Unconditional self-love is not just a concept, it is a reality. The truth is, to love unconditionally, you need to dive deep into the ‘self’ and do the inner work of unconditional acceptance. To heal the past, allow and accept it the way it is, free from all judgment and expectation.

Loving unconditionally

In reality, unconditional love makes life effortless. It can release stress in a millisecond. When you give up the story of expectation, blame, fear and control, it can be experienced in every moment, no matter what is transpiring on the outside.

My journey to unconditional love started with the question—how do I love all of me?

It was only when I hit rock-bottom that I was ready to go within. Soon, I learnt over 200 methods of alternate therapy and wellness and now, I teach others how to be free from the past and live in the moment. The secret to health, happiness and peace is unconditional self-love.

4 Ways to Master the Art of Self-love

Below are some of the keys to mastering the art of loving yourself unconditionally:

1. Love and accept even in the face of stress

One of my greatest teachers of unconditional love has been my mother. I recall an incident when I was 13 years old and hormonal. My mother walked into my bedroom to just say hello to me, an innocent hello. Yet my response was in the language of rage and anger, “I hate you mom. Leave me alone. Go away!”

My mother looked at me with so much love, it extinguished all else. She did not utter a word, she left the room leaving me consumed in her love. She is an example of unconditional love. Even at the face of her daughter towering her rage at her, she still exuded love. Mom knew in her heart of hearts that her daughter was going through some pain on the inside and it was being projected outwardly. For many years, I felt guilty and sad of having spoken to my mom in a language that took control of me in the spur of a moment. I did not have the courage to go up to her and say sorry. And yet, when I learnt to love and accept myself fully, I had the humility to be seek her forgiveness and, most importantly, forgive myself.

Love tip 1 »

To love and accept at the face of stress, breathe in and out and say to yourself, “Even though I am stressed out, I still choose to love and accept myself fully. I am love. I am love. I am love.” Breathe in and out again.

2. Love yourself just the way you are

My body has been one of my teachers of unconditional love. After the age of 13, I started to increase in size and began to gather puppy fat, which grew into an excess of 30kg over the years. I became tired, lethargic, angry, sad and alone. I was at war with my body and whenever I looked in the mirror, I used to abuse myself internally and say really nasty things to myself about my body—you are ugly, I hate you, I do not like you, you are so fat, nobody loves you. Meanwhile, I was eating healthy and had a regular exercise routine, and yet not even 0.01kg of my weight shifted. How could it, when I was holding onto all the weight? Only when I truly accepted myself for just being the way I was that my weight finally began to leave my body.

Love tip 2 »

To love yourself, look at yourself in the mirror and say out loud, while tapping slightly below your collar bone, “Even though I have judged you and verbally abused you, I am so sorry, please forgive me. I deeply and profoundly love and accept you, just the way you are.”

3. Stay strong in self-love, even when triggered from the outside

Our greatest teachers of unconditional love are the ones closest to us—our loved ones, significant other, children, parents, family, bosses and work colleagues—those we interact with on a day-to-day basis and those who know exactly which buttons to press and how to trigger us. Unconditional love is about developing inner confidence and staying strong within, no matter what is transpiring on the outside. We ought to realise that the other person is just operating from their frame or model of the world and it is not personal.

Love tip 3 »

When triggered, breathe and stand on the ground and say out loud, “I release you now. I release this trigger. I am safe. I am strong. I choose to be confident in myself. I am love.”

4. First self, then others

Heart-break, separation/divorce, job loss or grief can be great springboards to open to self love. Hurt hurts, loss creates loss and separation is like being ripped from the illusion of ‘safety’ to the truth of who I really am.

A patient of mine came to see me about an issue in her personal life where she had met someone whom she considered to be her soul mate and had the most exhilarating 10 days of her life with. She was sucked into a fairy tale romance and had a single-minded focus on her beloved. Then, suddenly, it broke and she broke inwardly with it. Every single day, she would come home from work and lock herself in her bedroom and cry uncontrollably. She could not get him out of her mind and she became stuck in a vortex of grief, loss, separation, anxiety, anger and despair.

Even when confronted with all that pain and trauma, she still found it in her heart to do the inner work. To go within and to empty out all the pain and to accept it… and him. Eventually, through the process work, she had a spontaneous opening into unconditional love and the veil of physical and romantic love stripped away. The past addiction to being needed and cared for disappeared and all that remained was unconditional self love and acceptance.

Love tip 4 »

For self-love, get present to this moment and just breathe. Just this moment. Breathe in and out and notice who you really are.

Loving yourself unconditionally involves separating yourself from the illusion and coming home to ‘Self’, free from judgment and expectation in total and complete allowance and acceptance of what is.

