A Self-Love Affair: The Path To Healthy & Conscious Self-Validation
What's the difference between intimidation to fulfill someone else's agenda and doing what is right with your heart?
This seems to be the crux of my crux. It's the question that keeps me up at night and afraid to share my truths in fear that I'll become so self-validated that I won't care to check for the greater good of humanity.
This fear that I'll individuate too far and become detached from society, compassion, and others has prevented me from sharing honestly with anyone outside my immediate inner circle for years.
It's what kept me talking about the arguments and not my points. It's what encouraged me to speak topically and not within the full truths of me and my perspective.
This fear, the fear of being too individual, that one is accused of narcissism and humanistic despondency, allows us to hide. It permits us to deny truths. It promotes safe thinking, not critically thinking about who we are, what we know to be true about us, what we need to be responsible for, and how to trust those truths in a way that supports us being the heartfelt, well-intentioned, empathetic beings we are.
I've learned that self-love and self-validation don’t create narcissists or monsters.
They create conscious beings willing to know themselves well enough to also know where they need unbiased accountability.
It creates self-responsible, loving people, bravely willing to stand for the greater good of doing no harm, but taking no shit.
I don’t see the field I’m in as one I’ve selected. It selected me. And the path I’ve journeyed continues to not only reinforce it but also sustain it.
I’ve been challenged by being a Life Coach in more ways than not. It has not only propelled me to face myself but also how I see, love, and care about the faces of others to the point that it doesn’t grant me the opportunity to hide — not only in my shit but in the world or its ‘shit’.
It forces me to not only know myself but my intentions. It challenges me to understand why they are and their purpose. It causes me to dig deep and acknowledge that I would be totally fine fading into the background most days. FACT.
But in order to help those like me, I have to speak up and be responsible for knowing the who, what, why, and how of what I say. I have to choose brave visibility to be able to practice it consciously, compassionately, and clearly in the world.
Because of my work, my life has changed. I have become someone I not only know but love being with and knowing. I like me some me.
I have grown to understand that the fear of harming others doesn’t mean I will harm them. Rather, it shows my clear intention. It means that I give a shit about my craft enough to respect its mastery for what it is, who I want to be about it, and to all those, I ever have or will get the privilege to sit with, witness, chat with, and be with.
I’ve often heard fear referred to as a stopping agent, as something that breeds doubt or is an indicator of it. In my life, any time fear was present, it wasn’t without good reason. It, too, has intention.
In my life, fear has often presented itself as not a stop, but a signal to ground in and slow down. It’s been an ask if a pause is needed but not necessarily a quit. It’s been a caution sign that some consideration is needed. And in this field, I’ve learned it continues to reveal itself as just that.
That fear is not a NO; it’s a check engine light that turns on to make sure you’re optimally and safely operating according to your true standards.
For as much as I’ve heard fear perpetuated as a cease and desist, I’ve also heard it can mean “Face Everything & Rise.” I see self-love and self-validation as just that: facing everything and choosing to continue, to find your grit, find your center, face ‘what is so’, leverage it ALL as wisdom attuning to the truth of you, and the opportunity to R I S E.
I see self-validating as something to hold sacred and handle with care. It’s something that asks you to consider how you’re operating and what support is needed to ensure it’s fully, optimally, to your highest and best.
It’s what allows us to know who we are, and what’s in our hearts, and considers taking accountability for the institution of boundaries that will help check our own asses if or when we veer too far from the intended course.
I’d like to say I have “human-ing” all figured out. But, the truth is I don’t. I’m just a person like you learning this living thing one day at a time willing to say, “hey, here’s something I’ve learned. How does that land with you in your experiences?”
I’m just someone who happens to have the highest of intentions for myself and what I offer the world. And at the same time, I Am one who also knows and allows that I will make mistakes. I will fuck up. I will not know it all. And, I will be inconsistent in my humanity because I was not born of a rock, but of a being that requires I will evolve, like it & they have, like it or not.
Because I know this and commit daily to continue knowing myself, I also know fucking up to be a true fear of mine because I just happen to hold the credence to do my best at doing no harm.
And in light of my humanity, in light of honesty, in light of humility, what I hold true is that I know my intentions are good. But, I choose to hold unbiased support to also do my part to ensure I afford myself the opportunity to remain as close to what I lovingly intend as I can.
All we can do in this life is our best.
I’ve learned that means knowing who you are and what it (your best) means. I’ve learned it means that we won’t be without fear or fuck ups. Rather, that fear often is a signal that we deeply care and want to be careful with not only who we are but who we encounter.
Self-validating allows us to acknowledge that to ensure we’re doing our best we need to do what is necessary to support us in being accountable for it.
How do you actively acknowledge your best?
What accountability do you practice to ensure its existence?
What self-validations do you allow & where is there room for (internal or external) support?
With Blessings,
