Self Love- What gets in the way of loving yourself?
What gets in the way of loving yourself? We can learn a lot about self from the fields of both Psychology and Spirituality which can help make us aware of how the self is in need of both wholeness and balance.
We need to take a look at how our mask and our shadows affect the way in which we look at ourselves. One of the biggest obstacles to loving ourself, is our lack of understanding of who we truly are and accepting who we are. So I will ask you this question: How well do you know yourself? Who are you really? Are you aware of the parts of yourself that you keep hidden from others?
It is those hidden parts of ourself that the famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung referred to as the shadow self. This is the part of ourself that we do not want to acknowledge to others. The unconscious place where we put our urges, emotions, weaknesses and desires that we have repressed because they are not accepted by society like envy or greed.
When we experience those feelings in us, we know that they are not acceptable to show yet they are how we actually feel. The more we deny this shadow part of ourselves the more it can grow and come out in ways that are inappropriate. For example at a business meeting you suddenly say something very inappropriate that you normally would not want to say in public.
We also project our own feelings onto others. For example we can become very irritated by a particular person who we have decided is an envious person while denying that we targeted this person due to our own feelings of envy. Our anger at this person can be a warning that our own shadow issues are coming up.
When we continue to deny that we have a side of ourselves that we don’t want to look at, we limit our ability to grow in self love because we are not accepting who we really are. We are both loving and unloving, kind and unkind etc. If we refuse to acknowledge both sides of ourself we cannot grow in self-love.
To learn the other obstacles that get in the way of our loving ourself, go to the listen tab of this website and click on podcast episode #15 to hear
(photo by Victoria Priesswitz)
I am Michelle Castelli, an author, speaker, and relationship coach. I help people grow stronger and healthier relationships in these key areas of their life journey: Self, God/Spiritual, Dating, Marriage/family and Friends/co-workers.
I offer the empowering tool of personal coaching, and an insightful and life-changing podcast, blog, book, and relationship courses.
