Welcome to this self-love practice.
Today we are going to completely nourish and nurture ourselves from the deepest levels.
Our brain has a negativity bias which often results in us being our own worst critic,
Our own worst judge and that can really block our ability to love ourselves.
Many people say that self-love is the greatest power that we can have and I fully and 100% agree with that.
Self-love is not putting on a face mask or going to a spa or taking a day off,
That's also a part of it but the true and deep self-love is actually being brave enough to meet yourself and love yourself,
Especially there where it is so difficult to do.
Self-love is looking yourself straight in the eye,
Meeting that tiger within yourself and taming it,
Simply with a look of love,
With words of love.
What happens if you hold somebody who is deeply sad,
Deeply anxious or even angry?
What happens if you hold them and pour all the love you have on them?
They will start to feel better,
Right?
And it's such a shame that we don't do this with ourselves more often,
That no one really taught us how to love ourselves.
I invite you now to get in tune with your body and any sensations that are arising for you right now.
Perhaps there is a repeating thought pattern,
A physical sensation,
Maybe there is a part of your body that can use some extra love and care right now,
Maybe it's a part inside of yourself,
Your inner child or inner critic that you can begin to give shape to.
Where is it in your body and how does it look like?
Now imagine next to this,
There is a big cup,
But this cup is almost empty.
How big is your cup?
If you can,
Can you imagine it even bigger?
This is your cup of self-love,
Self-compassion and you are going to fill it up again with this pure,
Unconditional,
Loving energy that is coming straight from our hearts.
Your heart is an endless source of love.
Even a broken heart can love.
There is nothing you really have to do or force here,
It is simply opening that gate from your heart and allowing that love to pour into your cup.
You can imagine any type of colour or texture or consistency of this energy.
Maybe it is running like a waterfall,
Maybe it's dripping like honey or maybe it's flowing like electrical energy.
Allow it to be poured and poured into your cup until this cup is almost full,
But we keep going and you notice that your cup starts to overflow.
There is so much love and compassion being spilled everywhere.
It's not messy,
It's beautiful.
It starts to spread in every nook and cranny of your body.
It starts to nestle itself in every single cell in your body.
Every single neuron in your brain gets dipped into this honey of love and self-compassion.
Every pore,
Every part of your body that you ever wished looked differently gets washed by this waterfall of self-love and self-compassion,
Thanking that body part for its hard work.
Your mind gets totally cleansed and washed from all negativity,
From all worrying,
Preoccupation and this self-love has reached completely and totally the entire surface of your body until it forms almost a sort of shield around your body,
As if you were truly dipped in honey and taken out.
And this beautiful shield of self-compassion and self-love is here to protect you,
To protect you from being influenced or convinced by society or by other people that you should be someone else,
That you should dress differently,
Behave differently,
That who you are is not good enough,
That you should look more like that celebrity,
That you should follow the latest trend,
That you should do any of these things that bring you further away from who you are.
Take a few deep breaths here and bask in this feeling of self-love and self-compassion that you have for yourself and whenever you want to during your day,
Whenever you notice that you are relying on external resources,
External validation,
You are so much craving love or affirmation from someone else or you are desperately trying to change yourself,
Fit in somewhere,
Come back to your cup and check in,
Is it empty,
Is it full,
Fill it up until it overflows again and from that overflow give that love to other people because you deserve that and we cannot give from an empty cup either way.
Thank you so much for meditating with me today.
Whenever you are ready you can gently come back to your body and the sensations that arise now which are different from when we started our practice today.
Give yourself a big hug,
I am sending you a big virtual hug and sending you so much love.
My name is Anais and it's been truly a pleasure and an honor to guide you today.
I'll see you soon.
