“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” – L.R. Knost
by Astara
Post holidays or holy-daze, as we process another year, we may be emerging from a myriad of get-togethers and reunions. For some it is merry and bright. For others, their holidays are filled with time-travel to memories, navigate emotional triggers, grief of lost loved ones, as well as old habits and perceptions of separation (insecurities) that resurface with family and friends. When it is all done, the pressure for a fresh start in a new year awaits. The expectation for new intentions and resolutions. All of this and more creates the potential for physical, emotional, and mental overwhelm.
The good news is there is one thing guaranteed to heal every entrenched pattern, expectation, and challenge: love. During the romance of a new year, self-love is the gift that keeps on giving.
Just like the infamous flight attendant advice, you are best served by putting the oxygen mask on first and begin with loving yourself. But the phrase “love yourself” is not accurate. Love and you — they are not and never were separate. It’s only the mind that convinces us otherwise. Love is what everything is made of, so self-love is you remembering who you are. When you begin each morning that crucial journey from the mind to the heart, you start anew in remembering who you are in truth and how much you are loved.
We are here to land in our body and shift from thinking about love to being love, because love is an actual frequency. As Nikola Tesla taught us, our entire biological system, the brain, the earth itself, and the universe work on the same frequencies. And love is that frequency.
Practice embodying the love you are more extravagantly each day and watch your life improve.
Here is a 12 point* road map to being the love you are:
#1: Refuse to Criticize Yourself
Self-criticism doesn’t change a thing, it only creates more distress and can harm your health. We all make mistakes and we are here to learn (a lot) together. Humility and responsibility are important, yet you can accept all your shadow and light exactly as you are. Everybody changes. Everybody stumbles. That is what we are here to do. When you criticize your mess-ups, your trajectory of change is negative and dis-empowering. The body responds to such thoughts as toxic and acidifying and creates inflammation. When you approve of you and love the mess you made–as much as the gifts–your trajectory of change is authentic and beneficial. The body responds to positive thoughts as alkalizing, calming, and reducing inflammation. Dissolve the cultural story that you have to criticize yourself to learn or be safe. You can be kind about your learning instead.
#2: Forgive Yourself
Let the past go. You did the best you could at the time with the understanding, awareness, and knowledge you had. Now as you grow & change, you will live life differently. Everything you have been through has made you the person you are today. Try some of the helpful forgiveness techniques in point #10 on the road map, “Do Mirror Work.” Also, we recommend learning ho’oponopono as described in our blog post Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.
#3: Stop Terrorizing Yourself with Your Thoughts
It’s dreadful. And way too common. Where do you think the epidemic of anxiety and depression in our world today originates? When you terrorize yourself with worry and fear, you are experiencing toxicity. Find a mental image that gives you pleasure, and immediately switch your scary thought to a pleasure thought. A great approach is to do a gratitude list each day or on the spot when a terrifying thought appears. Gratitude is immensely stronger than fear and quickly dissolves terror. In fact, the spaciousness that gratitude brings just might bring happiness back into your life again.
#4: Be Gentle with Yourself
Be kind to yourself. Be patient with yourself as you learn the new ways of thinking. Treat yourself as you would someone you really loved. To quote Naomi Shihab Nye in her poem Kindness, “…it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.” You can be living loving kindness everyday.
#5: Be Kind To Your Mind
Don’t hate yourself for having negative thoughts. Feel the feels you need to as they arise and then gently change your thoughts as they occur. Your mind is just trying to protect and love you as it knows best, through comparison, judgement, logic, and strategy. Once you realize your mind is mistakenly trying to love you through tight negativity, you can aim it in better directions. If you are kind even to your negative thoughts about yourself and others, it already dissipates the strength of the thought. And remember, you can always change your mind. That’s what mind’s are good for!
#6: Praise Yourself
Praise yourself as much as you can. Criticism breaks down the inner spirit. Praise builds it up. Tell yourself how well you are doing with every little thing.
#7: Support Yourself
Reach out to friends and allow them to help you. It takes strength to ask for help when you need it. Take one small step each day to gather a team of support around you in each area of your life. You did not come to this planet to do all this learning and evolving alone.
#8: Lovingly Release Your Negative Patterns
Keep a journal and write out the old patterns as you discover them. Write out all the negative patterns you dislike about yourself and others. Now write out the gifts they brought you: gifts of learning and evolution. After that, write the opposite of each pattern down. The opposite of minimizing is expanding. The opposite of limitation is possibility. Acknowledge that you created each funky pattern to fulfill a need. Now you are finding new, positive ways to fulfill those needs.
#9: Take Care Of Your Body
Learn about the kind of fuel and exercise your body wants in order to have optimum vitality. Learn how your soul talks through your body, and listen to each message. Cherish & revere the temple you live in. Inside our Inner Space Academy, Astara teaches a myriad of soul, energy, and embodiment tools to help you remember everything is energy (including you) so that you can tune into the body’s soul messages. Be more mindful of your body and how you run your own energy.
#10: Do Mirror Work
Forgive yourself while looking into the mirror. Look into your eyes often. Forgive your parents. Forgive all your tormentors, too. Tormentor holds the word mentor in it, and each one came into your life to help you learn valuable soul lessons. Ho’oponopono work is very valuable and you can do this work while looking into the mirror saying “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” At least once a day, say, “I love you” into the mirror. The body picks up the energy and emotion behind each word and responds physiologically, so you can go through a rotation of positive statements and say into the mirror things like “You are enough,” or “You are beautiful,” or “I really love you!”
#11: Be Love Now
Don’t wait until you ____ (fill in the blank). Begin now—and do the best you can. And remember, it is not as much about loving yourself, as it as about being the love you are. A great way to start is learn and practice inner bonding.
#12: Have Fun & Reclaim Pleasure
What gave you joy as a child? Coloring? Singing? Mad Libs? Speaking in Pig Latin? Telling silly jokes? Dancing around the house? Taking a bath? Letting the snow fall on your tongue? Incorporate it into your life now. Let yourself express the joy of living. Smile. Laugh. Practice not taking yourself so seriously. Rejoice, and the Universe rejoices with you! We have a Pleasure of Resilience class that supports reclaiming pleasure!
So go forth in the new year and be the love you are intentionally, extravagantly, and unconditionally. Our messy world waits in the shadows of the mind for the light of your heart to illuminate where love is and what is possible again.
*the 12 point road map was initially inspired by Louise Hay and expanded upon by Astara using the lens of the Heartifact Archaeology Eco-System.
