A leader and beloved guide of the self-help movement and beyond, Louise Hay, once said “You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” Trauma teaches us unfortunate lessons about ourselves, our relationship to the world, and our place in the world as a human being. Most often, through traumatic events and experiences in life, we are taught, that something about us is not worth loving. For whatever reasons, we develop harmful beliefs and self-narratives which quickly erode at our senses of self-esteem and self-worth, our ideas of how deserving we are of love and what kind of love we do or do not deserve, and beyond. Certainly, our concepts of loving ourselves get affected. Somehow, something that was most likely completely beyond our control, or something that was within our control but came from sources within us feeling out of control, causes us to think we’re at fault. Somehow, something that is a circumstance of life causes us to feel like we’ve failed at life somehow- we start believing all kinds of storylines which portray us as an undeserving, worthy of punishment villain. Few people in our lives take on the responsibility of exacting justice for our real or perceived wrongdoings like we do.
As Louise Hay points out, our self-criticism and self-loathing doesn’t work. Our self-hatred and self-punishment doesn’t work. Do we succeed in continuing to hurt ourselves and deprive ourselves of the love, forgiveness, and grace we deserve? Yes, most unfortunately, we do. Do we go into the past, change the trauma of our past, and set forth a ripple effect within the time space continuum which somehow justifies the past? No, that we definitely do not. Though we think somehow denying ourselves self-love resolves the past, we’re given no resolution. In fact, we face an ongoing perpetuation of our trauma, being ever-reminded and ever-consumed by our sense of guilt and shame. Moreover, we fear that if we find self-love, if we can actually love ourselves, that could mean something we forgot to be okay with- that we’re okay.
Why We Need Self-Love In Trauma Recovery
You are your longest and most intimate relationship. You wake up with yourself every day. You go to sleep with yourself every night. No matter what lengths you have gone to in order to try and get away from yourself, as it is so often said, everywhere you go, there you are. Going through trauma treatment and devoting ourselves to live lives in trauma recovery helps us recognize that we have a choice in how we want to live. Our choice to seek treatment and see treatment through was most likely inspired by the very profound recognition of a very simple fact: we didn’t want to live the way we were living anymore. Living in trauma recovery without developing a relationship with ourselves through self-love means choosing to live in a painful way. The simple truth is, we’ve been through too much with our trauma and worked too hard in trauma treatment to continue living in pain. Living without self-love is living in self-inflicted pain.
We’re given many different names as those who have lived through and then recovery through trauma: Warriors, survivors, fighters, soldiers, and more. Who we are, are people who have struggled, suffered, and come out the other side. Through our trauma recovery after treatment, we can find ourselves forgetting the truth of who we are, what we’re capable of, and where we’re heading.
Self-love is the way that we applaud, support, and give ourselves grace through every change we continue to go through. Self-love is how we become the beaming, glowing, radiant, passionate, whole, healed people we have the potential of becoming. By learning to love ourselves, we learn how to be ourselves and to other people we become that person- the one they’ve always admired.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, considered the thought leader on grief, said, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
You are, unmistakably, a beautiful person for what has happened to you, how you’ve grown from it, and how you continue to grow and recover from it ongoing. In our next alumni blog, we’ll look at the different ways you can develop self-love in recovery and how it will hugely benefit you in the long run.
When you graduate trauma treatment, the rubber meets the road, as it is said. To live successfully in recovery from trauma, addictions, or related mental health issues, we need the care and professionalism of an experienced, specialized staff who provide us excellence in treatment. Our alumni learn how to thrive in their lives not in spite of trauma, but because of it. We’re always here to welcome those in need of help at The Guest House Ocala. Call us today for information and resources: 1-855-483-7800