Loving Youself - Healing Shame and the Inner Child

Have you ever felt that there is a deep hole inside you? One you cannot fill. I think all of us do to some extent. It feels like sometime, when we were very, very young, something or some things happened that pulled the natural love out of us and left a endless hole, because Love is infinite. With the love 'out' of us, we are left with trying to get love from other people in order to fill that hole, working to earn love, get approval, constantly vigilant about what was working and what's not, and constantly expecting rejection and more pain. We make an agreement to protect ourselves from ever feeling that pain again. We constantly try to stuff the pain with food or substances. We isolate and avoid so we won't feel the inevitable rejection. We give our power away to the people 'out there' because we depend on them so much for love and validation. The mind does a very good job at protecting us, telling stories about it, why it happened, how it's still happening, and what's going to happen... anything rather than feeling the pain. And what could be more painful than feeling you are separate from your own Love? Separate from your own Self. That is a very lonely place. When you believe that something about you is broken, unlovable and needs fixing, that you are never 'good enough', then you can't see or feel the love that people are trying to give you. It's there, but you can't receive it. I used to think an affirmation like "I am loved" would work, but it didn't because by saying "I am loved", I was still looking for people 'out there' to love me. What I really needed was to fill the hole myself, with my own love.

The only person who can fill that hole is you. That's amazingly hard to do since, if you have an underlying belief that something is wrong with you and your are unlovable, it's hard to love yourself. It's hard to forgive yourself for some of the behaviors these underlying feelings caused in your life. It's hard to love yourself when you know deep down you don't believe it. Healing is to understand what happened, that this hole exists, that it can't be filled by someone or something outside of yourself no matter how hard you try. Understand that the events caused this hole, you weren't to blame. Chances are you were very, very young and didn't even know what was going on. You aren't broken and unlovable. It's the hole, not you.

So, the first step in filling this hole is to stop blaming yourself.

Next, stop blaming others. You can't change the past and all the time you spend blaming others won't heal you, it's still focusing outside of you. Chances are the person or people who hurt you had a big hole, too.

Third, extend love to yourself. Talk to yourself like you are your best friend. Comfort yourself, encourage yourself, be proud of yourself, treat yourself, honor yourself and feel yourself moving from hole to whole.

Now is the time to heal, to understand that the hole and needs inside caused the behaviors and that practically everyone has this to some degree. With compassion and forgiveness rather than judgment and criticism, we will not only heal ourselves, but heal the pain in the world. I made a special guided meditation, Loving Yourself (http://beginwithin.org/tools-3/meditations/) , to help you with this healing. It is my heartfelt desire that it benefit as many people on this planet as possible.