My journey of learning to honor myself has been decades in the making. The life I’ve lived has handed me the perfect circumstances, relationships, events, traumas and experiences to teach me how to value and love myself in ways that were never taught or modeled for me.

I’ve become an expert in self-respect, and I continue to learn more each and every day. And… even after all of these years of learning and growing and evolving into the woman I am today, I’m not perfect.

I have moments when self-doubt tries to take over. My inner critic still offers her opinion and tries to convince me that she knows best. There are times when my old stuff rears its ugly head and does its best to tell me how deeply unlovable I am. And I still face circumstances where it would be much easier to just tolerate something or sacrifice myself to avoid ruffling feathers and upending the status quo.

Because in our culture it’s easier not to honor ourselves.

We’re taught that self-care is a luxury rather than a necessity. We’re rewarded when we give more than receive. We’re constantly fed messages that tell us to not want too much, or take up too much space, or be too big for our britches. We learn that our place is in the passenger seat of our own lives.

In a culture like this it’s easier to…

Be a “yes” girl
Neglect our needs
Ignore our desires
Numb out to what’s really bothering us on the inside
Override our intuition and inner wisdom
Settle for less than what we want
Stay quiet when things hurt
Keep pushing even when we’re exhausted
Tolerate circumstances that make us wither
Sacrifice our radiance and vitality in order to prove our value and worth

Because in a culture like the one we live in today, this is still what is expected of us.

We can’t help but internalize all of these ideas and play them out… until we learn to do things differently and shed who we’ve been taught to be… so that we can become who we are destined to be.

As you can see, there are many obstacles to overcome on the self-honoring journey. There are 6 that I see over and over again with my clients, and that I face time and time again myself.

Here are the 6 most common ways we block our vitality, joy and peace:

1. Always moving and doing, and never slowing down long enough to feel. When you’re taught that your value and worth is tied to your productivity, it’s easy to feel guilty if you slow down or stop. So many women feel intense anxiety and shame when they stop doing so much. It’s like they’re addicted to constantly being in motion. And… when my clients do slow down, they can actually connect with themselves, feel their lives, and tap into their innate wisdom and truth. Being in perpetual motion prevents you from discovering who you really are, what really matters most to you, and why you’re really here.
2. Downplaying your desires, dreams and longings. How many times have you told yourself that an inspired idea you have is just too big, crazy, and irrational? How many times have you told yourself that your big dreams and deep desires aren’t as important as something or someone else? How much of yourself have you hidden or lost or banished because you’ve told yourself over and over again that your desires don’t matter, and that your longings are just some pipe dream that won’t ever come true? When we tell ourselves that our heart’s yearning doesn’t matter, we are telling ourselves that WE don’t matter. Because our hopes and dreams are part and parcel of who we really are. They are an infinite source of joy, wonder and beauty. When we disregard them, we disrespect the core of who we are.
3. Neglecting your physical body with poor dietary and sleep patterns. Our bodies are where we live. Every day we’re either making choices to treat our bodies like the sacred temples they are, or we’re not. Our culture values speed and convenience over presence, connection and true nourishment. So, it’s easy to get caught up in the cultural productivity mindset that inevitably leads us into periodic, or even chronic states of depletion, fatigue, exhaustion, overwhelm and burnout. Learning to truly nurture and respect our precious vitality with quality foods, sleep and other health practices provides the solid foundation that everything else depends upon. In truth, if you don’t have your health, everything else is much more difficult.
4. Negative self-talk. Would you speak to a friend or loved one the way you talk to yourself? Most of us are walking around filled with guilt, shame, and some degree of self-doubt and even self-loathing. These voices have one purpose: to keep you playing and living small, in a perpetual state of feeling bad about yourself, so that no risks are taken, nothing changes, and you live a very “safe”, insulated, uneventful, “comfortable” and colorless life. Have you ever noticed how loud this inner voice gets when you start to think outside the box and challenge the status quo? Mastering your inner world changes everything. And until you do, negative self-talk can keep you stuck and trapped in needless suffering, contraction and pain.
5. Spending time in toxic environments or with toxic people. It’s only natural that you would take on the qualities of the people and places you spend the most time around and in. One way to ensure you live a life that’s much too small for who you really are is to surround yourself with things and people who make you believe you’re less than who you really are. If you spend enough time around people who believe you or they can’t fly, you’ll start to believe it too. Look around and take stock of how the people in your closest circle treat themselves, and how they treat you. They are a reflection of how you feel about and treat yourself. Are you owning your true value and worth? 
6. Settling for substitutes. Most of us have been taught that we can’t have what we really want – which is a pretty awful feeling and reality to face. So, we learn to settle for less. We learn to push away the longing and desire that can never be truly satisfied, and instead we start filling that space with something else. We stuff our loneliness with food. We fill our lives with symbolic substitutes for the real thing we really crave. Because feeling hopelessness, inadequacy, and unrequited longing is uncomfortable, and settling for something feels better than the emptiness of not having at all. And… filling that space with something other than what we really want often makes it impossible for us to actually have our heart’s desire. Truly honoring yourself means truly honoring your real, true, honest desire, and being willing to sit in the discomfort of not having it… and allowing that discomfort to inform, educate and guide us to what will be truly fulfilling, satisfying and nourishing.

Learning to honor yourself is a life-long journey. It’s also the best way to ensure you’re living a life of vitality, joy, true fulfillment and deep peace.

What could change for you if you actually felt yourself, and your life?
What wisdom would be revealed to you?
What new, fabulous, and deeply aligned direction might you be guided to explore?
How amazing would your life feel if you actually honored your desires and dreams?
What if you learned to praise all of who you are instead of diminishing yourself?
What could become possible if you really owned your true value and worth?
How would your life change if you raised your standards and stopped settling for less than what you really want?

There is a bigger movement, a current in your life, that wants to carry you where you want to be and where you’re meant to go. When you start being true to yourself and follow your inner wisdom, there are forces all around you that will conspire to help you get what you want and need.

I am one of those forces.

It’s why I stand before you, hand on heart, calling you forward into the vitality, beauty, power and pure magic I know you long to live and feel.

It’s your destiny to live into this. Together, we will rise, change the culture and status quo, and create a world where honoring ourselves is the most natural, normal, necessary thing we could ever do.