Anger ~ The Art of Loving Your Inner-Child

Anger is a normal human emotion that teaches us about boundaries.  Let your Inner-Child know that it's okay if they feel and express anger because what they have to say is important. But they must also learn to respect other peoples energy and grow out of "throwing tantrums", aloof pouting, or getting physical with others when they feel emotional pain.  Ask your Inner-Child what hurts and what they think and feel is causing the pain.  Give them permission to yell and hit a pillow (a plastic bat is great for that) so they can release the angry pain more deeply.  Also see if they have any scary memories of when others lashed out in anger at them.  It is important for them to process and release the angry energy that they may have taken in from others over the years, so they (and you) can feel lighter, freer and safer in their body and their life.

Peace and great care,

Amanda

          Appreciate ~ The Art of Loving Your Inner-Child

It's important to appreciate what we have because it increases the quality of life both inside own hearts and minds and outside ourselves by attracting more abundance to us.  Our level of appreciation will often times mirror what our parents appreciated or didn't appreciate in others and in the world.  Your Inner-Child has a deep appreciation for everything because everything is new and exciting in their eyes.  Call upon your Inner-Child to help you see the good in your life.  If their ability to appreciate life has been wounded, then it is up to you to re-teach them how to value life.  Appreciating food, friends, animals and nature are great places to begin these lessons.

Peace and great care,

Amanda

          Alienation ~ The Art of Loving Your Inner-Child

It's not easy when we feel like an outsider amongst others.  Our Inner-Child needs to know that there are many different types of people in the world and that it's okay if we don't feel accepted by all of them.  Remind your Inner-Child that there are people around who understand them and like them just as they are...one of them being you!  Give your Inner-Child permission to chime in on what kinds of people they would like to have as friends or have a romantic relationship with.  If your friends or partner can't relate, love, and appreciate the energy of your Inner-Child than you are likely to experience a lot of feelings of pain and rejection throughout those relationships.  Your Inner-Child deserves to be accepted by you and the people you invite into your life.

Peace and great care,

Amanda

          Activity ~ The Art of Loving Your Inner-Child


Doing the things you love to do is a great way to nurture and entertain your Inner-Child.  Our Inner-Children need to participate in activities that allow us to express, create, imagine, and move our bodies.  Growing up, many of the activities we did were not of our own choosing, but that of our family or societal culture.  If we didn't get enough say in how our time was spent when we were little, it can cause us to manifest a life where we don't believe we have any choice in what activities we put time and energy towards as adults. This can create a suppressed anger that causes us to rebel, even when we are presented with activities that are  beneficial to us, such as working a job that pays us money, parenting our children, or taking care of our yard.  To prevent and heal this rebellious imbalance, it is important to give your Inner-Child permission to honor their preferences when it comes to activities.

Peace and great care,

Amanda

          Acting ~ The Art of Loving Your Inner-Child


Playing pretend is an important part of becoming and discovering who we really are.  Your Inner-Child needs to know that it is safe and okay for him/her play and pretend.  Our Inner-Children also need to know that our real selves are special and loveable just as we are.  Sometimes as kids we learn to play a role in order to survive in our family system.  If we are not aware of what roles we have performed in our family drama then we are likely to play the same role in our adult lives, but with a new cast of characters acting as our family.  Help your inner-child free him/herself from acting out roles that no longer fit the story you want to be living right now.

Peace and great care,

Amanda

          Abandonment ~ The Art of Loving Your Inner-Child


Abandonment can occur in many forms and for many reasons - a death, divorce, adoption, war, neglect, addictions, being ignored, and being forgotten...among many other hurtful situations.  Our Inner-Child needs to feel safe and loved.  Let your young and small inner-self know that he/she matters and is never alone because your Higher-Self, Spirit Guides and Angels are always around him/her ready to support, love, nurture, and protect at all times.  All your Inner-Child has to do is remember to call out for it if they can't see or feel that energy present in their life.

Peace and great care,

Amanda

Break-Ups, Abandonment, & Belonging

Break-ups are hard...there is just no way around that fact.  Oftentimes breaking up is hard, even when YOU are the one ending it!  Even when you know breaking up is the best thing in the world that you could do for yourself, it can be painful and emotionally disorienting.  Break-ups, of all kinds...from the agreeable friendly kind to the knock-down-breakdown kind...are likely to bring up our abandonment and belonging issues.

