Day 3: Self-Love
When it comes to addiction and possession one must consider the root. So often there’s a lack of self-love. Do we take the time to love ourselves?
Over the last several years, I made it a point to love myself. I always believe I loved me, but then I would experience triggers that communicated something different. I would focus more on the needs of others while my needs were going unmet and I found myself neglecting what I needed to stay in a healthy space.
Here’s a transparent moment. While going through a situation after leaving a church to plant a church alongside my husband we were without income for several months. I knew I needed to do something for me. Instead of having a pity-party and focusing on the fact we were without an income I began searching for free events, and outings. I started with identifying what I enjoyed. From there I did a google search for what might be available.
I love museums. I learned that on Sunday’s the Columbus Museum of Art is free to the public. So I began planning my trip to the museum after worship on Sunday’s. I would not visit each exhibit during a single visit. I broke it up into a few visits to have something to do for an entire month.
We tend to think of big ideas and then sulk with tears when we are not able to fulfill our personal needs or we begin to live our life through others desperately seeking satisfaction. We soon learn we are unable to fill a void and sink into feeling a sense of emptiness. These feelings lead to a sense of loss, depression, oppression, loneliness, and will eventually lead us to live in an unhealthy state of mind. Once we hit bottom we can find ourselves drawn to some sort of addiction.
Note to self: I love me! (Tweetable @GailDudley)
It’s time to identify these triggers. What are your triggers? What may be leading you to addiction and possession? What can you do to practice self-love?
Here’s a list of basic life influences on self-concept. Taking your time going through this list will help you with your past experiences and help you get to the root of some of what may be going on with you on this particular journey.
* Experiences
* Circumstances
* Genetic Heritage
* Environment
* Education
* Childhood/Family System
* Culture
* Beliefs & Values
* Attitudes & Habits
* Age & Birth Order
* Gender
* Personality
Go through this list and think about your experiences. For me, when I thought about my time going from a traditional church setting to planting a church that was completely different than my past experiences I turned to emotional eating. My emotional eating led me to an addiction to sugar. Sugar was my comfort. It was more than a piece of candy or a slice of pie. It was a continuous eating of any and everything sweet. After a while, the pounds packed on, and I started to experience serious debilitating migraines.
Mine was sugar. If you can identify the same allow me to ask, “What drew you to sugar? (Or whatever addictions you may have. ie., drug, sexual, lying, gossiping…etc) What about your experiences keep you in this addiction? Is it emotional?
What are your circumstances? Are you living stress-free or are you having sleepless nights? Really dig into your circumstances.
What was it like growing up? What’s your birth order? etc. Go through the list and wrestle through what is before you.
Listen, this may be painful, but you must get to the root of it. Your answers are at the root.
Join the conversation and be prepared for day 4 tomorrow.
In the meantime here are a couple items that may be of interest to you.
- The book Transparent Moments. It is an eight-day devotional. It can be purchased here: http://gaildudley.com/bookstore.html
- Register for 1Experience. It is an annual membership launching 01.03.18. Today is the last day you will be able to purchase this annual membership filled with coaching, webinars, downloads, books, and so much more an unbelievable price. Price will increase at 12:01 am. It can be purchased here: 1Experience.info
