Jessica Aiken-Hall

Unleashing Secrets

self-love

5 Easy Steps To Self-Love

  1. Positive self-talk We all have that voice in our head that tells us all the horrible things we dislike about our self. This internal dialogue can cause havoc to our self-esteem and self-worth. To help change this, every time you catch yourself using negative self-talk, change it to something positive. Examples: I am kind. I am enough. I am beautiful. I am powerful. I am worthy. I deserve the respect of others.
  2. Have Compassion For Yourself It is so much easier to have compassion for others, but you are worth the same love and compassion you give to others. If you were to step back and imagine someone else had lived the life you have, or been through the things you have, I bet you could find empathy, love, and understanding. This was a big Ah-ha moment for me. It allowed me to understand my situation with much more compassion. Instead of thinking, I wasn’t strong enough, or it wasn’t “that bad,” I was able to understand how strong I had been. No one is perfect, don’t be so hard on yourself. Give yourself some compassion.
  3. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone For people who have lived in trauma, self-love isn’t comfortable. Push yourself out of your comfort zone, and allow yourself to love YOU. If at first, you don’t succeed, keep getting uncomfortable, and try again. You are worth the uncomfortableness to realize how amazing you truly are.
  4. Tell Yourself “I Love You.” Every time you walk by a mirror, stop and say, “I love you.” If that feels a little too weird at first, start by saying, “I am enough.” Every time you see your reflection, whether it is in a storefront window, on the side of a shiny car, or in the mirror, stop and say it. Look at yourself in the eyes and say the words you tell others. Say them, and then work on believing them.
  5. Practice Makes Progress Practice your self-love practice every day. The more you do it, the more you will start to believe it. At first, it might feel a little odd, but you are worth it. You are important. You matter. Now, get to work, and start loving your beautiful self.

The best way to seek revenge on all the people who hurt you is to love yourself. If they taught you to believe you were unlovable, prove them wrong. When you love yourself, everything else falls into place. Self-love is the first step to taking back your power.

Be gentle on yourself. You’ve got this. You are worth it.

Jessica Aiken-Hall

Self-Love: The First Step in Preventing Domestic Violence

What is self-love? Doesn’t sound like a hard question, right?

When someone has lived in chaos and trauma, self-love is not something that is learned. In fact, it is furthest from reality.

You’re worthless.

You’re nothing without me.

You’re a waste of space.

Have you looked at yourself lately?

When you hear the same things over and over again, you begin to believe it. How could you not? Subliminal and not so subliminal messages are being fed to you on a daily basis. How can you stop the negative self-talk, when you do not have any other frame of reference. You use all the strength you have just to make it to the next day, there is nothing left to fight the thoughts that make up who you are. How can you love someone who seems unlovable?

When someone told me I had to love myself in order to love others my defense went up. I was angry at the thought. How dare they say that to me. How dare they tell me I have to love myself. In that moment it was an impossible ask. I was not in a place that I felt I deserved love. I thought it was my job to love and take care of others. I did not even make it on my list of priorities.

The next time someone said this to me, I took a step back. Maybe there was something to this. I watched others around me, and noticed our differences. I looked for small ways I could try to put myself first. The small steps pushed me to grad school, and that was where the real magic happened.

Each month I felt myself come a little more out of the haze of the illusions that surrounded me. The more steps I took out of the fog, the more I was able to see how I wanted to be treated by others. Before this, I didn’t think I had a choice. If someone wanted to take advantage of me, I didn’t say no. When I started to see my worth the people around me didn’t like it. It wasn’t as easy to push me around like they used to. I slowly learned how to say no.

Self-love was a long process for me. I had years of reprogramming. Years of clearing out the spaces that had been filled with violence and fear. The excuses poured in from every direction. The what if’s filled the air.

Some days I was able to push them under the surface, while other times I wasn’t as successful. The fear and doubt won. But, I didn’t give up. I kept trying to fight my way through the thick muck of self-loathing and self-doubt to the land of self-love.

Abusers use these weaknesses they see in us. They feed off of our self-doubt and assure us we are all the bad things we can conger up in our minds. Self-love takes our power back. When we don’t believe the awful things we used to tell ourselves any longer, we won’t believe when they say them either. When they put their hands on us, we know we don’t deserve it. We know we are worth more. We are worthy of love; our love. We are worthy of safe love. We are worthy of happiness.

We. Are. Worthy.

The best weapon against domestic violence is education and sharing our stories.

We will make a difference. One voice at a time.

Jessica Aiken-Hall