Regardless of how long the relationship lasted, it is likely that for a time you felt a sense of "belonging" with this person.  A feeling of completion and connection that made you feel safe, known, and wanted...if only for a short time.  If it's a longer relationship than these feelings of belonging were likely to be more deeply etched into your psyche.  When that feeling is "taken" from us in a break-up or we decide to remove ourselves from it, then it is likely to trigger abandonment feelings both in the moment, but also any that we have experienced in the past.

So many people have experienced some form of abandonment in their childhood.  It could have happened in the form of divorce, death, a parent leaving the family, traveling, work, war, addiction, abuse, adoption, etc.  A lot of times relationships ending can be especially painful for people who have suffered a big abandonment in their childhood.  When we are little, we often times will suppress our hurt, scared, angry, confused, betrayed, and sad feelings in relationship to the loss in order to survive and get through it. 

Suppressed feelings don't go away.  They just hang out in the places of our memory that go unnoticed by our conscious mind.  This hiding place is what a lot of healers, therapists and mystics call the Shadow.  When we experience difficult moments that take us out of our day to day stream of (and striving for) happiness...like a breakup...we begin to emotionally dip into the suppressed memories and feelings of the past, which makes the feelings in the "here and now" even more intense.  It is normal and natural to do this, especially if you have experienced a trauma. 

Abandonment is traumatizing to children because we are naturally attached to our parental figures because we have a primal need to have that bond...so it is nothing to be ashamed of, yet a lot of us do feel shame and may not even be aware of it.  There can be a lot of shame associated with being abandoned because we lose our sense of belonging and that can make us feel unwanted and different than others and so, in order to cope, we learn to hide and minimize the feelings we have as kids all the way into adulthood. 

This suppressed shame can explain why we so often feel a sense of shame when someone breaks up with us or we are unable to make a relationship work...we feel ashamed for being "unwanted" and we feel shame in not being able to make a relationship last or having made a poor choice in a mate.  If you have never felt abandoned emotionally or physically in your past then you are rare and lucky!  You may still  have some abandonment and shame feelings come up though.  For you it may be a different kind of intensity that is linked with the unfamiliar shock of someone choosing to not be in a relationship with you or you may worry that you are not living up to the potential of your families reputation/tradition for having solid and sound relationships.

Once we understand the full scope of why we feel the way we do, we can begin healing the core stuff that led us to this experience in the first place.  Our suppressed and unconscious grief from past abandonment can attract to us similar experiences through relationships with people who will play out the previous drama with us.  I believe this is orchestrated by our spirits so we can become conscious of what needs healing in us through the experience of pain.  Pain causes us to grow when we would rather just stay the same. 

No one wants to go through life with a conscious or unconscious feeling of abandonment, shame, and a sense of not belonging in the world.  When a break-up triggers these feelings in us we have the choice to grow bitter or  depressed and live as a victim, or we can feel our feelings and learn how to be there for ourselves.  We can learn how to feel a sense of belonging from within.  We can comfort the inner-child that still feels hurt and lost due to events of long ago.  It is amazing what a little awareness and allowing of feelings can do for a person. 

The process of healing from a past abandonment and a present break-up can feel and look messy, but it is fertile ground for personal and spiritual growth.  As we heal our wounds and let go of shame we grow into whole adults who are conscious and ready to have relationships that last.  The first step towards creating that is in mending your relationship with yourself through understanding what experiences and events have left behind a residue of grief that needs to be consciously felt, expressed, and let go of.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)
 

Amanda

  It's Only Life...My GOD, It's LIFE!  

Sometimes when life is hard in that everyday-kind-of-way it is helpful to try and look at the situation that troubles you from a different vantage point.  Sometimes in order to find spiritual lessons and honest solutions we have to try on a whole new perspective with the people and events facing us...or still dragging along behind us.
 

People, events, and situations have a way of doing that...lingering around, reading a magazine...or a blog :-), just hanging out waiting for the right person or job or life event to come a long so you can invite them/it into your life experience and play the past out together.
 

After a while, if we start paying attention and asking questions, we realize that our future direction always seems to be headed towards people, places, and things that feel very familiar.  We realize that, in a sense, we are re-creating our past because we are refusing to or are unaware of the need to do, think, see, feel, know, hear, speak, and choose any different.
 

Most often our refusal or lack of awareness comes from the fact that we would feel overwhelmed and scared if we took action or admitted to ourselves something we have tried to avoid seeing or feeling.  But for many of us on the planet, at this time, we are finding that we can't avoid our own awareness any longer.  It is too painful and destructive to do so and our soul specifically came here to heal and move on to higher lessons.
 

