Today we’re focusing on finding emotional stability and calm through self-love. Not narcissism – not grandiosity or some kind of over-the-top shouting to the world how great you are. But what exactly self-love is and what it can lead to.
Even though we live in a world that repeatedly suggests you can’t be happy or feel valuable if you don’t have a partner, or followers, or live in a certain neighborhood or wear certain clothes or be thin – or countless other things that we’re supposed to chase to prove our worth – if you love yourself – that’s internal. That’s not dependent on anyone or anything but you.
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Self-love… and why it’s so important…
So why am I tackling the topic of self-love in today’s episode? Especially in the times through which we’re living?
Because you have much more control of your worth and your purpose when you learn to love yourself. Why? Because it’s an internal process. It’s not created by any promotions you might get, or success you might have. Nor is it controlled by failures or struggles you might’ve experienced or are experiencing.
It’s an internal feeling of acceptance. You might not love the life you’re living right now. Maybe even shitty things are happening. But you can maintain your inner stability.
Self-love leads to self-agency…
That leads us into a focus or discussion on what self-agency is, and how self-love and self-agency go hand in hand. What’s agency or self-agency? Believing you have the innate power to act. To choose. To change. To create. To support. To have control over yourself and to take ownership… of you.
I’m not naïve to think that great outcomes always happen to those who have self-agency. Life isn’t like that. But you can keep looking for what you can do.
Let’s look at Nick Wignall has to say about agency – he’s a psychologist out of Portland Oregon and has a very successful podcast and career as a writer and coach. He uses the distinction between low self-agency and high self-agency to help us understand.
- People with a low agency mindset tend to be passive, reactive, and fatalistic. They see life as something that happens to them over which they have little control or responsibility. They frequently feel like a victim of circumstances and tend to see themselves as a supporting character in other people’s stories.
- People with a high agency mindset are active, enthusiastic, and optimistic. They view life as something they do over which they have great control and responsibility. They view themselves as the hero and author of their own story.
Now… what does that mean? The hero of your own story? That’s beginning to sound like narcissism, right? Like the hero who should be worshipped and blindly followed?
Absolutely not. That’s not self-love or self-agency at all.
Self-love versus narcissism…
Narcissism is a deep and complex protection or defense against vast personal insecurity. There is very little a true narcissist can do to calm themselves, to have true self-love or self-agency. They need the constant accolades of others to bolster them. They can have very huge personalities that attract those that don’t have much personal self-love or agency themselves. But whose own ego is attracted to the flamboyance and grandiosity of the narcissist. They feel important in the moment that they’re the recipient of the narcissist’s praise. But can be immediately abandoned by the narcissist if not providing ongoing and again constant obedience to their desires.
We’ll pull from an article in Psychology Today on the neurological side of self-love as well as my own work on healthy narcissism and how that may be similar to high self-agency.
Our listener email is from someone who was intrigued that I live in Fayetteville as she has been here many times for family reasons. So she reached out to talk about how she struggles to feel seen and often feels invisible even after she’s suffered many losses.
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