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“They knew how serious our mother’s condition was, they knew I was all alone there and in need of help. They should have come to help us. They didn’t even pick up the phone and call!” Tina said angrily. She had always helped them when they were in need, and when it was their turn, they had forgotten her. She felt betrayed.

She was so traumatised by this dreadful experience that she hasn’t left her mother and grandmother’s side since—not taking a single vacation in eight years. Instead, Tina has lived with a constant fear of either of them getting sick again, and has taken on a lot of their responsibility by herself.

Our emotional baggage becomes heavier as we get older and we are able to do and be less than when we were younger

Because of all this, she also hasn’t been able to tie the knot. Well-educated, successful, pretty and young, there has been no shortage of suitors for Tina. But her fear of living away from her mother and grandmother has sabotaged her attempts to commit to a relationship. This intense internal conflict between her desires and equally intense fears have added to her high levels of frustration. In a way, Tina has been stuck in a prison of her own making for eight long years.

Voluntary confinement

Each one of us has a self-made prison that limits our life experiences. The walls of this prison are made of painful memories, fears, feelings of inadequacy and ignorance. Sometimes we are unable to express ourselves because of bad memories or fears. For example, why do we say ”yes” when we really want to say “no”? We do that usually when we are afraid, perhaps, of confrontation. We are often unable to even try to grab an opportunity because we are trapped in our prison. Our emotional baggage becomes heavier as we get older and we are able to do and be less than when we were younger.

Let us say that we are all born with an empty trunk or box on our heads [I know that seems bizarre, but humour me for a minute]. These trunks collect our emotional baggage in the form of rocks. Over time we unknowingly collect more and more emotional baggage and our trunks get heavier. As children, with empty trunks, we have so much energy that it is hard for us to sit still. The heavier our trunk gets, the slower we can run, the lesser we can walk, the lesser we can remember—a time comes when we get tired even when we aren’t doing anything at all.

Imagine what would happen if, while you were walking with your heavy trunk, a few big rocks fell out. Wouldn’t you automatically start walking faster? Imagine waking up every morning with more energy than you have had in years! You will be able to effortlessly do more, you will feel more capable and confident, your focus will be sharper, and you will be more alert and less fearful – just like you were a decade or two ago. That is what Emotional Freedom Techniques [EFT] can do for you.

Imagine what would happen if, while you were walking with your heavy trunk, a few big rocks fell out

Keep that energy flowing

EFT is an easy-to-use technique that clears away blocked energy in your body. It is based on the discovery that all painful emotions are a result of energy blocks. Every painful emotion is an indicator of an energy block. EFT heals pain by clearing these energy blocks. It therefore always works at the root cause of the pain. The clearer your energy is, the better your perspective and the more empowered you feel. Healing through EFT is done by tapping with one’s fingers on the energy points on the body. These exact points are also used in acupressure and acupuncture. Acupressure and acupuncture work mainly on physical issues but EFT’s transformative power lies in its ability to erase emotional and mental pain. When there’s no pain left, there’s nothing left to manage!

EFT works faster than most forms of healing available to us currently, and is certainly much faster than counselling. There are profound benefits to clearing blocked emotions—illnesses heal, mysterious aches and pains vanish, weight loss occurs, relationships improve, and so do bank balances. Now you’re really interested, aren’t you?

Setting yourself free

My client Tina was sceptical of EFT at first but became eager when we finally started tapping for her emotional pain. Twenty minutes into the healing she looked up at me and said “You know… in the past eight years all that those guys [her relatives] have done is collect rent on the property I set up for them, and get drunk every evening. They haven’t done anything with their lives in these past eight years. How could I have expected anything more from them?” This seemed to me like she was, in her own way, starting to let go.

“I am not wasting another minute of my life thinking about my relatives. I am going on a holiday!” A few sessions later, she took a two-week holiday with her old friends in Mumbai. A year later she had made it as far as London. She had even managed to find love. In her words, she was in an “amazing relationship with an amazing guy”.

Spiritual revival

In Tina’s case, we could identify her painful emotions around an incident and permanently ‘erased’ them with EFT. This clearly released a lot of blocked energy within her and re-awakened a sense of well-being within her—a feeling important for any healthy, happy adult.

EFT can free you of just about everything you want freedom from, whether you learn it yourself or seek the help of an experienced EFT practitioner. In the meantime, you can stop adding new rocks to your trunk by feeling your pain, instead of suppressing it. The next time you feel anger or hurt well up within you, just close your eyes and go into your body. You will be able to feel this pain in your body. Focus on it until it dissipates. And when it does, you would have successfully destroyed the new rock before it gets stored in your trunk forever!

To know more, watch this talk I have at a TEDx Delhi event.

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