If you are avoiding this work because it feels overwhelming, It doesn't mean that you are a bad person destined to suffer forever...it just means that you are scared and need to tap into a new perspective about life in order to live without anxiety, depression, co-dependency, addictions, boredom, anger, and control issues.
 

When I was at one of my lowest points in my life I had a realization that I still remind myself of from time to time.  I was feeling very sad, unloved, stressed about money, and ashamed of how weak and confused I felt everyday.  It was a really tough time and I rarely enjoyed my life.  The only time I felt any peace or enjoyment was when I was drunk or using some kind of stimulant like coffee, ephedra, and cigarettes...otherwise life just seemed impossible and heavy.  All my dreams and hopes and loves seemed so out of reach and pointless.
 

I wish I could remember how this realization came to me, but I cannot recall the specific situation.  It was probably about money...that was the thing (and when a relationship would end) that created the most overwhelming feelings for me in my early twenties.  Anyway, I had the realization that it was only life...that whatever I was thinking, feeling, and experiencing was not the end of the world or the end of my life...it was just the kind of thing that happens in life...that it wasn't a big deal because life isn't really that big of a deal.  I basically detached from what was happening and let myself see it as something that had nothing really to do with me...or at least that part of myself that was thinking these things.
 

That realization felt good for awhile, but it also felt empty and like it was only a half-truth.  A part of me knew and really wanted to admit that there was more to life than just these problems that I was facing and these feelings that I was drowning in.  Somewhere I knew that being happy and carefree was possible because I had experienced it often as a kid.  I knew that nature was beautiful and made me feel connected to something I could feel in my body and heart when I was in it.  I knew there was something very BIG about life...much bigger than my issues and struggles.  This is when the phrase came to me:
 

It's only life...My GOD, It's LIFE!
 

This is something I say when I need to steady my fearful heart and racing mind and put things in perspective so I can get a handle on whatever chaos I have created for myself.  Life is both silly and magical.  Life is both "no big deal" and larger than the Universe.  Life is always offering us chances to choose better for ourselves and to detach from over-identifying with our ever changing experiences.  When we can see and feel these two opposing forces in our situation we can center ourselves enough to confront what is facing us.  We can see our mistakes as lessons.  We can feel our fears as grief.  We can choose the highest road available to us and move forward with our heads held high.  Most importantly, we can remind ourselves that whatever it is that is challenging us will not be the end of our life and that, because we are alive, we have the responsibility of creating a life that is well worth living.
 

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)
 

Amanda

  I Need You  

Often times people confuse deep feelings of need with feelings of love.  They believe that because they have this deep longing, craving, and need for another person that it must be love...why else would they feel so strongly?  A lot of times the intensity of our need for another person does not come from love, although we may genuinely have love feelings for them.  Often times, it is actually old feelings that are being triggered and Spirit is using the relationship as a way of getting us to look at ourselves through the experience of painful emotions when our needs go unmet.

When we are little, we are truly needy.  We need our parents to feed us, clothe us, shelter us, love us and provide for us just about everything a human needs in order to survive.  Some of us are lucky and our needs get met in a way that creates a sense of safety, balance, and comfort within our mind, heart, and body.  When we have this sense of well-being, we are free to grow and learn how to meet our own emotional and physical needs and we end up living as integrated and whole adults who attract other integrated and whole adults into our relationship experiences.

Unfortunately, with the world being the way it often is and with families being the way they often are, many of us did not get all of our needs met and did not have the luxury of growing up feeling safe and supported to grow into a fully integrated and whole adult.  Many of us actually learned to suppress our needs in order to survive.  If a child has a naturally deep need for love and affection, but grows up in a home that is cold and lacking in that department, that child has two choices...to seek out love and affection and get rejected over and over again or to suppress the need, make it not all that important and focus on getting whatever is being provided.  This is a way of coping that can get us through the tough years, but a suppressed need does not mean that it goes away...it is just dormant until a situation comes along to revive the feeling of the unmet need, which is often times what love relationships do.  When we have vital needs go unmet in childhood, we end up having parts and pieces missing within our psyches and emotional body and so that is what we are often times searching for in a romantic partner...someone who we unconsciously believe possesses and will give us what we are lacking inside.  All the natural longings and needs that went unmet as a child get transferred onto our lovers and potential lovers. 

