LEARNING HOW TO LOVE YOURSELF

Learning how to love yourself “should” be easy right?

Not quite. 

We grow up with conflicting feelings and beliefs about ourselves. We are taught that it is wrong to do certain things or act in certain ways that push us out of alignment with our truth. 

It’s as if the need for validation and acceptance from the outside world is met with this conflicting rejection of who we are at our very core.

In learning that we aren’t allowed to be what we innately feel, we keep things hidden. 

We lose trust in ourselves, we hire coaches to make friends on a superficial level. The people around us are only allowed to see the tip of the iceberg and your truth is 90 percent of what makes you, you. 

It feels as if only my friends, family, and outside world knew the truth about my……. you fill in the blank.

It can be incredibly painful for those of us who allow us to be fully seen.

Fully being seen gives others the chance to fully reject us.

If we only allow others to see parts of us, they can’t reject all of us. So we disallow ourselves to be seen in our entirety.

It can be difficult to open up and be vulnerable when there is no guarantee of love, acceptance, or understanding on the other side of us fully exposing all that we are.

So many of us live in a constant state of rejecting ourselves. Denying our truth.

All of us are raised with a myriad of beliefs that are not true at all. We then take those beliefs and become certain as we take them into our adult lives. We experience discomfort, confusion, and agitation as we attract undesirable things into our lives.

I’ll give you an example of little Natalie.

When I was younger, I thought Santa Clause was real while all the kids in the neighborhood were dedicated to telling me the truth. That this mystical magic man was not the one bringing me my lavish gifts at Christmas time.

I was so rooted in my belief, no neighborhood kid was going to tell me otherwise. One year I got my pink light-up bike from Santa. Boy did he deliver. I pressed this button on the handlebars and the stars along the frame lit up in pink lights. It was magical. I loved my new bike, it became my prized possession. The neighborhood kids, however, were dedicated to telling me this bike wasn’t magical at all. This bike was from my parents because Santa isn’t real. 

I was so rooted in truth, and this year I let them know it! 
“Santa is real because there is NO WAY my parents couldn’t afford a bike like this.” I proclaimed.

My belief was rooted in certainty based on my belief that we were poor.

I believed more in an overweight stranger coming down my chimney and giving me a light-up bike more than I thought my parents could afford something this lavish.

Now, I want to follow up this story with the fact that I was very fortunate. I had it good. I was never worried about my next meal, health care, or anything else I needed. My parents took very good care of my brother and me always.

However, the conversations and the actions that flooded my childhood mind and home were that we were indeed poor.

I felt at any time that the things we had in our home could get taken away. It felt like doomsday was coming and the reality is that we were indeed in no danger at all. 

But I believed it, I carried it and felt it in my body. 

You see how our stories and beliefs run our thoughts and how we ultimately live our lives?

Beliefs are power.

Along with my belief of Santa was a rooted belief that my inherent worth was attached to money and what I was deserving of.

Since my story supported that money was incredibly unstable and meant for “others,” it made it nearly impossible for me to believe that I too was worthy of money, ease, or stability.

Unknowingly, I resisted thoughts, beliefs, and actions that would create a stable income because I had aligned myself with a truth that didn’t support peace, ease, and worthiness of income.

I believed It had to be hard for me. I believed it was somehow okay or understandable for other people to drive nice cars, go on nice vacations, or buy a glass of wine without a feeling of intense guilt. But for me, that was just out of the question! 

Most often we are not aware of our habitual patterns that create these core beliefs. So we repeat them over and over again and bathe in frustration because change feels impossible. 

Which is when we don’t meet ourselves with radical honesty to prove our old beliefs wrong.

When limiting beliefs fog your ability to receive what everyone on this earth is worthy of, it makes learning how to love yourself an extremely daunting task.

So how do you change your entire world for the better?

You start with being willing to change the belief, first.

This means that you have to lean into the unknown and accept that there is another way to live this beautiful life of yours. Which is scary alone. This is why I surround myself with mentors and coaches of my own. We get to lead and be led.

It can be fun.

The choice is within you, to choose to see this beautiful world through the eyes of potentiality and growth. 

Two like-minded, soul-driven, authentic souls are always greater than one. 

I want you to know deep in my heart that it gets to be different for you. You get to choose to be the observer of your life and grant yourself space and a new perspective. If you believe it can be different, then it will be.

Now just because my worthiness and limiting belief system was attached to money, that doesn’t mean that's where your limiting beliefs come from.

These belief attachment babies can be hidden in the trickiest of places! It’s like the missing Tupperware lids. You’ll find them in the most mysterious places! 

This is where you give yourself permission and a willingness to be wrong about everything that hasn’t served you thus far!

