how to break the evil spell of self-loathing

Now that it’s October, my kids and I have pretty much one focus: Halloween. Costumes! Candy! Trick-or-treating!

While they love all that fun stuff, Halloween’s celebration of darkness and spookiness has always hit me a little too close to home. I never understood it as a kid, but as an adult I realize Halloween reminds me too much of my own inner darkness. I look in the mirror and see a beautiful goddess, but underneath lurks spooky, nebulous thoughts that many times I’m not even conscious of: You’re a failure. You don’t need to forgive your father; he’s a toxic person. New clothes? You can’t afford that. If you say no to him, he’ll break off his relationship with you.

Before I know it, that lovely woman I see in the mirror is consumed by an evil spell, and I become blind to things like the funny joke I might reply with or the brilliant inspiration for a marketing client, or worse, that my son needs me to support him and not just scold him. 

While the Tantric lifestyle of daily meditation and following-my-desires-with-no self-judgment-in-full-self-awareness has helped me blossom into one incredible person, that evil spell of self-doubt eats me alive if I’m not aware of it. Dr. Joe Dispenza calls it a chemical addiction. Loving myself can’t be a flash-in-the-pan at a workshop: it has to be a daily practice of shining light on the evil spell and breaking it.

Oh, the benefits!

Loving myself results in the lovely sparkles of emotional availability.

I’m free to be present while my son tells me about his frustration with a teacher. Free to be a good listener while a client tells me about her father’s suicide. Free to be quick with my sister’s silly puns. Free to love passionately and create playfully. Loving myself is synonymous with loving those around me.

No, I haven’t perfected any of this yet, and that’s why we’re diving headfirst into self-love for the spooky month of October. I even gave it a witchy name. In this upcoming LIT Meditation Club series, Loving Myself Warts and All, we’ll be exploring four different paths busting self-loathing’s evil spell: self-care, forgiveness, turning fears into aspirations, and laying down boundaries. Each of those aspects will require you to be fiercely aware of what you’re really feeling, really saying to yourself underneath, “I’m fine.” Are you courageous enough to face your darkness and really love yourself, warts and all?