This is not a very sexy or romantic way of looking at love, but it can be incredibly helpful if you find yourself feeling way more needy of another than you would like.  Our unconscious neediness will often times do the opposite of what we want and push away love or attract to us the people who will go out of their way to not meet our needs.  The more we understand what is happening the more we can show up for ourselves and meet our own needs...and ultimately attract someone who is capable and willing to give and receive in a balanced way.  Nurturing and healing within ourselves what went unmet in childhood allows us to grow into our full potential as individuals.  It is much easier to attract and sustain a healthy loving partnership when we are actively working on becoming a complete human being on our own.  If we don't then we will only attract people who will reflect back to us what is still missing through the pain and drama of our needs going unmet in the relationship.

So the next time you feel a wave of neediness sweep over you towards a new love or a long-time partner...perhaps they are unavailable to be with you or give you what you want emotionally or physically, take a moment to ask yourself where this need went unmet when you were a kid.  9 times out of 10, that unmet need is at the core of the intensity you are feeling and experiencing today.  Once you are conscious of it, you can begin giving yourself the love, safety, comfort, encouragement, or attention that you missed out on as a child...and soon enough your relationships will begin reflecting back the fullness you will feel inside.
 

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

Your Inner Voice LOVES You

You have an inner voice.  A wise and loving voice that is always talking to you...trying to get your attention...guiding you on your rightful path...reminding you of who you really are...soothing you during the sad times...cheering you on when you are conquering the world.  It LOVES to be listened to...it always has your back...and it will always tell you the truth.

The art of listening to this inner voice is your biggest and most noble challenge on this Earth.  The rewards of mastering this challenge are endless.  Psychics, empaths, and tarot readers are here to help you get in touch with that.  Why do you think you so often say to yourself after a reading, "I totally knew that!"  It's because you were hearing your inner voice all along...but were not quite ready to trust it and felt like you needed some outside validation that what you were hearing inside was true.

The ability to trust your inner voice to guide you properly is a sign of self-mastery.  Because this is something that is rarely taught in our childhood...in fact we are actually taught the opposite most of the time...it can be a challenge to get to a place where you listen to and trust your inner voice 100% of the time.  Fear and ego like to dance around this territory as well and unfortunately they are old familiar "friends" that can easily get our attention and take over.  This is normal and should even be expected when you begin to open up to listening and trusting your inner voice.  Paying attention to your body and what it is telling you can be a great way of deciphering what is real and what is fear/ego.  If you experience tightness or pain then it is a sign to re-consider your choices.  If you feel relaxed, light, and expansive then that it a sign that you are on the right track.

If you are still unsure about if what you are hearing is your inner voice then consulting a tarot deck or an advisor that you trust can be a great way of getting additional confirmation.  Once you have it figured out, pay special attention to how the guidance or fear came to you originally.  This will help you in future situations.  You can also ask your unconscious mind to show you what is real in a dream before you go to bed.  Whatever you do keep working at opening up.  If you stay committed to the process then you WILL build a trusting connection with yourself eventually...without a doubt!  Always remember that your inner voice is there for you 24/7 and loves you like you were it's favorite, most precious little child.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

  Work Should Feel Like Play 

Are you currently looking for work or considering a major career change, but just don't know which way to begin?  Are you determined to not just have a job, but to live and create from a place of purpose? If so, here is a simple way of discovering what this might mean for you.

Think about when you were a kid and think about how you liked to spend your time when no one was telling you what to do.  You may find that you had several different "play passions" and that they changes at different ages.  Write down as many as you can think of.

Next, begin taking these seriously...don't just write them off as kid's stuff because they may hold some very important clues to both your passion and your purpose when it comes to your work.  Spirit shines through very naturally with children because they have not been overly conditioned by family and society yet.  You will want to start thinking in terms of how the play you did as kid translates into things your spirit wants you to be doing and working towards now.

For example, say you wanted to be a doctor when you were little.  You may think, "so what?  I can't start medical school now, I'm too old".  Well, that is up to you to see it like that...you could begin medical school if you let go of the belief about age being important, but let's say that even when you do that it doesn't sound appealing.  What this early desire could be telling you is that you have a desire to heal.  So maybe it is about learning alternative healing techniques or understanding medicine or maybe working with people who are sick and living life as a "patient".  Or perhaps it is about writing about doctors and patients, or promoting medical ideas.  The skies the limit...the important thing is to let your mind think outside of the box, while using your childhood playtime as an inspiration for what is truly possible for you.

