When you come to Earth, you are an eager and excited spirit who has just been handed the keys to their very own human transport device aka a body.

Ever watch a baby? They are typically happy, crying here and there to alert the bigger people to their needs; usually a diaper change, food, bottle or comfort, but their natural baseline is happy.

So what happens next? Well, with our newly formed brains in a theta state – similar to hypnosis – we begin to download our environment, the sights, sounds, tastes, touch and anything else that is helpful to our survival, like not touching a hot stove or running into traffic.

This is an important time for development, up until 7 or 8 years of age the brain continues to download indiscriminately, without question. You can imagine that in certain environments this could be a detriment to future development. You are not only learning about safety but also about money, personal relationships, right and wrong, love and more. What you learn during this time becomes your belief system, your program that runs in your subconscious, 24/7.

To best illustrate, let’s look at food. In our house we didn’t eat liver and onions. I can vividly remember my mother making a face and expressing how disgusting it was. So if someone asked me as an adult if I liked Liver and Onions, I immediately said ‘no’. Actually, it was more like, “NO!”.

Had I ever tried it? Nope. I didn’t need to. I was programmed to not like it.

Now, I know liver and onions is a pretty easy one, I know plenty of people who have tried it and had the same opinion but let’s change it to cherry cheesecake. I happen to think it tastes delightful but if it had been met with the same vehemance as liver, it would have been doubtful I would have tried it without someone’s insistence and well outside my childhood years.

Now, take the food example and change out liver and onions for healthy love. This is where things get real.

A common declaration made in books, tv and movies is “I will be better than my parents, I will do X,Y,Z differently!” A beautiful sentiment but a little challenging to fulfill, at least in its entirety. If you grew up lacking food, you could easily be a parent that makes sure there is always plenty of food, in fact, you might even ensure it’s the healthiest options availble.

Let’s look at something a little trickier, let’s look at love. Did you grow up in a home where you felt unconditional love or did you feel like you only received love if you did something good, like finished your chores or received good grades? What relationships did you see? Were you a child of divorce? Did you have older siblings? What were their relationships like?

The quickest way to determine which program you downloaded is to look at your current circumstances.

Let’s assume, based on the title of this post, that you have issues with self love. What are the steps you can take to REprogram yourself and override those beliefs of not enough?

1. Who Are You? – You my friend, are not a human having a spiritual experience but a spirit having a human experience. You come from pure love source energy. Earth is your playground, so to speak. Think of it like your own personal video game experience. Being human comes with a lot of emotions like happiness and joy but also insecurity and depression. Remembering who you truly are is incredibly empowering and the first step to loving yourself.
2. Why Are You Here? – If you evaluate a typical human experience it’s nothing like the video game analogy. When I was a kid I believed you finished school, maybe went to college, you got a good job to work at until you retired and along the way you got married and had kids and they continued the process. People who were astronauts, artists, musicians, humanitarians, you know world changers were the exception and there was no connection between myself and them.

YOU came here for a reason, YOU need to decide what that reason was. Not your family, not your teachers, not society, YOU. The sooner you figure that out, the sooner you can really start living. Please note that while I have this as Step 2, you can skip this and come back to it if you’re not sure yet.

3.You Are Worthy. – This is my most favorite step! This is the step where you acknowledge your birthright. While kings and queens were given thrones, treasure and kingdoms to rule over, your birthright is even more amazing; this is where the LOVE comes in!

Receiving unconditional love requires this of you…are you ready? To simply exist. That’s it. You deserve love because you just do! You are ALREADY worthy.

4. Open Your Heart. – So you might be thinking that you’re a pretty nice and loving person. You’re fine. You don’t need any steps. I thought the same. Years ago I learned that my heart chakra was not fully engaged. I would happily send love out to the world but was closed off to receiving it. That was because I was thinking of human love, not source love.

Human love comes with strings and requirements, sometimes tests and sometimes you don’t qualify to even play the game because your human body isn’t attractive enough. You my friend, need to tap into unlimited source love. That is the 100% unconditional love we talked about in Step 3.

Think of how your lungs breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, over and over again. It’s a happy exchange of give and take. It has to be! Imagine if you just sent your breath out without taking more in!

Here is how to connect to that unlimited and unconditional love. I’ve been connecting for years but I really like the meditation from Christie Marie Sheldon.

1. Find a comfortable spot to sit, feet planted on the floor. If you need to lie down for this, that is okay, too.
2. Close your eyes and imagine you are pulling in loving energy from above and let it fill you from head to toe.
3. Send that loving energy through to the center of the Earth and pull that Mother Gaia loving energy up into your body.
4. Allow the two energies to combine in your heart chakra and sit here for a moment, really feeling that unconditional love. That love that is here for you no matter what.
5. Now expand that love energy out into the world, as far as you can go! Imagine so many people, animals and plants receiving that love and then feel it coming back into your heart.

That’s it! How did it feel? Did you cry? Don’t worry that is totally normal and encouraged. When you have held onto toxic, limiting beliefs or trauma in the body for years and then finally release it you usually will feel a shift in your body and tears. I believe these tears are both physical over finally feeling relief in the release and emotional, because you are finally clearing away a block that was preventing you from feeling the positive emotion.

5. YOU come first. – Before I get push back on this, I am not suggesting you ditch your responsibilities like children or work. However, I do want to use the airplane safety analogy of put on your oxygen mask first then help others with their own. You can’t help others if you aren’t even helping yourself.

Many of us, especially women my age or older, were brought up to believe that self care was selfish and selfish was a bad word because you were supposed to give and take care of others and if they chose to reciprocate and take care of you then weren’t you the lucky one?

Look, I’m 100% about kindness, sharing, caring and helping others. What I’m not onboard with is martyrdom, sacrificing at your own expense, staying small so others can feel big. That is not healthy and it’s not good for others, either. You can’t give what you don’t have.

Let’s use money. Say you have $200, you only have $200 and someone comes to you for a loan. Let’s be honest, you know this will be a gift! Now say there was an investment opportunity that allowed you to put that $200 into an account and the interest earned would triple it. Helping someone when you have $600 instead of only $200 is an easier proposition.

Or let’s use blood donations. I like to donate blood or plasma, it helps people who really need it and my body will replenish what I donated; plasma takes about 24 – 48 hours and red blood cells take around one to two months. I usually donate plasma but if I donated red blood cells then I couldn’t donate 2 weeks later. It wouldn’t be healthy for me and the quality wouldn’t be good for someone else.

Take care of yourself physically, emotionally and mentally. Don’t you want to share the best version of yourself with your loved ones and the world? I know I do!

6. REPEAT steps 1-5! That’s right, this isn’t a one and done kind of deal. This is life on Earth and it takes consistent attention and intentions.

Helpful Tips: Focus on nature – It’s therapeutic going on nature walks and/or hanging out with animals – there’s no judgement there! Wait, my dog Bella does have a judgey look when I’m dance cleaning singing but maybe that’s really admiration?

Reduce social media exposure – there are links that show limiting exposure can increase happiness!

Find some alone time – I feel I can truly appreciate and love myself when there is no one around for me to impress.

I hope this helps you feel more the magnificent, loving, loved, special, joyful and excited creator that you truly are!

Let me know your thoughts. Did I miss something? Did you try the steps? Did they work for you? I’d love to hear from you!

Until next time Love and Blessings – Karma