My Journey To Self Love

Hi, I’m Vicki and I’m the co-creator of Self Love Focus with Sue, whom I met while going through a major transformation in my life. 

I was always someone who came across as extremely confident, happy and positive. Then COVID hit, and I had to deal with the emotions of the pandemic and personal loss, stresses of working and raising children, and other major life events. All this spiralled me into the unprecedented sadness and feeling of hopelessness within. 

Not knowing what else to do, I turned to spirituality – not religion, but trying to find my essence and soul purpose. I started trying to meditate, saying every affirmation and mantra imaginable, doing anything I could to just feel happier and “better”, which really once again meant pretending that I’m feeling better. And while this would work temporarily, the sadness, the self-doubt, the negativity would come back.  

At that point, I realized I needed help to get out of this vicious cycle, but I didn’t know what this help actually felt like or looked like. So, by chance one day while I was feeling really down, I found Sue and we started corresponding. She listened to me, and then she started sharing with me about self-awareness, self-acceptance and the meaning of self-love. That self-love wasn’t about telling myself affirmations that I’m happy and I’m complete, but it was about getting to a place where self-love actually dwelled within me and living from that place.  

As I started looking within, I also encountered what I now understand was the awareness of a hole that already existed within me. It was an emptiness that I’d not been aware of before as I had been able to distract myself with outer events. Now that those outward events had been taken away from me, there was nothing left for me to do but look within. This emptiness took up the space where self-love was supposed to dwell. This emptiness had begun to exist and grow over many years of putting others first in my life, of considering my own needs last, if at all.

One of my biggest “aha” moments was when Sue told me that it wasn’t selfish for me to love myself and to do things that I wanted. It wasn’t selfish to put myself first. It wasn’t selfish to do 5 little things daily, such as going for an extra walk at the cost of making a less elaborate dinner or finding 10 minutes to sit still and meditate or just be, at the cost of watching a TV show with my family. These things weren’t selfish. In fact, by loving myself and giving myself what I needed, I would grow to have and feel more love from within, and by loving myself more, I could actually give more love to those around me.

This was such a foreign concept to me. I grew up believing that I needed to live for others, and that sacrificing myself was in fact my act of love. Now I began to see that all that was doing, was leaving me empty inside, with nothing to give. When we are empty like this, we give resentfully.

My other “aha” moment was when she told me to stop telling myself that I’m happy, if what I was feeling inside was sadness and hopelessness at times. I was so afraid to admit to myself that I was sad, that I did feel empty, but Sue encouraged me to sit in my sadness and hopelessness and to feel what I needed to feel. So, I did it…. for weeks I sat and faced my emotions, my fears, my insecurities. And after some time, a lot of introspection, Sue’s guided meditations, and the healing audio sessions….I felt like the clouds and the fog started to lift and I genuinely began to feel better. I also learned that it’s okay to be sad, but what’s important is acknowledging and feeling the emotion which will then help you find your way back to yourself and back to the love within.

So, this is what inspired Sue and me to co-create this place of learning and healing for you. We hope you find this safe space we have created to be a place of comfort, healing, and growing. We have this great blog to which we’re constantly adding new content. There are healing audio sessions and plain music, as well as guided meditations for you to download. 

We have a free starter kit and soon, we’ll also be launching a community where you can meet and correspond with like-minded individuals, and where Sue will host live Q&A hours. Make sure to subscribe to receive our emails and to learn about new blog posts, healing sessions and more.