Step Five: Trusting Love

This is the fifth post in a series about recovering from perfectionism and self-hate, and it is is about trusting love. You can find links to the other posts in the series at the end of this post.

Step #5: I asked Love to show me how to trust it.

One of the most painful feelings we have is the feeling that we are alone and that it is all up to us.

We often believe that we have to figure out everything on our own. We have to make everything work out. We have to have all the answers.

This feeling that it is all up to us can be incredibly painful and even terrifying. Why? Because we know that we don’t know everything. We don’t know how to make everything work out. We don’t have all the answers.

The feeling that things are all up to us can exacerbate our feelings of self-hate. If we feel like life is all up to us and that we don’t know what to do, this can make us feel incredibly angry and frustrated with ourselves for not having all the answers and for not having everything figured out.

These feelings often lead to self-hate and self-loathing.

For example, do you often struggle because you make mistakes? Because some aspect of your body or personality are imperfect? Because you feel out of control or vulnerable? Because you don’t know a lot of stuff?

Our habits of perfectionism, workaholism, extreme idealism, and attempts to control everything are often a symptom of anger and frustration with ourselves for not knowing everything and not having it all together.

But we were not meant to know everything or to have it all together. That is not how our minds and spirits work.

When we expect this of ourselves, we are expecting ourselves to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and in control all the time.

Basically we are expecting ourselves to be God.

In my own journey to Love, it was important for me to forgive myself for not being God and to give myself permission to let go, to not have everything figured out, to make mistakes, to surrender to and trust in something bigger than myself.

Whether you are religious or not, the concept of surrendering to or trusting in something bigger than yourself can be incredibly helpful and healing.

If you are a Christian or otherwise religious, you can think of surrendering to God’s love. You can know that God never means for you to figure out everything. God never means for you to have all the answers. God never means for you to stay in control at all times and make sure that everything is perfect.

It is okay and right to act with an intention of love and then to let go and trust God to take care of the rest.

It is okay to take care of your physical and emotional needs and to trust God to take care of the things you can not take care of because you are human.

It is okay to acknowledge that there are things you don’t currently have the wisdom, strength, or emotional capacity to do and to trust God to take care of those things.

It is okay to acknowledge that you don’t know how things are going to work out exactly and to trust that the Love of God is going to lead you each step of the way and help you understand what to do when it is time.

If you are not Christian or religious and don’t believe in God, you can still practice trusting and surrendering to Love.

You belong to a Love bigger than yourself. This Love is the light of creativity, compassion, and wisdom. Ever since human beings have been around, it is has been leading them to invent, create, build communities, solve problems, and heal diseases and emotional wounds.

We can always find this light if we look for it, and it is always reaching out to us.

Consider that love, creativity, compassion, and wisdom are joining mindsets. They love to join with more love, creativity, compassion, and wisdom.

So when you reach out to the Light in these mindsets, that Light reaches out back to you, and this is why you are not alone. Love is always seeking you. Creativity is always seeking you. Compassion is always seeking you. Wisdom is always seeking you.

You can connect with it and trust and surrender.

It is not all up to you, Friend.

When I realized that it was not all up to me, it greatly helped to heal my problems with self-hate and self-loathing because I no longer required myself to have all of the answers and to be in control.

All I require of myself now is to act with the intention of Love as best as I understand it, to connect regularly with Love in my Wise Self, and to let Love do the rest.

You can connect. You can trust. You can surrender. You can rest.

*****

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You can keep reading here:

Step Six–Punishment and Control

Or you can start from the beginning here:

Seven Steps to Love: Recovering from Self-Hate

And you might also like these books about self-love: 

bell hooks, All About Love

Christine Arylo, Madly in Love with Me