The art of living like you love yourself
Earlier this year our dear friend Chara Caruthers presented on our Embodied Transformation and Liberation One-Day Summit. You can watch a short excerpt of that session below. We asked her to tell us a little more about this idea of The Art of Loving Yourself and how we can incorporate that into our everyday lives.
For some years now I’ve been exploring this idea of living like you love yourself.
Living like you love yourself is, in short, living in a way that honors who you are at every level of your being, recognizing that who you are is more than how or what you think, or your physical appearance, or your current situation or life circumstances. And in a world where your external power is often contingent on these very characteristics, Living like you love yourself optimizes your internal power by connecting you deeply to what feeds you and what stops you so that you can make choices, however limited or unlimited they may be that truly serve who you are.
And so let’s start with this idea of love. Like all words, it’s one that culture has co-opted and given meaning and value to through imagery and more words. When we hear the word love we have any immediate sense of what the “right answer” is. What it’s supposed to be for us but I would invite you to create some space around that answer and take a moment to consider what love really means to you?
What does it REALLY mean? If you strip away everything you’ve ever been taught about how love should look, act, and feel, if you let go of the word even and connect to the sensation in the body mind what do you end up with?
For many of us, loving ourselves is one of the most challenging things to do. Why is that? Could it be because we are trying to live up to an impossible idea of what love is. When we do this love loses and so do we. We lose our potential and our power.
Love wins when we can begin to feel comfortable in our own skin
Love wins when we can begin to feel centered in our spaces and in our bodies
Love wins when we can begin to trust and follow our inner knowing rather than being slaves to our patterns of distracting, ignoring, numbing, pleasing, resisting, craving, judging, yes and even loving
“One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. – Bell Hooks”
Chara offers us three ways of being that provide a support or structure for living like you love yourself. They are:
Knowing Yourself
Choosing yourself
Sharing Yourself
Knowing Yourself
Knowing yourself is that practice of tuning in and signaling a willingness to listen and eventually trust your inner knowing. What does your inner knowing know?
It knows who you are
It knows what you really want
It knows what your really need
It knows what gets in your way
It knows how to get out of your own way
It starts with acknowledging that you are more than just a mind and a body. There may be a vast amount to know, a vast amount that is constantly in flux. How can you hold that truth? Softly?
“Living like you love yourself isn’t some impossible measure to judge yourself by or some concept to beat yourself up with or take away your power. It’s recognizing that YOU define what love means, how it looks and how you share it from a honest place of knowing who you are, what you truly need and how that serves your greatest good”
Choosing Yourself
Each of us are endowed with the inner wisdom and outer agency to discern what’s right for us in the moment and in life. Our culture endeavours to strip us of that power. But when we cultivate a willingness to know and explore it, it offers us the most beautiful opportunity to know our own light and to shine. Doing all of this means that we must be willing to choose ourselves. We have to find the courage to say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things, knowing that this (and only this) is the path to realizing our potential and serving the world.
EXERCISE: Moving from your inner knowing
Take a moment to sit in silence. Let the layers of conditioning and self judgement fall away. When and if you’re ready embody a willingness to move from your center.
Discernment - listen to the body,not just the mind and allow yourself to be moved.
Inner knowing - What do you need. What is authentically desired/required of you?
Sharing Yourself
This is the ultimate challenge and the ultimate gift. I once read that all anyone ever wants is for you to be yourself. I believe this is true and being willing to truly be seen by others is one of the hardest AND most fulfilling things to do. What could you discover about yourself and the world if you made the powerful choice to share not your opinion or your solution, but yourself?
Here’s some ideas to make sharing yourself a regular practice of giving and receiving.
Next time you are in a group practice sharing moments of joy you have experienced and offer others the opportunity to do the same. Actively listen and connect with the felt sense of experiencing and sharing joy.
Give generously - What is there to be shared? What is coming up for you right now?
What gives you courage?
What gives you strength?
What gives you joy?
Receive generously - how do you respond when receiving a compliment? Can you simply pause, say thank you, and receive it generously?
Be curious and listen to understand
Living like you love yourself isn’t some impossible measure to judge yourself by or some concept to beat yourself up with or take away your power. It’s recognizing that YOU define what love means, how it looks and how you share it from a honest place of knowing who you are, what you truly need and how that serves your greatest good, from using that knowing to make powerful choices about the people, places, objects and ideas that you surround yourself with, and allowing that to be a foundation for sharing yourself authentically with yourself and your world.
If you’d like to learn more about the art of loving yourself consider working with a somatic based therapist or practitioner. The right professional can help you tap into your own inner wisdom and create lasting change in your life.
Explore The Embody Lab’s Somatic Therapist & Practitioner Directory and find someone to support you in this journey to actualizing your goals, make more intentional and empowered choices, and move closer to living a life of love, authenticity, greater fulfillment and well-being.
About Chara Caruthers
Chara Caruthers is a passionate and outspoken voice for the power of living your truth. An international teacher, speaker, author, and advocate for women’s wellness, she has inspired and empowered a global community of people of all ages to live juicier and more connected lives by embracing the principles of yoga and Ayurveda. Explore more of Chara’s work here.
