Self-Love is the Key

By Sarah Cura

Change yourself and the world around you changes. The power is in your hands. 

 

Are you ready to know yourself better? Now is the time to release old patterns of self-neglect. Now is the time to step into our full potential. 

 

When we know ourselves fully, we can live the life we came here to live. So many of us are bound by unconscious behaviors that get in our way. They block us from loving ourself and the people around us. Here, we address ways to let go of all we want to release so we can be who we have always known ourselves to be. 

Self-love is the path that will show us the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Cura
• Release date: Jul 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201392413

Sarah Cura

Around 6 years ago, I left the US thinking I was going on an extended vacation to Thailand. Little did I know that I was starting a new life journey. It was time for me to leave behind the life I knew and walk into a new one. I had a very good life and business in many ways in America, but something was not flowing quite right. I have done many things that I am proud of though, like have stores for 13 years and sell my wares at festivals for over 25 years. Yet I did not really understand what was missing. It became clear that self-love was a bit part of what I was needing in my life. Of course, I was shown many tests, some of which I “failed”, but those challenges just brought me to where I am now. When I’m not living the processes I talk about in this book, I enjoy reading chakras with a pendulum and teaching people how to read them as well. I adore doing Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan every morning. It keeps me sane and gives me power and clarity! I also love creating spiritually inspired silver and gemstone jewelry. To see some of my creations, you can go to www.saracura.com.

Book preview

Part 1

What is Self-Love Anyways??

Signs you may need more self-love in your life

you are giving away your power or playing the victim

you are second guessing your intuition and not trusting your feelings

you are lying to yourself

you are overspending your energy and becoming depleted

you are habitually putting other people’s needs before your own

you are talking negatively about yourself in your thoughts

you are accepting less for yourself than what you deserve

you are viewing others as more important than yourself

Dose of Self-Love

I will give you self-love suggestions throughout this book.

You will find a more extensive list in Part 4.

You have my permission to indulge in taking time for you,

to love yourself as you are, in this very moment, right now.

First Dose

Connect with nature. Put your bare feet in the dirt or on the grass. Enjoy the shade of a beautiful tree. Lie on the ground and watch the clouds float by.

Remember where you came from.

What is self-love?

Self-love is selfish, said the person who needs self-love the most.

Ihave been talking about the idea of self-love a lot for the last few years, recommending it to friends on a regular basis. One day, a friend said to me, " OK, Sarah, I hear you, but really – how do you do that? How do you love yourself? " I had to stop and think – what is self-love anyways? That is the big question. We know that it is good for us and that maybe need more of it in our lives, but what does it actually look like? This is a tricky question, because it looks different for each person. I cannot just tell you – do this and this and this and then you will be loving yourself. Only you really know, somewhere deep inside yourself, what self-love looks like for you, as well as what holds you back from fully loving yourself.

We are running so many subconscious programs inside of ourselves that get in the way of truly connecting with the fullest expression of ourselves. In essence, we want to feel self-love from the inside, and that is a process of recognizing who we are, understanding what we have experienced in this life so far and how it has affected us, and which ideas about ourselves and our lives we should keep and which ideas we should let go. This is a big journey, but I know you are up for it. You are here, reading this, aren’t you?

So first, let’s take a look at what is love, so we can get started on this journey and learn how to love ourselves better.

Reflection Question

Are you ready to learn how to love yourself more? How do you feel about this journey into self-love?

Dose of Self-Love

Take a dog for a walk. Pet a cat. Watch butterflies.

Connect with an animal.

What is love anyway?

Love is integration of the self, fully and completely. But what does that really mean? How do we become integrated? How do we feel whole? What does it look like to feel whole? When you are whole, you do not need someone else’s validation to be happy or feel your emotions, because you accept yourself and your feelings as they are. You do not need love from others because you already love yourself. That is very easy to say, but a bit more complex to put into practice.

According to Greek philosophy, there are many different kinds of love.

Agape – selfless love

Philia – affectionate love, not romantic

Pragma – enduring love

Storge – familiar love

Eros – romantic love

Ludus – playful love

Mania – obsessive love

Philautia – self-love

In this book, we will be addressing Philautia, self-love, but it is good to understand the other types of love as well. Another way that I understand Agape is as the idea of Spiritual love or Unconditional love. For the longest time, I could not imagine what unconditional love looked like. It felt very distant and imaginary to me, totally unachievable. Through years of spiritual practice, I now have at least a small glimpse into this massive concept. I believe that self-love should be unconditional, which most of us cannot fully grasp since we have very few examples of it in our lives. But maybe we can just think of it as a concept while we work on understanding ourselves and our incredible human journey better.

