Kate: Self-Love Struggle
Hungry eyes seek to fill a hollow heart, walking through life with hands extended, begging for sustenance. Convinced, that what we need is outside of ourselves found in the alluring words and actions of others.
Our souls starve, as we pretend everything will be better once we secure love from someone else.
Our positive energy dwindles steadily, like a suffocated flame in gusting winds, as we refuse nourishment from the true soul food we need; Self-Love.
Abyss of Emptiness
As women we are naturally empathetic and compassionate towards others, nurturing ways come easy to us and often we pay a hefty price by neglecting our own needs. Women with large hearts and plenty of love to give share this aching and unfulfilled desire, a pain my client Kate knew all too well. With a broken heart in her hands Kate came to me searching for answers to glue the shattered pieces back together.
In the safety of our Discovery Session Kate described the aching hollow embedded in her chest and what event caused it. The end of a 9 year serious relationship close behind her, she explained the hills and valleys of infidelity perpetrated by her partner. In a chaotic emotional hurricane, the pain of deceit soaked her voice as she held back her tears,
"I'm fine one moment, but as soon as I imagine being loved by another I'm thrown into this whirlwind of hopelessness. I just want someone to love me, but I know no one will. I'm not attractive anymore and even if they said I was, I don't think I could believe them".
After her separation from her partner, Kate at age 40, moved back in with her mother who encouraged her to do as she pleased and demanded no recompense for her stay. Surely a stable place to enter into the healing process.
Self Preservation
She deeply desired someone to love her; to end this misery she was caught in, but couldn’t imagine how to move on from the looming storm clouds of pain. Even with prompting questions, Kate struggled to explain many of the emotions she felt regarding the nature of the abrupt end to her relationship.
The habitual avoidance of her emotions was a self preservation tactic, it kept her safe in a familiar place while avoiding the unknown territory of facing herself. Remaining in her “safe zone” prevented any resolution, healing or moving on. Once we began our scheduled sessions we walked through the footsteps of Kate’s past, digging deep into her memories to learn the colors of her pain.
She shared stories of her difficult relationship with her father, his concerned comments about her weight and how she "should" look to ensure a happy life. She garnered emotional eating habits her mother also suffered with, and struggled to manage her weight since her early teen years.
At 18, the loss of her father to cancer compounded her mixed feelings about their relationship. Guilt over took her and she focused on dieting for many years to become someone her father would be proud of.
Kate commented on her anger at the thought of her younger self, trying so hard to become someone else and rejecting herself in the midst of it. Acknowledging her anger ignited the momentous upheaval of other stored and ignored emotions Kate kept away over the years. She was transitioning from gusting storm to a full raging fire.
Seeking Emotional Balance
We dove into areas of Kate’s life that she wasn't aware were causing her pain. The relationship with her mother was stable and happy, but she relied heavily on Kate for her emotional support. Making Kate the center of her world, she diligently tends to her every need to selfishly fill a hollow in her own life.
Her mother’s obsession over her became a means to avoid the pain of feeling sad and alone. Kate’s ability to express her emotions was stifled by her mother’s smothering actions. She never had the space to focus on herself while acting as the anchor for her mother’s emotional balance.
Falling into old patterns of not holding herself accountable for her actions, Kate gained weight living back home. Kate acknowledged she didn't feel much relief being home and around her mother, it only added more stress.
We sorted through feelings of frustration and blame aimed at her mother, stemming from the early damage to her self image, the loss of a “normal” childhood and losing a potentially “normal” future. With a gained sense of awareness, Kate realized, even though she was kind and helpful, her mother wasn't an aid in her recovery after all.
She saw what was lost by adopting paradigms of her parents perspectives and tears of grief began to calm her fires.
Emerging from the Depths
From a place of disconnection, Kate admitted she desperately wanted her own place and remove the patterns she'd regressed into. Our following sessions were filled with deeper questions, connections, and painful tears as the root of Kate’s pain began to organically emerge to the surface. We addressed underlying feelings of insecurity, a lack of self worth, self-value and self-esteem.
She longed for someone she lost touch with so very long ago, the bright personality, the blazing self confidence and unmatched humor: herself. Recognizing the loss of herself and how she had hidden away over the years to please others, she was struck with an impulse to stand as secure as she once did.
We worked through old stories that lingered in her mind. Tennents making her feel small and telling her “she wasn’t enough”. We began re-framing them for her self-growth. Kate steadily emerged from her focus on sadness and welcomed in new forms of self thought. We challenged her boundaries, self limiting beliefs, poor self image, and habits of disrespect towards herself.
Rising Self-Perception
As we tested the waters of what worked best to nurture and soothe her pain, she came upon an epiphany. The opinions of others no longer mattered to her, she couldn’t change their view of her, but she could change her own. Her opinion and perception of herself was more important than that of anyone else.
Kate made a decision to no longer reject herself, but to accept her as she was, marvelous and whole. With unabashed acceptance of self she reveled in her own thoughts:
“Loving myself is more important than hiding who I am, I don’t have to be anyone but myself. It’s not an immediate thing, but I can love myself in the meantime!”.
Searching so long to find love, only to realize it was hidden within the bosom of our own tender chest. Kate found her love soaked heart, waiting to be whisked away by her words and took it into the Light of her Healing Journey.