Reading time : 8 MINUTES

No one gets born hating themselves.

Yet so many of us have a hard time looking into the mirror and feeling love, compassion and worth for the person we are.

• You criticize your body
• You lack personal boundaries
• You don’t really know yourself
• You struggle to receive compliments
• You always think of the worst-case scenario
• You don’t trust yourself and lack confidence
• You beat yourself up when you make mistakes
• You are desperate for approval and validation from the external world

I used to fill up my morning with self-love affirmations to try to convince myself that I love my body, that I am a magnet to infinite abundance and that I am worthy of someone loving me for who I am.

Although these approaches can have a positive impact, they are way too superficial to invite real and deep change into the core beliefs we hold about ourselves.

If no one got born hating themselves, how come that most of us struggle to truly love and deeply care for ourselves?

Since the day we were born, we have a relationship with the world.

• You have a relationship with your mum and your dad.
• You have relationships with your siblings and family.
• You have relationships with your friends.
• You have relationships with your work colleagues.
• You have relationships with your neighbors.
• You have interactions with strangers every day.

The relationships you have constantly teach you things about the world and about yourself.

For most of us, our very first relationships are the ones we have with our parents and our siblings.

This is where most of our conditioning takes place and also most of our beliefs, opinions and habits shape us into a young boy or girl.

The human has an instinctive need to imitate in order to feel accepted and validated. We look at our parents for encouragement and confirmation because we do not know how to navigate our actions and behavior yet.

This is also the time we start to learn what is acceptable and good about ourselves and what parts, emotions, and behavior we should reject or be ashamed of.

Childhood is usually where you learn that:

• You can’t trust your own judgement
• Certain parts of your body are not pretty
• You will be punished for your mistakes or silliness
• Certain of your emotions and needs don’t matter

By rejecting and disowning certain parts of who you are physically or emotionally, your environment is teaching you what should reject and disown about yourself.

This feedback you get in your childhood will then become solid beliefs you hold about yourself.

These beliefs will then be amplified and confirmed by the relationships you will then have, with the rest of the world.

Something important here, is that we do not only learn about ourselves through what our parents do, they also teach us about ourselves through what they don’t do.

If as a child you are crying because you are sad and your parents left you alone in your pain, they have taught you that your sadness and pain do not matter.

As you grow up you learn to keep your sadness and pain to yourself because you are convinced that there is no one could possibly see it, feel and understand it with you.

You didn’t get born hating (parts) of yourself.

You learned to hate yourself through the feedback the world gave you about who you are.

Self-hate is a coping mechanism that has allowed you to survive in the environment you grew up in.

And it is a very dangerous and painful mechanism because it is on the complete opposite spectrum of the energy of love and oneness.