“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works wonders in our lives. ~Louis L. Hay
When I first started painting over twenty years ago, my intention was not to paint self-love. In fact, I had no idea what self-love was at that time. I just use painting as a form of therapy.
A few years ago, I thought I knew exactly what self-love was, but then, when I lost my health to chronic illness, I could no longer do the things I once was able to do, and I lost my ability to love myself. I also fell into a deep depression, so I decided to create something to lift my spirits.
In order to create uplifting art, I first had to look at my own life and see where I needed a boost mentally. This meant I had to look at my pain and find its roots.
Sometimes it’s not the actual problems in life that cause us the most pain, but the way we view them. When we change our perspective, some pain diminishes. So, I would look at an issue in my life one at a time, and then I would seek advice in my spiritual studies, and that advice is what I would draw.
I continued this process for about nine years, and then one day I made a discovery that would change my life forever.
I drew an image of a woman surrounded by words of encouragement, and then it dawned on me that those words were messages of self-love. Then I realized that all my paintings were messages of self-love. But how is this possible? I thought I didn’t know what self-love was.
I couldn’t see my art as being about self-love before because I was so focused on creating one painting at a time. But now I can see that each painting reflects my journey to find self-love.
Even more amazingly, I can see that my creative process is teaching me how Loving myself, it does this by giving me a context and a reason to:
- Ask yourself questions and listen to the answers
- Be kind and patient with yourself
- Give yourself a voice and let yourself speak
Now that I can understand what self-love is, at least within the context of creating my art, I feel motivated to further examine self-love in order to incorporate it into all areas of my life.
As I explore my thoughts on self-love under the influence of Wayne Dyer’s book Self-Love divine selfI came to the conclusion that there are two kinds of self-love.
There is self-love based on ego, and there is self-love based on spirit. The former cares about the things that the self cares about—appearance, power, and survival. The latter is concerned with what spirituality is concerned with—healing, wholeness, and love.
Early on, when I lost the ability to love myself, I could feel how conditional my self-love was. Now I understand it’s because my self-love is self-based. But now I am ready for unconditional self-love, a love that will never abandon us.
Life was going great until I lost my self-love due to illness. But when I got sick and lost everything (except my now wonderful husband), my ego thought I was a failure and worthless because its love was conditional. My life had to look a certain way before my ego would allow me to love myself. Then, when my ego becomes unhappy, it activates my inner critic voice.
In the wreckage of my life, even my ego finally gave up on me, and in its silence, the gentle voice of my soul could finally be heard. It led me to the art of drawing as a form of therapy. In the quiet space of creating art, it becomes a spiritual experience that brings me closer to the voice of my soul.
Before I found true self-love (spiritually based self-love), I thought self-love was about pampering yourself, like buying a new outfit, getting a manicure, or going on vacation to feel happy. Pampering ourselves isn’t a bad thing if we can afford it, but it becomes self-sabotage if we can’t.
Indulgence does more to distract us from the problem than to confront it and solve it.
True self-love isn’t anything you can buy; Therefore, it is available to everyone. True self-love is healing, helping, supporting and empowering. It’s about examining the beliefs we have about life and ourselves, and then challenging those beliefs to see if they are truly beneficial to our health and happiness.
The goal of unconditional self-love is to live your best life with a sense of wholeness, health, peace, and empowerment. Empowerment enables us to improve our lives and make the world a better place.
Before I found self-love, I used to be more critical of myself. For example, I hate that I am too sensitive because my sensitivity causes me to experience depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. This sensitive nature makes me feel stupid, worthless, and weak.
But as I began to love myself, I began to see the positive side of my sensitivity—it gave me the ability to understand things more deeply and create meaningful art that touches the hearts of others.
Another aspect of improved self-love in my life is the impact it has had on me making better relationship choices. My first marriage was emotionally abusive and I stayed in it because I felt addicted to the relationship and I felt like, in some way, I wasn’t worthy of true love. But as my self-worth grew through reading self-help books, I was eventually able to move on and find wonderful love with my husband, Jody.
For me, the biggest obstacle to self-love is not knowing what self-love is. Now that I know what it is, when I start treating myself unfairly, I can redirect myself with unconditional self-love and remind myself that I deserve my own love and support.
Here are some key points I’ve discovered about self-love:
Self-love is about our relationship with ourselves. It’s about talking to yourself, treating yourself, and seeing yourself with kindness, forgiveness, fairness, encouragement, patience, and helpfulness.
Self-love is paying attention to our needs in all areas of life, rather than ignoring, avoiding, or ignoring those needs.
Self-love is a gradual and growing process that continues to deepen and mature throughout our lives. It’s normal to get distracted by self-love. It’s natural to go back and forth, forgetting and then remembering to love yourself. But as we continue to practice self-love over the years, these self-love lapses become shorter and farther apart.
Self-love is not about standing before ourselves as a judge who shames and condemns us. True self-love is walking in harmony with yourself, as a true friend, and supporting yourself throughout life’s journey.
Written by Rita Lloyd. Check out her unconditional self-love message card here.
About Rita Lloyd
Rita Loyd is a watercolor artist and writer. Her job is to cultivate unconditional self-love. Her artwork has appeared on over 100 magazine covers including science of mind. For more healing arts and tools to help cultivate unconditional self-love, visit NurturingArt.com. She also has an interview series called The Power of Healing Art: Interviews with My Favorite Artists.
