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10 Road-Blocks to Self-Love
By Aine Belton

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

- Rumi

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Love is the highest vibration in the universe and the key that opens all doors, heals all wounds, and returns you to truth. Loving yourself can be much about letting go of what you are not; the constrictions, ego traps and negative selfconcepts that shroud and cloud the light within. When you do so, you unveil more of your innate goodness, truth and beauty and the innocence of your true self. Accessing and experiencing more of the love that you are transforms your life magically from the inside out. To change anything in your life for the better, start with loving yourself. So what stands in the way? The barriers between you and this love - the love that you are and the love that you have for yourself, (as well as the love the Universe/Creator/Source has for you), are explored below.

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10 blocks to self-love
1. Perfectionism When you strive to be perfect you will always end up feeling like a failure. However well you do, however much you achieve or attain, it will never feel like enough because it will never be perfect, and it will never quench the insatiable appetite of perfectionism. You are left feeling hollow and that you have somehow fallen short. Perfectionism blinds you to your inherent worth and value, and diminishes positives whilst over emphasizing negatives. You spot whats wrong, whats not perfect, and fail to see the achievements, the assets, the beauty and value thats there. Perfectionism is an ego trap that keeps you separate from love, acceptance and appreciation. It creates unattainable standards and expectations and offers no fruits in return, being void of feelings of success, triumph, celebration, self-recognition and acknowledgement. The futile quest for perfectionism is a compensation for a belief that who you are is not enough. Seeking

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perfection is an attempt to vanquish feelings of inadequacy, shame and valuelessness, yet sadly it only compounds these. If you are trying to be perfect you will not be able to love yourself as who you are right now. It is the illusory holy grail of the ego. It's not about being perfect, it's about being YOU. The more you love and accept yourself just as you are, the more easily you let go of what you are not and shine your true nature, which is AMAZING! Acknowledge the incredible love and light that you are, and your unique gifts, strengths, talents and potential. Who you are is sooo much more than enough! Furthermore, you are supposed to not be perfect! Your flaws are really doors, to gifts and strengths you didnt know were yours. 2. Judgment When you judge yourself you are condemning yourself for your mistakes, flaws and failings.

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The worse you feel about yourself, however, the less likely you are to heal, change and experience your loving true nature. Conversely, when you accept yourself as who you are, you more easily let go of what youre not. Judgment compounds that which is judged (in yourself or others) and keeps you bound and captive to those traits, keeping alive your mistakes and failures. Love, compassion and forgiveness, conversely, enable you to let go of and move beyond that which you are not, and that which is un-serving to you, be that thoughts and feelings, self-condemnation, or people and situations in your life. Your world will reflect to you what you may secretly believe about yourself, and hold against yourself or judge yourself for. If feel other people judge you or are hard on you, look at how you may be judging yourself. The more you love yourself unconditionally, the more your world will reflect that in happy positive realities and successes. Let go of self-attack and see the best in yourself.

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If you are feeling bad about yourself, and punishing and criticizing yourself in your mind, know that that is the voice of your ego, not your higher mind. We all make mistakes. Forgiveness is the way through and allows a new day to begin, cleansing and refreshing you and your world. 3. Guilt Guilt is a form of self-punishment and attack. When you feel guilty you are stuck in a self-defeating swamp, your attraction potential to attract success and positivity greatly diminishes, and you are likely to repel if not sabotage success. Guilt invites punishment and victim scenarios, for if you do not punish yourself for the guilt you feel, consciously or otherwise, you may attract that punishment that you subconsciously feel you deserve, in another form by way of the people and circumstances you attract. Guilt has no redeeming features. When you feel guilty you do not serve the one you feel guilty towards, or yourself, in any way. It is certainly not noble, though many, sadly, believe that it is and see it that way. Guilt keeps you stuck in the past and prevents you from correcting the mistake and moving on. The guiltier you

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feel, the more likely you are to re-do or re-live the behaviour you feel guilty about, you can also end up feeling resentful towards the person or situation to who you feel grateful. 4. Repressed emotions When you ignore, deny or repress your emotions you are not honoring or loving yourself. You are also shutting down your heart from feeling. When you shut down to block out or avoid painful feelings, you shut out the light, positive feelings of love, joy and happiness too, for example, becoming numb to what makes life so rich, meaningful and rewarding, and the treasures of emotional aliveness. When feelings are painful or negative it is understandable that we resist experiencing them, yet if you loved someone would you turn your back on them if they wanted to share how they were feeling? We so often do this to ourselves when we need to be there the most to listen without judgment, to honor and respect our feelings, dark or light, so they can be expressed, released and allowed to move through us, creating flow, change, and a greater awareness and intimacy with self.

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Repressed emotions can lead to ill-health and disease. Emotions do not simply go away. As well as manifesting in the body they can leak into your world and the situations and people you experience and attract because they affect your vibration. You cannot hide from your emotions. Playing ostrich simply doesnt work, and will ultimately lead to imbalance and have physical, mental and emotional ramifications. Now there are times when it serves us to have certain painful emotions, particularly if weve had very tragic and traumatic events happen, to remain repressed until a time that we may be able to handle processing them without being overwhelmed. In this sense, a level of repression can be part of survival. Its not about feeling all your feelings at once, necessarily, but giving yourself permission to feel those present, surfacing and emerging at a given time. Listening to your emotions and what they are telling you about whats going on inside your thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, for example, - can be highly serving, and in so doing and becoming more conscious you have more power to change these. Your emotions can point to what may need healing, changing or aligning for greater happiness, success and wellbeing.

