I have shared with you that the biggest mistake in loving myself was thinking that I had arrived and as a result I stopped cultivating the relationship with myself. Just like any other relationship, if you stop nurturing it and feeding it with attention it will die. And that is what happened with me. I reached a certain point and little by little my practices that fed my soul fell away.
It’s common. Think about it in terms of weight loss. When you begin a weight loss program you incorporate healthy eating with exercise. If you become ill and you can’t exercise for several days you probably found that you stopped eating right too. Am I right? When one thing goes we often gradually let go of others too. It’s not as if overnight we give it up. It’s a slow process that at each step of the way we justify. “I’ll begin again later” you might say. Or “I will eat better tomorrow”, it really sneaks up on us.
Today I’m going to share with you the mindset that ultimately led to my Biggest Mistake, but first I want to give you a little bit of a background. As I shared previously my conscious journey of Self Love began during the end of my fourth marriage. I began my journey of Self Love which is an intense self exploration. At the same time I’m beginning to build my business.
I had been with my fourth husband for about nine years and during this time I was an at-home mom. I had a very small hypnotherapy business and saw about one to three clients a week. The money I made was my “extra” money. We didn’t depend on my income at all as my husband was the bread winner. My priority was our three children ages 3, 10 and 17.
I know that by ending this relationship I was going to have to step up my business. A lot! I made the decision that I would reinvent single motherhood by maintaining the standard of living that we enjoyed as an intact family. I also decided that I would reinvent entrepreneurship by building a business while my kids were in school and without capital. No sixty hour weeks for me. That was impossible as I was unwilling to sacrifice my availability to my children.
As you can see I had a lot on my plate and I had extremely high expectations for myself. I did it too! Within a few months I was bringing in between $5000-$6000 every month and I was booked out a month in advance. …I’ll go more into how I did that next time.
I want to share the mindset that led to my “biggest mistake”.
Even though I had been through way too many heart aches and heart breaks in my marriages I was always the optimist. I KNEW that what I wanted, the love I craved existed. Always the metaphysician I knew that I could not have a desire that could not be fulfilled.
But I also knew at the times of my divorces that there was nothing I could do to repair the damage. One relationship was emotionally abusive and moving into the physically abusive realm, each subsequent relationship had some level of emotional abuse. Each husband was also completely unwilling to work on the relationship. (I know now that one partner can have a huge influence on the relationship by changing their mindset, but this was not knowledge I had then). They simply had no interest in me. I felt completely insignificant (which was a pattern I had since childhood).
So by my fourth divorce (some of us are slow learners, LOL!) I understood that I was creating this same marriage over and over; that I was getting the exact love that I believed, at an unconscious level, that I deserved.
My deepest desire all of my life was to marry one man, be best friends, have our children, raise them together in a peaceful and loving home, then have grandchildren together. This dream had died, especially with this divorce because my husband treated my children from previous marriages as his own. He was truly an Angel in that way. I was terribly disappointed about losing this dream. I came to terms with it… somewhat (I’m still working on that one).
So I had set out to love myself. I desperately wanted to love myself for two reasons. First, so that I could teach other women to love themselves. I hated seeing my clients sabotage themselves and not giving themselves permission to be a priority in their own lives. I became successful at that pretty quickly. My intent is pure and it shows in my clients results. As you know it’s much easier to see others patterns than your own. It’s taken years to do for myself what I can do for others in a matter of a few sessions.
Anyway the second reason I desperately wanted to love myself and was my driving force (this is the mindset that ultimately led to the “biggest mistake”) was to be loved by a man! I wanted to change my patterns and fears so that I could finally find that ONE love that I just KNEW existed for me. This was what sabotaged my efforts. See my ultimate goal ever so subtly changed from giving love to myself to getting love from someone else, which had always been my goal in my previous relationships, hence creating the unfulfilling and lonely relationships that I had. So when I met a man that I fell in love with and he loved me I quit nurturing my relationship with myself. I became insignificant to myself (remember that’s exactly how I felt in my previous relationships) PATTERN.
Don’t get me wrong even though I made this mistake I was still at a much higher level of self love and self awareness than before. You can’t unlearn it, but old behavior can creep in. Be ever vigilant!
You see, our motivating factor is as important as our goal. If our motivation is impure our goal will be sabotaged. The ONLY pure motivation is YOU! You know that you can’t lose weight to look better for others, or quit smoking to make your family happy. Nor can you love yourself in order to get love from someone else. It must be for the sake of Loving Yourself. It always has to be for you!
Self love truly is the greatest love as it frees you from ever needing anyone else to love you but at the same time you receive more love than you ever desired. The energy of “needing” anything repels it. The energy of Love (Self Love) is a mighty magnet for more love. This is so sweet. Read this over and over.
Next time I will share with you the most important thing I did in building my business as I was divorcing and learning to be a single mom.
As always I love to hear from you please leave your comments below!
In Love and Light!
Your sister in self-love,
Michelle
I have only been married twice and have had a similar experience to yours. I love all that you have to say. Thanks for the encouragement!
Thank you, Shari. I believe alot of women have had similar experiences. My hope is to help heal and enlighten with my transparency.
Blessings,
Michelle
Michelle, You always come to me at exactly the time I need you. Just this morning I was tellling myself “it’s just a story, and it’s a lousy story”. And now the story is better. 🙂
I have some new friends who need you too and am so glad to be able to share you with them and them with you. Thank you for today’s call. I so look forward to our next one.
Love from my heart to yours,
Nellie Williams
Thank you for joining me on the call. It was wonderful to hear your voice. I’m glad to know that the story has improved. Remembering that “it’s just a story” really puts everything in it’s true perspective.
Thank you for sharing me with your friends.
I appreciate you,
Michelle
Michelle, YES!! I truly appreciate you sharing this heartfelt story. It is inspiring to hear your experience, and all the love and compassion you have grown to have for yourself. It is incredible to love yourself. And I love that your motivation has changed…nothing else attached to the end of the goal… now it’s simply and beautifully SELF-LOVE! Why? Because you (and each of us) deserve it! Yay!!
Many blessings,
Courtney
Thank you Courtney! I deeply appreciate your affirmation and support.
I love hearing from you,
With love and light,
Michelle
Michelle, Thanks for sharing your story and being transparent. For me that’s where we all really connect – in recognizing we each have a story and even if the stories are not the same, the feelings often are. The pain of lost love and a lost dream come to mind.
It reminds me that we can only accept love from someone else to the level that we love ourselves.
Bright blessings,
Paula
Thank you Paula for taking the time to stop by and comment. I agree, transparency is the greatest tool for connection…and completely necessary for self-acceptance.
Blessings to you!