Love is the key.
How to love yourself out of addiction requires a tenderness and recognition for the simplest parts of you you may never have acknowledged before. Like how small you are. How gentle you are with everyone. How we so effortlessly take life for granted.
It has been so generously given.
What does it require to break an addiction?
Self-love. This is the main ingredient, and it takes on many forms. Softening yourself to appreciate your body? Check. Getting on your knees and folding your hands? 🙏 Check. Keeping an open mind? Double check. Open minds lead to open hearts. And this is your answer.
Look at the word addiction again.
It has a prefix. Its root is ‘diction’, which is a form of expression. ‘a-‘ as a prefix means that no such thing exists. English grammatical rules require for the letter ‘d’ in the word ‘addiction’ to be doubled because of its position between two vowels. So, any use of the word addiction (which can apply to anybody) implies a lack of self-expression. That’s why they say the opposite of addiction is connection, and why 12-step meetings work so well. In a safe space, we enter a judgment-free zone.
How To Love Yourself: A Beginner’s Guide
Begin to understand that your home is where the heart is. Opening your heart will change your life. The key to loving yourself is letting your brilliance be sacrificed for bravery. Bravery, here, means living with an open heart. Things will automatically start to fall away from your life, and goodness reaches you.
It starts small, with identifying where the heart is in your body, and putting more of your attention there each day. It sounds silly but it works! Looking down at it, acknowledging you’re carrying it in your chest, thanking it for supporting you. These things matter. Then, there’s touching your chest, feeling your heartbeat. The more attention you give it, in stillness and in daily life, the more energy will flow into your heart. This focus on your heart and self-love can significantly improve your mental health. Your bad habits will feel less tempting after a while. Persist. And let your heart do the talking.
How do you love yourself properly?
Consistency matters. Loving yourself is the most important romance you’ll ever have, so treat it like so. Loving yourself out of any struggle involves taking time out for self-care, letting your heart know nothing else takes priority.
If you want to overcome addiction, make a daily ritual. This practice not only nurtures your self-love but also significantly improves your overall health. You start having a dialogue with your heart while doing this, and everything else falls into place. You start to believe that “good things happen to good people,” because of the shift you’re making. And if you ask yourself, “how long have I been a good person?” You’ll be able to answer honestly, and be proud of how honest you can be with yourself. Because the heart doesn’t judge! Heart is the portal for the abundance of love. Once you start opening it, in your own way, you’ll realize what I am beginning to realize myself: There’s always more love.
Why do I struggle to love myself and have low self esteem?
Realize that we’ve been conditioned to think and talk our way into loving ourselves. Love is an action. Words mean little without action. Personally, I grew up saying “I love you” back to my parents more than I would think to say “I love you” to myself. And was their love unconditional? It wasn’t. If you struggle to love yourself, the proper technique may not have been modelled in childhood. As a result, our minds get mixed up. We struggle to love ourselves because we’re not being authentic to who we are. Remember, this struggle is not a moral failing but a result of past conditioning and societal pressures.
As a first born child, I was raised to please. Loving myself has been an act of rebellion against the conditionings of my survival mindset past. It takes gentleness. It took me 30 years to settle on the truth that there’s nothing wrong with me. When you give yourself time, and silence, you give yourself the best gifts you can give. Society has not made it easy on us. So, remember your gentleness. And persist.
How to 100% love yourself?
Make it a daily non-negotiable every day. Was that sentence redundant? Well… worth it. Because to access your Higher Self fully, it will watch you to see if you mean it. It isn’t a matter of time. It’s a matter of alignment. Once Life realizes you’re serious about your health, it will move mountains to meet you. Making self-love a daily practice can significantly improve your physical health, reducing the risk of chronic diseases and enhancing your overall well-being. It’s almost unfair how life good can get for people. But they have realized the same thing you can too. To choose yourself. Every. Single. Time.
How to remove the addiction?
