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Self Love: The Final Frontier

written by Maggie Sale Ostara, PhD

bigstock-Woman-Shows-Heart-2662453I’m away on vacation this week – so I decided to run again an article that I wrote in February for the International Day of Self Love.  So appropriate now as we move into the Summer of Self Love – Enjoy!!

I grew up watching the original Star Trek – Space, the Final Frontier.  And generations of kids and grown ups have enjoyed the exploration of space through Star Trek’s many iterations and plenty of other science fiction.

But what if the final frontier lies not out there, but inside you?

With your relationship with your SELF? 

What if I were to tell you, that your deepest pain comes from the negative attitudes you have about yourself?  Not from what other people have done.  Not from betrayal or disappointment or abandonment.  But from how you’ve responded to your circumstances, and particularly what you’ve made your experiences mean about yourself?

When I was practicing as a Clarity Breathworker, I became acutely aware of this truth as I worked deeply with my clients in their personal and spiritual growth process.  As we went deep into the unconscious, clients uncovered negative self-talk at the deepest level:  you’re unlovable, you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, not pretty enough, not outgoing enough, not reserved enough – on and on, going round and round.  Negative self talk that may have originated from either taking in what someone said (like a parent, sibling, or teacher) or an experience of some kind, but started running on automatic pilot, replaying without end.

Negative self talk – what my friends Christine Arylo and Amy Ahlers call the inner mean girls and inner bullies – beats you down from the inside without you even knowing it.  You don’t know it because it becomes “normal” – that is, typical, or “just the way things are.”  And unfortunately in the US, this kind of self criticism and even self hatred is common.  The Dalai Lama has remarked how striking this is in the Western world – the norm of self hatred – which was not really even known in Tibet.

It can be hard to even imagine – can you imagine a world in which self criticism does not exist?  Wow – that would be a relief!

In the Hippie generation, peace and love became ideal.  At first that often meant sexual love, sexual healing, and then love between people, love between nations.  Over the last 40 years, what love means, how to practice love with your partner, with your children, and even with your co-workers and neighbors has been explored extensively – books written, schools founded, and therapists trained.

But self love?  That’s another story.  The dictionary still defines self love as narcissism, self absorption – like it’s something bad or negative.  Commonly people think of self love as selfish.

And your lack of self love deeply affects your success in your business.  I work everyday with women entrepreneurs on owning their true value.  Because owning your value and the value of the service that you provide is critical to the success of your business.  So are appreciating, acknowledging and accepting yourself.  And that’s really hard to do when you are internally criticizing and judging yourself instead of loving yourself.

Are you ready to stop being so hard on yourself?  Want some support around that?  Then tune in Friday – June 20th – to my three BFFs as they bring you a Solstice Power Ritual that will provide you with exactly that.  Register HERE.

Maggie Sale Ostara, PhD left her prestigious job as the Director of Women’s a Gender Studies at Columbia University when she realized she’s not built to work for anyone else. Since then, Dr. Ostara has become a Certified Human Design Specialist (Level 4), a Certified Clarity Breathwork Practitioner, a highly sought after teacher-mentor, who teaches high-achieving women how to develop their personal sovereignty, to activate their super powers, and to unleash themselves from society’s prescription of success.

She’s the creator of the Soul Signature Self Awareness Project, the Wheel of Power of the Visionary Entrepreneur, and over 20 educational programs focused building soul-inspired businesses that positively impact the world and taking command of your life through personal sovereignty. She’s hosted 5 multi-speaker online conferences, and spoken on over 15 such conferences reaching audiences of over 200,000 participants.

With two decades of experience supporting 20,000+ students and hundreds of clients through her online programs and conferences, Dr. Ostara teaches how to avoid overwhelm and burnout, how to make reliable decisions, how to create a bigger impact with less effort, and how to transform inner liabilities into powerful assets and allies.