To Love Oneself Is a Process of Integration and Acceptance
I had been on my self-love journey for a while when it finally hit me.
I was driving from my bungalow in the jungles of Hawai’i up to town to get food when I felt myself grow agitated.
I have always felt like an agitated person. My father thinks it’s because of my entrance into this world, which was anything but comfortable. After my twin sister had been born, the doctors thought I would flip around and come out earth-side normally but I did not.
Instead, I was yanked out by my feet, not breathing, and had to have my airways cleaned out before I could take my first breath.
Cognitively speaking, I don’t recall this happening to me. But in a deeper and more spiritual sense, I feel this experience has shaped me to my core.
My first experience in this world was agitated and I have always been an easily agitated human.
However, I feel this is not the real me. The agitation, frustration, and anger are more symptoms of what has happened to me in this lifetime.
I didn’t receive the love I needed as a child to calm myself and my nervous system, and I also didn’t receive the tools to self-soothe.
I had no idea what I was doing and how to love myself and treat myself with kindness.
But I wanted to love myself. At that point in my life, I was tired of pushing myself and forcing myself to prove to others, my parents, and the world that I was worthy of love.
I was tired of fighting against me.
I knew I was worthy of love. I knew in my head there was nothing I needed to do to be worthy of love. At yet, I knew this concept but I couldn’t feel it in my being.
I didn’t know how to embody someone who loves themselves.
I had read books on self-love, said affirmations to myself in the mirror, meditated on my heart chakra, set boundaries, and even created and held self-love workshops where I taught the concept!
But it felt difficult for me to feel this at a deeper level.
It was as if I was trying to pierce a layer of myself and open up something I could not find the correct key for.
I felt like I was blindly stumbling through the journey of healing myself and understanding what it meant to show myself love.
So here I was driving, finding myself again feeling agitated within my body. Internally, this felt like a tightening of my chest and heart space. My heart was beating faster than normal and my face grew tense as my teeth clenched together.
It didn’t feel good to me. It felt uncomfortable. This feeling was a place I did not want to be and had spent almost all of my life trying to get away from.
I wanted to feel love. I wanted to feel calm. I wanted to feel joyful.
But instead, I felt more frustrated at myself that I was not feeling these things.
I was frustrated because I was frustrated.
As I continued to drive into town, I noticed the agitation starting to creep in. I was beginning the same cycle I had often gotten stuck in I would feel myself growing agitated and then tried to escape the feeling because I told myself being agitated wasn’t a good place to be.
I would try to escape the feeling of agitation (or frustration or anger) but what would happen is I would grow even more frustrated and get down on myself for not being a calm person like I wanted to be!
So, instead, I thought, “Why don’t I just let myself be agitated instead of fighting myself?”
It felt like an “aha!” moment to me.
I didn’t fight the feeling. I just said, “ok. This is happening and I am feeling agitated and that’s ok.”
I gave myself permission to feel.
I gave myself permission to be a human.
I realized that day I’d been trying to escape myself and my feelings. I was running towards the feelings my mind deemed as “good” and running away from the feelings my mind labeled as “bad”.
Because of this, I was constantly fighting different parts of me, rejecting them, and loving other parts of me.
But this is not what love means.
I realized I could not just take parts of me and love them and leave other parts out in the cold.
No part of me is better than another part of me. All feelings, all parts, all aspects of myself are fine in this moment and within all moments.
There was nothing I needed to do that day when I felt agitated but accept myself and the way I was feeling; and allow for my feelings to be felt, explored, and integrated into myself.
The more I have opened myself up to the human experience and all that comes with it, the more peace and love I have for myself.
The more I stopped chasing certain feelings (peace, joy, calmness) the more I felt them.
And the less I stopped fighting myself, the less pain and suffering I felt within.
It’s not about fixing or fighting, but accepting, surrendering, and integrating the parts of myself I might not always like, but I can love and appreciate.
Thanks for reading and supporting me!
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Instagram: @rylee_wildwomanhealing
Website: http://www.wildwomanhealing.life/
