I felt compelled to piggy back onto last week’s Love Note…when I wrote to you about unconscious social conditioning being one of the saboteurs of self-love.
It’s one of those topics that really needs a whole book to unravel how this deeply-embedded social programming and conditioning affects much of how we operate in the world.
Among other things, I touched on how as young girls, we are raised to look out for the needs and feelings of others before taking care of ourselves.
To expand on this….for society, the positive effects of this gender conditioning is that women tend to be more nurturing and empathetic.
This gives us the ability to understand the needs of others which builds connections with people. Empathy is also a soft-skill that makes us awesome leaders, BTW!
But the problem for us arises when we don’t also prioritize our own needs, and give ourselves the same empathy, the same honor, kindness, compassion, forgiveness and love, that we give to everyone else.
When we don’t prioritize our own well-being, this can lead us to over-extend ourselves, resent others, become anxious, depressed, get stressed out and perhaps even burnout.
That’s where practicing self-love can serve to counteract the social conditioning that leads us to sacrifice ourselves like this.
According to the Brain & Behavior Research foundation: Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others. Self-love means not settling for less than you deserve.
You deserve that. You deserve your love. You deserve to feel great! You deserve to be happy. You deserve to not settle.
XOXO
Jenna
P.S. There’s a book called “The Four Agreements” that does a really great job of laying out how we are programmed and conditioned by society, and how we can lead a more peaceful life by changing just four of what the author refers to as “agreements”. Super powerful…it definitely made an impact in my life. Perhaps it can for you as well.