Reflection question

Do you feel you understand the idea of love?

How do you relate to these different aspects of love?

Are you more comfortable with one form of love than another?

Love is not...

Attraction

Pleasure

Sex or Sexual feelings

Self-sacrifice

Friendship

Attention

Obligation

Infatuation

Control

Actions based in physical or material attributes

Power dynamics

Emotional dependency

Financial dependency

Guilt

Jealousy

Expectations

Projections

Sameness

Martyrdom

Entitlement

Dose of Self-Love

Send a postcard to someone,

maybe a loved one you have lost contact with recently. 

What is hate?

Some think of hate as the opposite of love but it is not. Fear is actually the opposite of love. Fear may be behind the hate, as fear is one of our deepest, darkest emotions. But what is hate? Hate is an unresolved feeling involving love in some way. That could mean disappointment from someone you love. It could be fear that you are not getting the love you were promised. Or it could be anger that you are not being treated the way you believe you deserve to be treated. Hate is a very strong emotion and can be very uncomfortable for many of us to admit to feeling.

We tend to have outward emotions that we are comfortable with expressing. Our hate may be so intense that we cannot face it or own up to it. So another emotion will step into its place, like sadness or anger or cynicism. In my case, the emotion has been sadness. It was one of the few acceptable emotions in my family. It was ok to be sad and cry. Other emotions, especially anger, were very taboo when I was growing up. If I started to show anger, either I was putting myself in danger because I risked triggering someone else’s anger or I was immediately shut down and told to go to my room. Because of these family dynamics, I would usually express all my deep feelings through the guise of sadness. It took me many, many years to understand that actually I was holding a lot of anger inside, locked away with no safe outlet. A main source of that anger was my disappointment for not receiving the love I felt I needed and deserved.

One day, a fair-weather friend told me that I am a very angry person. Wow, I got so angry at being called angry! It really hit a trigger inside of me. I ended up crying for 3 days straight. I became a ball of uncontrollable tears. I could not do much else besides sit on my porch, allowing the ocean of emotions to take me on the ride of each wave of grief and anger and sadness that was ready to be released from deep inside. On the third day, I felt like I was crying for generations of women in my family and experiencing the grief of disconnection from self for all of humanity.

After that, I was released. The tears stopped, and I felt empty and exhausted but free somehow. It was like I had space inside myself that I had not realized was stuffed full of anger and suppressed emotions. After that experience, I was able to connect with my anger more directly. I did not have to just cry with sadness. I could feel my anger and express it, though it might still come with tears. I finally understood it was not just sadness. I could express it in a healthy, more honest way. I did not have to yell or get mean. I could just feel the anger within me and not be afraid of it. I could see after my 3-day transformative experience that I was so afraid to look at my anger before. Then the journey to know how to express my anger started. It is not like I came out of that time with total clarity about the anger inside myself. I just had more space to acknowledge my emotions in a more honest way.

Reflection Questions

What is your most comfortable emotion to express

What emotion could that comfortable front emotion be covering up? Could you really be angry but show sadness? Could you be sad but show anger? What emotion do you avoid at all costs? What sort of people make you very uncomfortable? This will give you a clue as to what you are uncomfortable about in yourself.

If your family does not support emotions at all, what do you do when you feel strong emotions? Go workout? Do something creative? Cook? Eat?

Self Work

Next time you feel your comfortable cover-up emotion, ask yourself if that is really expressing what you feel. Take the time to sit and ask yourself the hard question – Is this my truest emotion right now at this moment?

Where does self-hate come from?

Disconnection from our emotions

Betraying ourselves and our true feelings in order to seek external approval or safety

Misdirected programming that does not serve our true self

Being raised by insecure parents who unknowingly taught self-destructive behaviors or coping mechanisms

Viewing others as more important than ourselves and giving our power away to them

Childhood emotional neglect

Having your parents pay more attention to your achievements than to your feelings

Feeling like you do not have the right to exist

Being dismissed or devalued as a child

Feeling that you do not have a right to your own emotions

Reflection Questions

Can you identify moments in your life when you have felt self-hate? Do you feel it currently?

How do you feel after reading this list? Angry? Frustrated? Relieved?

Examples of dismissiveness regarding feelings

Things your parents or caregivers could have told you when you try to express your feelings:

It is not the end of the world.

Stop being so dramatic.

I’ll give you something to cry about.

You’re too sensitive.