You get to be wrong!
Like totally, completely just off the mark! Like you missed it by a long shot! 

This also gets to be so freaking exciting because you can create an entirely new reality for your life! 

I’ll walk you through how I process and practice new belief systems and how I learned to ultimately love myself.

I’ll start with another story. I look back in hindsight to driving my broken-down jeep liberty on a 90-degree humid day on my 45-minute commute to a gym with no AC.

I thought back then that I didn’t need a new car. So I drove to work with the chronic stress of when the next breakdown was going to hit. My girlfriend from the gym said she thought of me when she was purchasing a new motorcycle. Her bike was stolen and she was commuting on foot. She leaned back and told herself she was worthy of the investment and the alignment it would bring in her life. Life will keep bringing you lessons until you embody and learn them. 

Okay, back to my old jeep beliefs.

-Old belief: I don’t need a new car and I can handle the constant life disruption, spending the money was a waste.

-New belief: Alignment with my willingness to accept that I deserve peace and ease in my life. This investment to increase my quality of life will get me to my destination, releasing worry and stress that is good for me and every human I interact with.


I want you to look at a belief you can disprove and see how investing in a new belief can change your life. 

Look back in Hindsight now.

When I took a step back I could realize that this had nothing to do with the money in the first place. When it came down to it, I had enough money for a new car, but I wouldn’t allow myself to receive anything more than what I “needed.”

I viewed investing in things other than survival as selfish, unnecessary, and frivolous.

It all comes down to worthiness and what we allow ourselves to have. Recognizing this meant I had to willingly change my beliefs. This meant allowing myself to be wrong about my perceptions and limiting beliefs.

New supporting narrative.
I get to have a new car because I desire a new car. I am allowed to spend money on myself because money is not tied to my worth. I deserve peace of mind and stability and I don’t have to work a certain amount or earn a certain amount to claim that.

With my clientele, I often see self-imposed limitations and belief systems manifest in different ways. 
Check in with yourself and see if any of these relate to you. I want to remind you that none of this makes you bad or broken. There is nothing wrong with you and you have always been worthy of receiving beautiful things. 

This may be triggering, but is meant to open up a whole new world of possibility for you. It feels kinda horrible being wrong at first, you have this moment where you realize life could have been easier if you saw through this lens the whole time. I get it, I just want to remind you that these painful moments of recognition get to become your power. The faster you accept your current reality and perceptions, the faster you release the need to fight them. This will empower you beyond belief.

1. It’s taking too long so you give up. A lot of times this is centered around my clientele needing a specific result at a certain time. They need their husband to start helping with the dishes yesterday even though he hasn't for the past two years. They need to start working out five times a week now even though they haven’t regularly mastered two times a week. They need to lose weight, make the money, or get a job now. Acting as if you needed it yesterday repels the thing you desire most because you haven’t created new belief patterns and habits that bring these things into your life with ease. You must act in alignment with trust, goals, and actions that align with your long-term lifestyle.
2. Accepting it’s always adding up. Maybe you haven’t lost the weight yet but get honest with yourself. Are you taking daily actions on showing up? Are you giving yourself small actions and celebrations daily? Trust that it is always adding up, whether you are acting in alignment or out of alignment with your goal. It’s adding up, take the time to slow down so it adds up to your future.
3. Time will not heal you or get you closer to your goal. Your daily intent, your acceptance, and alignment will get you there. When you walk the walk daily you get to be surprised by what shows up for you! This is the best part, you stop obsessing about the result and you enjoy the present moment!
4. Imposter syndrome is a good thing. You know when you apply for a job and they say you need more experience before you get the job, then you get frustrated because you’re like, “well yes, that’s why I’m applying! To get experience! I can’t experience something without experience!” This is the same thing with opportunities that present themselves to you that feel just out of your scope of expertise. This is where you play, grow, and become the person of your dreams! This is you being hired to gain the experience. Have fun, play, and show up in your authenticity. You will always learn more when you show up this way.
5. Last but not least, learning how to love yourself is consistently taking out the trash on the things that are limiting your beliefs. Taking out the trash and constantly choosing to believe in a new truth will collapse time on the person you are becoming.

It’s all adding up for you, closer or further away from your goals.
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It’s not waiting, it’s acting in alignment and celebrating every time you choose to think thoughts, create new beliefs, and act in ways that bring you more peace and ease into your life.

You have magic within you, and this is you learning how to love yourself.

You get to be wrong and you get to be every bit of that beautiful soul of yours. 

Invest in your future and the present truth will become a gift.

I’m sending you so much love you, beautiful soul! 

If you love conversations like this I would love to see you on my YouTube channel!

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Author

NATALIE DIANE KIMBALL
Life Alignment Coach