For myself, I always loved playing the game Memory and I would often times play cards with my sister and grandma...I loved to shuffle cards!  As it turns out, I am now a tarot card reader and I have co-created my own tarot deck with my partner.  The images I am creating for the cards are square and colorful just like the squared images on the memory game.  I feel very much in my passion when I read the cards for others and when I work on and promote my tarot deck.

Oftentimes, in our play as kids, we were trying to learn and prepare our older selves for what will support us financially and stimulate us mentally and emotionally...so if you are currently confused about your career and purpose, begin by visiting the past and looking at what your younger-self was naturally drawn to when it came time to play!
 

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

  Take Time To Heal  

After a death, divorce, or break-up it is very important that we give our hearts time to heal before we re-engage in new relationships.  Because of the void that is often left behind with these losses many people will begin looking for new love too soon.  They can't stand being alone for very long and the emotional discomfort is too great.  This can happen most often during the "bargaining" stage of grief.  Sometimes we may try bargaining with the powers that be to bring back our love, but other times we may try and bargain away the pain by seeking out new sources of love and comfort pre-maturely.

A new relationship too soon will often times cause you to minimize the complexity of your grief feelings because you don't want to come off as weak or "crazy" in the eyes of the new person...or you won't want to make the new person jealous or feel inferior to your previous love.  This creates a pattern of emotional suppression.  These feelings of loss and hurt don't just go away, they must be felt and worked through if you ever want to be free of the pain of loss.  You will have to deal with them sooner or later and the sooner the better!  If you suppress your pain, then you are more likely to attract painful relationships that will mirror that pain back to you.  You may be drawn to people who are inconsistent, unavailable, or grieving themselves.  You may find temporary relief and comfort, but ultimately a new relationship will never take the pain away...it must be felt and released...and as much as we humans resist it, that takes time.

Another reason why it is useful to give yourself space to grieve and heal after a loss is that older issues also have a chance to come to the surface and be healed.  Life is cyclical and so if you are going through a painful loss right now, there is a chance that you went through a painful loss in the past that may also need to be consciously grieved.  Sometimes a relationship ending can trigger abandonment wounds from our childhood and teen years.  If our parents divorced or passed away when we were young, this loss may also be re-triggered.  Taking the time to feel and process all our feelings...the sadness and the anger...with people we trust will go a long way to lighten your emotional load in this life.  Use this time as an opportunity to clean your emotional closets and deepen your spiritual connection with your self and the Universe.  Keep in mind that you will heal and you have time to love again.  When you take the time you need to heal, you set the stage for a new life and love that is deep and lasting.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

  You Are A Creator  

You are a Creator and you have the power to create the life and the love that you want...if you have patience and choose to.  Many people don't.  They want only a specific kind of happiness and jump on the first thing that remotely resembles what they think they want...only to be disappointed when it doesn't live up to their expectations and "make them happy".  They choose to deny their power to create and participate mindfully in their happiness.  They either don't want or can't handle the responsibility, which is sad because then they are left to be the victims of fate.  Life is always happening to them and people and events are rarely on their side for very long.  They repeat the same patterns in their jobs and their relationships and end up feeling sorry for themselves and depressed because they can't manage to keep joy around.  If the self-pity turns into suppressed or overt  bitterness then they may find that even their health is "not on their side".

That is not to say that being passive in life wont lead to some rewards, it will, but the wheel of life is always moving and if you sit still for too long then the downfall will land in your lap eventually.  This is why confronting and healing the internal thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that block us from taking responsibility for our success and happiness is so important.  When you start actively working with fate you can create both miracles and everyday blessings. 

No matter how down and out you feel you are right now, you have the power to begin creating the life you want.  It is a courageous and self-loving choice to make.  At the soul-level, I believe we all want the same thing...a life that is positive, authentic, and has a joyful energy to it.  Everyone has been faced with challenges that leave them feeling as though they just want to give up and blame the world for their woes.  So don't feel ashamed if that is you right now...it happens to the best of us...just choose to stop believing the lie that you don't have the power to change things right now. 

If you are sick, start with telling your body to heal.  If you are hurting over a love, tell yourself that you are loveable and beautiful.  If you are stressed over work and money issues, go outside and touch some nature, then figure out a way to save money and put energy towards improving your job situation.  If you are lonely, connect with an animal or a human that is kind.  If people are pushing you around, set boundaries and stand up for yourself.  Do for yourself what you are subconsciously hoping someone else will come along and do for you.

