Is Self-Love Really What You Need?

This Article is written on my website for Artists and Creatives, but it is useful for anyone.

Everyone has an element of feeling as though they are putting themselves out there.

Whether at home, in personal relationships, professional relationships, at their job, even just as a member of society in general.

But as Artists and Creatives you have your own unique experience of vulnerability, internal navigation and desire for empowerment.

You ARE your job (so it seems, but I’ll write another Article on the difference between the true Artist and the job title Artist later. Don’t forget to signup to be updated).

Your magic to the world IS you on a silver platter.

But instead of it being served in a private, intimate dinner, it’s distributed globally in other people’s households and spaces where you have no control.

Add to the usual every day feelings of putting yourself out there as a human, a heightened sense of emotion and feeling for Artists and Creatives, plus your entire life is in the public space, and it can be ridiculously overwhelming.

And that’s an understatement.

It’s not just an intellectual contribution that you went to uni for; learning how to put some data into an Excel spreadsheet and write some documents, so that at your 9-5 job you can just use your intellect and disconnect from the rest of yourself.

Artistry and Creativity doesn’t work that way.

You as an Artist are much more internal, personal, vulnerable - you have to be in order to create.

But the question is, how do you manage your internal?

What do you consider your internal?

What is your source of empowerment?

Is it self-love?

And if it’s loving yourself that you’re trying to do, then who is the self that you are being to love the self you think needs love?

These things are worth considering, because you will begin to realise it’s not actually entirely about self-love.

It’s more about authenticity—on every level.

Authenticity doesn’t need self-love, because it automatically comes equipped with it in the form of confidence, expression, not giving a fuck, and truth.

Self-love is only proposed as a remedy when we feel disempowered.

When we feel genuine empowerment (not what most people think it is), we do not need self-love.

Self-love is being used as a remedy for a problem that doesn’t even exist; the problem being, that there is something wrong (which causes a feeling of disempowerment).

And self-love isn’t even a remedy, it’s a bandaid, because your true expression doesn’t need self-love—no truth does.

Truth stands strong in and of itself.

Think of the statement, the sky is blue.

How does that feel?

It is its own source of power, right?

The remedy for feeling as though you need self-love, is actually acceptance and authenticity.

Acceptance of ALL of you—all of your emotions, your thoughts, your behaviours, your feelings, your life.

Authenticity in your words, in your clothes, in your Artistry, in the way you interact with people, in the way you think, in the way you live.

And let’s be clear.

Just because you do not submit to the collective’s way of living or thought processing, doesn’t mean you are authentic.

Saying a big fuck you to those who have previously shut you out, is not being authentic.

Saying anything that’s on your mind, is not necessarily being authentic.

Being Creative and calling yourself an Artist, doesn’t automatically make you authentic.

Your behaviours, thoughts and feelings will be coming from your hate and frustration, from a desire to connect to the ‘outcasts’ and not from a space of authenticity.

And this is an important thing for you to recognise.

I think it’s important to really be clear on what I mean by authentic.

Of course, there is a degree of authenticity no matter how we are behaving.

If we feel angry and express that or say something, we are being authentic to our feeling of anger.

This is not the level of authenticity I mean.

I mean real authenticity.

The one that doesn’t come from the layers of insecurities, fears, past memories and experiences, unexpressed emotions and all the rest.

The one that is in alignment with the real you.

And the real you, is really what you crave when you crave self-love.

Because, who is the self that is going to give you the self-love you think you need?

It’s just a part of our consciousness that doesn’t need love, because, ultimately, it’s just a thought nurturing another thought.

It’s not a thing or an identity its’ just a thought.

(Go back, read that again, and let it sit with you for a minute).

You don’t need any of that when you show up authentically, because it is so pure and specific to YOU that nothing will EVER feel as gratifying to you as your authentic expression.

It’s like finally finding the right key that fits the keyhole to your inner liberation, Genius, Artistry, Divinity, power and freedom.

It doesn’t need A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G else but expression.

Everything you try to use to avoid pain and obtain temporary, illusory pleasure is not sustainable.

It’s not long lasting.

And eventually comes with a loud, deep, yet hollow, sense of dissatisfaction that is like a silent scream.

And this is the call for you to embody your truth and show up authentically.

This is the ONLY solution.

Not self-love.

Not affirmations.

Not positive thinking.

Not high vibrations and positive vibes.

Truth.

Authenticity.

This is what you should be exploring with an openness to accepting what you find.

Not self-love.

It’s not the truth that will set you free, it’s YOUR truth that will set you free.

But first, it will piss you off.

Caterina

x