Your self-love and self-appreciation can easily become dependent on how much you're fulfilling your "Life-Purpose" or a "Meaningful Mission".
And when your own self-love has to be earned by succeeding at doing "super-valiant-awesome work in the world", your very quality of experience and happiness become dependant on something that is mostly beyond your direct control in the moment.
And then, in a vacuous deficit of self-love and self-appreciation, you start feeling defeated, crappy, and generally disappointed in yourself (again), so:
A) You do NOT proceed to do your best work—obviously. And your chances of ultimately fulfilling that super-valiant-awesome mission go down even further.
B) You do NOT enjoy the moment-to-moment flow of your life (i.e. life sucks). And you might even start questioning (again) if said mission is really what you should be doing...
And then of course you feel worse about yourself for not making as much progress as you "know you could have", and feel ashamed about that, and then feel even worse, which makes your productivity suffer even more. And so on. In a vicious cycle.
Does any of this sound like you sometimes?
This vicious cycle is a huge deal. We ALL struggle with it at times, in different ways.
In my working with coaching clients over the years, I've really seen how the bigger the dreams and visions of "What Could Be" one has, the easier it is to feel crushed and paralyzed under the weight of trying to manifest them. And so cultivating one's capacity for unconditional self-love & appreciation becomes even more critical!
In this video, I explain more about how this vicious cycle happens, how we are naturally much more accepting and loving of others than of ourselves, and why Unconditional self-love really is the 'magic sauce' that makes everything else go yummy.
And do check out the "Try This" section below—that part is not in the video! 😉
Click to Enlarge! In which ways, and to what degrees, does YOUR self-love fall prey to this vicious cycle?
Down on yourself? Next Time, try this:
Notice when you start getting down on yourself, feeling like a failure, and generally NOT being loving towards yourself. Notice the diminishing effect it has on your capacity to move forward towards fulfilling your mission with enthusiasm, hope, and effectiveness.
Step back, mentally and energetically, from the whole cycle of holding your vision and your mobilizing to manifest the vision. Just hold ALL those parts & levels of you—the visionary, the organizer, the doer—with care and appreciation.
Now imagine you were holding those parts like you would hold 3 baby kittens in your arms. Aaawwww! So lovable! Those ADORABLE, LOVABLE Kittens!
Now— guaranteed—these kitties SUCK at long-term planning and project management. Heck, they're not even potty-trained! But STILL—you love them to death anyway, right!?
So hold and love all the parts of yourself with that same soft, fuzzy fervor!
Show up for yourself with the same, instinctive care, support, and unconditional love you'd naturally give a kitten. Use your kitty-love to JUMP-START your self-love!
Then, go back to your valiant world-in-the-world and kick some mission-centered butt! But do it now from a place of joy-inspiring self-love and appreciation.
Because the world doesn't just need warriors for happiness, it needs happy warriors.
Embody Your Purpose
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