HOW TO GIVE YOURSELF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND SUPPORT

Ezekixl Akinnewu

written by C. Nzingha Smith, M.S., RYT 200

I read an article this week where the writer mentioned being asked the question, “What would you do if you were unconditionally loved and supported?” Her answer was “Everything!” This prompted me to spend some time this week sitting with this question and paying attention to the answers. I decided I wanted to mix my faith and my words and begin manifesting this reality for myself and for a better, uncompromising future that allows me to grow into the “me” I truly want to be. Healthy and whole, peaceful, thriving, financially secure, and loved without condition

​After I got the answers I needed, I decided to change the question into a mantra that I am now incorporating into my prayers and into my daily affirmation time. For the last several months I’ve been working with affirmations to help me retrain my brain and my nervous system. You may be thinking, “Well, do affirmations actually work? What does your nervous system have to do with anything?” 


Well, the short answer is, yes! Our beliefs about ourselves, about our environments, and about others are a result of things that we’ve been repeating to ourselves or that others have been telling us over a span of time. Psychologically, most of our belief systems were framed at a very early age and this has stuck with us into our adult lives, whether these things are true or not. In addition to the false narratives we’ve been told and have internalized, our bodies also react in the moment and remember to continue to react to the pain and trauma when triggered that we’ve experience emotionally throughout our lives. 


Personally, as a black woman that has come from a past riddled with dysfunction and pain, it’s been an uphill battle. It has taken me being intentional and consistent in my work to heal myself.  Using affirmations and speaking things as I want them to be has helped me begin to dig myself out of the negative conditioning. Every day I have to make the decision to do the work. I still have a long way to go. However, just in the last six months, I’ve seen tremendous positive change in me and it’s these glimpses of change that encourage me to keep doing and trying things that might seem insignificant or meaningless, but that are better than the repeated patterns that are in place to further tear me down. 


Spending time going in and asking myself this question has sparked ideas, dreams, and talents that I had long since forgotten in the mundane and chaos of my everyday life. I was also reminded that it’s not too late to act on my dreams and that what I say and agree with will come to be what I live and experience in my reality. Even though I don’t have evidence of being unconditionally loved and supported YET, I am calling it to me. I am learning how to be both and give both to myself, instead of waiting on my fate to be decided by others and to somehow magically show up in my future. 


By giving myself what I’ve starved for most of my life, I’m preparing to receive it with open arms from others. How? By doing the healing work necessary to believe that I do in fact deserve it. I’m ensuring that the love I desire will have a safe place to reside because I’m teaching myself how to be all the things I want others to be toward me.

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I invite you to try it out for yourself. Grab a notebook and a pen. Go somewhere quiet and be still. Take a moment and close your eyes. Breathe in a couple of times through your nose and exhale, slowly, through your mouth. Repeat the question to yourself once out loud and once silently.


Take a moment to wait for your heart and higher Self to answer you. Allow your imagination to run wild with the forgotten wishes, suppressed dreams, and reminders about the true desires of your soul purpose.    

Write down the answers that you received during this brief time of meditation and reflection. 
Now change the question into a mantra, “I am unconditionally loved and supported.” 
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Take time to feel how you’ll feel when you’re living in this reality. Take the limits off of yourself. You are unlimited. Go in the direction of your truest desires. It’s not too late. Commit to doing the work to be to yourself the unconditional love and support that you need. The universe is behind you. Others learn how to treat you by how you treat yourself. 
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By changing your perspective you will begin to magnetize the people to you who have the capacity to join you in your quest. You are already unconditionally loved and supported. However, it’s up to you to vibrate at a frequency of the manifested reality. Be it. Do the work. You’re worth it!