Write the intention down on paper first, if you ask me. Nothing big happens for me unless I share it with myself or someone else first. Again, Life is always watching what you do. Thoughts are one thing, action is another. Writing it down (I recommend using carbon pencil and unlined white paper) locks in it, and waking up to it every day starts chipping away at the mess your Lower Self has built for itself. You’re rising above like a badass. Remind yourself of that. Give your body what it wants: nourishing foods, zero screen time before bed, and sleep. By this point, your mind will have been trained to think differently. Resist it. “Not today, Satan.” Not today.
What are the 7 tips of recovery if you are an addict experiencing withdrawal symptoms?
Prayer. This was the first line of action of Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, after he took office. He knew he needed divine intervention to rid the country of its demons. Why not try it too?
Take one day at a time. This could be edited to “Take one moment at a time,” but to the addicted mind, this can feel daunting. Use Tip #1 in the morning, and at night, and do it from your whole heart. This will guarantee success in the long run. How much of it is then up to your mindfulness.
Slow your roll. Make space for at least five minutes of conscious breathing or eyes closed in meditation or chanting ‘OM’. Ten is preferable. Doing this before you leave your house/room and interact with the world is the wisest choice of all. If you can overcome yourself in the morning, the rest of the day is easy. And you’ll willingly extend the time allotment as you go. I do two hours.
Get back in touch with nature (AKA yourself). Nature wants you to sleep at night, and rise with the sun. Nature wants you enjoy the trees and the fresh air. Nature wants you eating real food. “Not too much. Mostly plants,” says Michael Pollan, narrator of Food, Inc. For me, this means low fat, low protein. That’s right, low protein. Yet, I’ve got Popeye-like strength. What did he eat?
Make new friends. It’s likely that the old ones were enablers. This may be the toughest tip of them all. You’ll have to be brave for this one. 12-step meetings are an easy common ground. Joining a group with a like-minded hobby or interest can work wonders, too. Just having the courage to put yourself out there, I feel, will have unknown blessings start making their way toward you. Nice.
Work out. The gym is also a great place to make new friends. My life lately is a testimony of that. Whatever you do, whether it be running, swimming, or lifting weights, will distribute energy evenly throughout your whole body, and ground you, deeply quieting the mind’s temptations. Check this cool article on grounding which explains its benefits in further detail.
Cleanse your liver. I don’t expect you to drink nine days worth of celery juice in a row. But you can start with lemon water first thing when you wake up.
Cleansing your liver means ridding yourself of all the toxins you no longer need to hold onto to access your Higher Self. I don’t know about you, but all that banana-flavoured penicillin I took as a kid for strep throat? Yeah, that was still in my liver twenty years later. The body keeps the score. Flush your liver with lemon water.
How do I stop extreme addiction?
Just ask! For some things, we need prayer, says the Bible. And I’m not even a Christian!
Recognize your will is weak with addiction. A loving connection to others can strengthen it. A lot of times, it’s easier to do things for others than it is to do things for ourselves. Make your reasons for stopping your bad behaviours as big as your heart and mind will allow. Life will then see those intentions.
How do I overcome my addiction?
The easiest way? Just ask. Call upon a Higher Power. Even if it’s the best version of… you. Remember a time in your life where you totally would have had the willpower to kick any bad habit. The higher intelligence out there will know when you are asking sincerely to put an end to your addiction, and will bring you the people, circumstances, and inspiration for you to overcome it. The methods on ‘how’ are endless, but one thing the healed version of you does want to see, is surrender.
How do you cut off an addiction?
Replace it with something else, even if it’s only slightly better.
Personal example: my addiction to gambling turned into a small daily AM dose of marijuana. Much less harmful, way more affordable. It changed my consciousness in the necessary ways, and it was a part of my journey. Now, drug-free, I am able to see the medicinal aspects of marijuana while realizing that the strongest version of me needs none to feel balanced. Get this: I’ve replaced weed smoking with meditation. Although it takes over 45 minutes to get even remotely close to the ‘clarity’ I had with weed, I feel great knowing I need nothing outside of me to get out and see the world!
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