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There are many techniques available for releasing emotions, from EFT and NLP, to the Release Technique, journaling, communicating to a loved one, healer or counselor, or through creative expression. I find feeling them works just fine. Im not talking about indulging in them or wallowing in self-pity for hours, but to allow them to be experienced; to move through you and be released. 5. Beliefs Beliefs are fundamental building blocks of reality and blueprints of your world. They affect your thoughts, feelings, attitudes and actions and shape and dictate your life in a very real way. If you think you have a problem, accept that your belief systems are giving you trouble, not the world.

- Larry Crane

Some of the biggest blocks to self-love are the beliefs you hold about yourself. These are largely formed during childhood years as well as other key times in your life, and can be programmed and influenced by family, friends, media and society.

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Limiting self-beliefs might include Im not good enough, Im bad, Im wrong, Im unlovable, I dont deserve, Im unworthy, etc. The harmful impact of these beliefs is pretty clear. These faulty assumptions and negative self-concepts mar your self-image and the way you perceive and relate to yourself, others and life, marring your relationships and experience of reality. 6. Comparison Anytime you compare yourself to another you are setting yourself up for one of two sides of the ego coin; better than or less than. Comparison is a favourite pass-time of the ego and fosters judgment of self and others. It stems from a lack of self-esteem and recognition of your inherent value and is accompanied with feelings of inadequacy and a weak sense of self. The problem with comparison is not so much the act itself, but the driving force behind it, i.e. the desire to subjugate feelings of inadequacy by propping yourself up against the backdrop another's less than, or using anothers 'better than to beat yourself up and berate yourself.

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When you love, accept and value yourself, the need to compare disappears. You appreciate who you are as you are, resting securely in the knowing of your worth. 7. Competition Beyond a positive striving and reaching for more, the winlose mentality of competition can be limiting and constricts the grander possibilities, growth and expansion available through a win-win paradigm. The more fully you love yourself, the more able you are able to connect, reach out and help others intending the fruits of win-win scenarios and options and opportunities where everyone is served. This is not about pleasing everybody, but seeding intentions in love and brightest potential. It is not either about sacrifice or compromise, for in truth, if you choose the most loving and truest course for yourself, it will ultimately be the same for others. 8. Undeserving A lack of self-love can be routed in feeling that you do not deserve. In truth you deserve utterly simply by being alive. You are a spiritual being, a spark of divinity born of love, more beautiful, radiant and magnificent than anything you may yet be aware of or consciously

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experience or understand at a personality level. Your sense of deserving can be tampered by guilt, shame, judgment and negative self-beliefs which impact the amount of love you allow into your life, whether that love be from yourself, people in your world, or the successes, triumphs and joys that reflect that love back to you in the world. Your failings, mistakes and negative self-concepts are not who you are. Owning that you are loved, loving and loveable, and forgiving yourself for aspects that are separate or out of alignment with that love and truth of who you are, will allow you to experience more of your value, innocence, light, and innate deserving. 9. Dishonesty When you lie to yourself or others, or fail to keep agreements or commitments, you damage your selfesteem and find it harder to love and respect yourself. Love yourself enough to be honest and true to yourself and others. 10. Lack of self-forgiveness You are a human being and you make mistakes. You may have been to dark places in thought or deed at times in your life and have less than pretty sides.

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It is important, rather than to blame, condemn and criticize yourself for these aspects, to recognize, acknowledge and forgive them, which enables letting go and change. Everyone may experience darker constrictive energies or traits (or if unrecognized, repressed or denied within, witnessed externally in the world). These parts are not who you are. The problem comes when you identify with these shadow aspects and label yourself as bad or wrong, consciously or otherwise, carrying guilt and shame that clouds and shrouds the light and truth of who you are. Negative attributes, be it envy, control, self-pity, manipulation, victimhood, judgment, anger, revenge, etc., are not who you are, but potential pathways of experience. Being compassionately conscious of these is a first step in letting them go. Choice and willingness are powerful allies in relinquishing that which is un-serving, and forgiveness can gracefully unhinge the grip of ego agendas. Being aware of negativity does not mean focusing on it or giving it undue attention, but more allowing it to come to light to be shed and discarded so you can embrace and revel in more of your innate goodness, beauty and magnificence that so often lies beneath this shadow veils.

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If you do not forgive yourself you may keep yourself in prisons of guilt, shame and judgment, and can end up punishing yourself consciously or otherwise (such as through the actions of other people that may reflect your self-condemnation), or sabotage success and happiness because you deep down inside you feel undeserving. Forgiveness heals and releases whole clusters of negative emotions and is a gateway to love and freedom, and a key to letting go of the past and who you are not, so you can embrace more of who you truly are. Allow yourself to own and acknowledge your inherent innocence, worth and value, and give yourself the gift of forgiveness. Forgiveness cleanses and blesses you and your world. It is an immensely powerful force and a vital key to new and brighter levels of success and happiness.

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Closing note:

You already do love yourself!

When you awaken to your inherent nature, self-love is inevitable. You are born of love, returning to love, and you already do love yourself! Your Higher Self - the vast incredible being that you truly are (the highest aspect of your consciousness closest to Source), loves you totally and unconditionally. It loves you more than you can fully know or comprehend. When you awaken to the love that you are, the sweet, joyous, blissful realization of your innocence and divinity gives birth to all things good and true. Connecting to your Higher Self, and receiving their love, insight and guidance. Some of the most amazing, blissful and profound experiences I have ever had, have been through connecting to my Higher Self in meditation. Receiving their love and insights has changed my life radically and beautifully! Connecting to the energy and essence of your Higher

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Self - the eternal transcendent self that you truly are will align you to attracting more love into your life, and happier, successful realities accordingly.

Love and joy, Aine Belton www.GlobalLoveProject.com

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