live our lives.
Until one day I decided that I was done. I was no longer available for anything other than self-acceptance.
Self-acceptance which I viewed as a stepping stone on my journey to radical self-love.
Let’s dig into it.
My motto: “Not apologizing for it.”
Not apologizing for my existence as a woman in this society, in this body.
The common misconception is that by accepting our body as it is, it prevents us from moving forward and striving for the best version of ourselves.
But rather, it is through acceptance that we can ascend to who we are meant to become.
When we live in a scarcity mindset, one where we believe we are not enough, it depletes us; it burns us out.
When we feel emotional pain (shame of believing we aren’t enough), the same areas of the brain get activated as when we feel physical pain.
This shuts off our thinking brain, our frontal cortex, and instead forces us to operate from fear.
Exhausted and stagnant, many of us have tried to shame ourselves to a better self and have failed.
Accepting ourselves as we are is essential.
But here is the thing. We should want more than to merely accept our reality.
We should love it. We should feel alive—not merely exist.
Self-acceptance is the foundation for radical self-love.
Radical self-love is rejecting an oppressive culture that has deemed us unworthy and in need of fixing. A culture and system that has ranked our value to the world based on the color of our skin, our gender, and our body type.
By rejecting this, it gives us back our power.
When we stop buying into the belief that we are not enough, we become rich in our ability to show up for ourselves as opposed to societal expectations. The door opens to a life where we can explore our true purpose and meaning.
It is radical because it requires us to reject the idea that some of us are more important than others. An idea that we are all currently prescribed to and one that is only upheld by our buying into it.
We need to stop the comparison and ranking. Eradicate this idea of a sliding scale of worth dependent on our external reality.
So what do we do?
We invoke the power of radical self-love.
3 Steps to practice radical self-love in any situation:
1. Get present.
In order to step into radical self-love, we have to understand where we currently are.
We must know our current location to get to the final destination.
Get present and identify our thoughts.
Example: Thought—“I need to lose weight.”
2. Investigate.
Where is the thought coming from?
We have approximately 6,000 thoughts per day, and all of them can feel like our own. But we forget to challenge where we have picked them up, where they were learned.
Is this thought really mine? Or was this taught to me without my full understanding and consent?
Example: “I have been conditioned to believe that a certain body type is better than others. This belief is not my own. I was not born thinking this; I was taught it.”
3. Adjust.
If our thought is not, in fact, serving us, rather it is upholding a societal construct that we are not enough as we are, then we must take a moment to adjust. Move forward with self-compassion as we begin to assemble a better path. One where we ask ourselves questions like:
1. “What do I need right now?” versus “Who should I be right now?”
2. “Is this what I want?” versus “Is this what I think I should want?”
Example: “I don’t need to lose weight, I need to reject the societal demands on my body and instead do something to nourish my soul and fill me with the energy I might be lacking right now.
How will you start practicing radical self-love in your life?
Comment below and be sure to share this article with someone who you want to join you on your radical self-love journey.
We are all worthy of loving ourselves. We are all in this together.
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AUTHOR: VICTORIA EVANS
IMAGE: JULIA KA/INSTAGRAM
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