12 Self.Love and what it doesn’t allow you to do any longer

I woke up from a dream that felt like a fight, sweating all over. Everything in this dream said "impossible," scene after scene after scene. I watched others living their lives, and I, my life, was an empty container. Alone, without any expression of love: a partner, a family, a vocation. I saw my ex, playing in movies with his new partner, who had several faces of people I knew. They made stops for shooting in every country, and I followed their life on screen. When I came to a shoot, no one even asked what diet I was following for the catering. I was friendly to people, but only because I wanted attention. A woman who had been a friend in my 20s called. She was on video with her kids and had just published a book with her husband. I pretended to not have time, and she really didn’t have time because she was busy. My whole life was frozen in this dream. I went to therapy and even let the two friends of the therapist give me advice. I rode a bike and the light broke, I saw people dancing in the light. I saw a picture of myself and had grey hair and a bald spot on the top of my head. I had been talking to someone in a café just to get the attention of another. And then I woke up.

I had fought a lot in my life to prove this feeling of freeze wrong. Things changed on the outside, slowly, yet inside, the freeze remained. A freeze is when inner and outer world feel unaligned.

A word came to mind: impossible. My mother had often said that I was impossible when I behaved wildly. And I suddenly realized that this word had moved into my system, lived there without me really noticing. The dream, or the feeling after, brought it up.

I have a picture of myself, at 1 year old and some months. It has traveled with me for some years. During those years, I had learned to love this little girl and promised to make all of her dreams come true. Today, I made her my official teammate. Little me, helping me becoming all she came here to be.

First of all: free. And loving. Believing in herself, fully.

We created the version we want to continue to live in or live through. We examined which thoughts this version of ours has and which thoughts we no longer tolerate. And also the manner in which we say no to thinking anything that weakens us or makes us feel small and helpless. We decided these thoughts don’t need to be forced or willed away any longer—all it would take is a simple "No" when they arise out of old habit.

I now believe that loving yourself is a decision. And it can happen overnight. At one point, the (inner) work shows, and you are ready to say yes. Yes to a new state of being. There might be some residue to be dusted. Nothing more. Accept it.

***

If I am in a river and the current of this river is self-love, then anything—any thought, anyone—that goes against it is upstream. If I am in a river and the underlying current is victimhood (it doesn’t need to be the obvious current), then the very same thoughts are a match and it is much harder to push them away at will.