ARTICLE


Where do you not accept and love yourself? Be honest. Louise Hay has been an important influence on my own journey of healing poor self- worth. From her I learned to do away with the word SHOULD. As she says ‘Should’ implies someone is wrong. None of us like to be judged or wrong. Louise suggests replac- ing the word SHOULD with COULD. This lets us know we have choice. For example “I should have said NO to him” becomes “I could have said NO to him” or I could have done X, Y or Z various other options. Can you feel the difference? It’s playing with possibili- ties; it’s less rigid; it’s not the SHOULD energy of beating yourself up which implies ‘Not Good Enough’ and makes us shrink energetically – or rebound with blaming someone else and covering it all with ANGER energy. No, with COULD we can still breathe, allowing spaciousness for different ways of reacting; it’s altogether less restrictive, kinder to ourself (or others, if we were condemning someone else with a SHOULD). When we beat ourselves up with Shoulds, Ifs and other forms of negative self-talk, we lower our vibration, we feel stressed, and as regards appearance…we age. Once started, it’s easy to create a self-criticism downward spiral, eventually landing in that dark hole of depression. So it’s important that as soon as you notice what you are doing you tell your- self “Stop!” Take a deep breath. Relax your body and mind. Look up, (force yourself to) smile and affirm “YES, I caught myself”. Congratulations on taking control of your thoughts! Now use reassuring self-talk if part of you is anxious. My point is Let’s practice ways to keep our vibration high. It’s my experience that the more I heal my emotional/psychological wounds and become self-loving and self-accept- ing, the easier it is for me to love and accept others. We are human, we have all experi- enced difficulties, fear and anxiety that caused us to be clumsy, do or say ‘stupid’ things, we’ve all screwed up at times, and failed; we know how uncomfortable it feels to be judged, so let’s stop judging ourselves and others so harshly. It’s not always easy learning, practising and developing compassion, but ultimately it releases a surge of energy, togeth- er with joy and a growing sense of freedom. That is raising our vibration! Some days we do it well; other days we struggle, but what’s important is the overall trend towards more loving acceptance of ourselves…in a self- caring rather than egotistic way. Love and take care of yourself first, then you can be genuinely supportive and ‘there’ for others in a way that a) inspires them, and b) doesn’t burn you out.


Take care of your inner child as well as the adult You Louise Hay, who I mentioned previously, has also written a great deal about the inner child, the younger versions of us that psychologically are still in us even though we are now adult. In brief, as children we take on the criticisms of us that our parents and other significant adults give out. However much we may have resented it when young, we may well still be saying those same derogatory things to ourselves even now as an adult. These internalised put-downs and judgements prevent us from thriving. We need to become aware of our unconscious programming and negative self-talk in order to release these (low vibrational) limiting thoughts and beliefs. It’s easiest to do this with the help of a therapist who can then support you in improving self-worth while developing new, posi- tive behaviours. There are many different forms of therapy that, once learned, can be used as self-help tools for re-programming….transforming yourself bit by bit into an open- hearted, self-nurturing adult who quietly exudes a positive resonance. Rejuvenation can only happen if we raise our energetic vibration. Apart from the quality of our self- talk as just mentioned, some contributory factors are diet, sleep, deep breathing, stress-reduction eg with meditation or exercise, gratitude and so


South West Connection - August / November 2017 33


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