When you start seeing yourself as a Creator, life takes on a whole new tone.  It doesn't mean that everything is perfect and that there are no challenges.  It means that you take on the challenges and begin working them to your advantage.  It means you take your health and your happiness seriously.  It means that you believe in yourself enough to take action and make choices that lead you to what you want and deserve on a soul level!

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

  How Do I Love Myself?  

In a time of self-help books and with New Age thought entering the mainstream more and more, we all hear that we should love ourselves more from time to time.  Sounds like a nice idea for most people, but if you are in the midst of angst and loss you might hear "Love Yourself More" and want to laugh, scream, and cry all at the same time.  It seems like if we could just "Love Ourselves More" we would, right?  I mean, who would go around and NOT love themselves if it were that easy?  Or we may think, "I love myself a lot...I went on 2 vacations last year and re-did my entire living room, kitchen, and bathroom just this month."  Or we may say "Hey, I dumped the crappy boyfriend and got a new job...if that is not self-loving then what is?"

Well, the idea of loving yourself is just as complex as the idea of loving another...there is no one simple way of looking at it...everyone has a varied understanding about what all constitutes "love"...be it of self or otherwise.  Sometimes both seem impossible and scary to do, yet we find ourselves able to embrace it from time to time.  And both can appear like mirages...elusive forms of loving feelings and loving actions that look and feel great at first, but in the end it leaves us feeling thirsty, empty and sometimes even addicted.  When I think of healthy Romantic-Love and Self-Love I think of a dynamic that allows for an honest and compassionate relationship between our thoughts and our feelings that then translates into loving actions and choices. 

Many of the people I speak to as a reader are going through some recent or current loss of a relationship.  This seems to be the hardest time to love ourselves in a healthy way because we are feeling so abandoned, rejected, scorned, and lost.  Someone who was connecting us with the energy of love is suddenly gone, and that can create a great feeling of emptiness inside.  Many of us lose touch with our independent connection to love when we are in relationship with another...we merge so much that we lose sight of our unique love-light.  Or maybe we never really had it in our sights to begin with and the relationship was the only source of love we felt.  It is in moments like this that I encourage people to begin loving themselves more.  It is in movements like this when it can feel like an impossible task at best, and a cruel joke at worst.  

Sometimes when I advise my clients that they need to begin loving themselves more, they ask, "How???  How do I love myself more...what does that even mean???"  I can understand their frustration over advice that sounds so simple, but can feel so monumental and abstract.

To love yourself, you must first know yourself, and then you must accept what you know about yourself in the spirit of love. 

Self-knowledge is a journey for life, so it is important to start with where you are and begin paying attention to all your thoughts and feelings.  Begin keeping a journal.  If you already do, begin reading old journals and writing about what you read.  Get a therapist or talk with an advisor or a friend who will listen without judgment, but who may also be wise enough to give you compassionate feedback and insight into yourself.  Read self-help books that deal with the issue that trouble you and with understanding family and childhood dynamics.  I can recommend excellent books and resources, so feel free to email me if you would like some recommendations.  All these things will help stimulate your awareness and understanding of yourself.

Self-acceptance can sometimes feel painful and uncomfortable.  There is so much in society and families that teaches us to deny our true thoughts and feelings, that when we are finally ready to know and accept ourselves, it can sometimes feel foreign, conceited, or devious to do so.  Or we may discover things about ourselves that we think we should never accept.  This might indicate that we need to change our choices and behaviors and take responsibility for any harm we have done, but we still need to accept that this part of ourselves existed.  If we don't then we will feel shame and guilt that will keep us from being able to love ourselves.  I will talk more in a later blog about shame and guilt, but for now I will say that these two feelings are Self-Love's arch-enemies.  Self-acceptance can also exist in the form of forgiveness, which is the thing that will dissolve feelings of shame and guilt, so we can be free to love ourselves and others.  The spirit of love is very forgiving so know that you always have that available to you when you feel bad about yourself.

If we have been denying our good and worth for a long time, then the process of actively loving ourselves might take some time to get use to, but that is okay.  It is worth the wait and the work involved.  Consistently relating to ourselves in an honest, accepting, and compassionate way is the key to opening up to lasting joy and authentic relationships in our lives.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

  Books to Open the Mind and Heal the Heart 

Homecoming: Reclaiming & Championing Your Inner Child
by John Bradshaw
This book deals directly with doing inner child and "original pain" work that creates lasting change within an individuals life.  You do not need to have had a traumatic childhood to benefit from this work.  If you have had an intense childhood than you will definitely find this to be useful in your healing process.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda