Once upon a time, I felt shame so thick I could barely breathe through it. Guilt. Self-hatred. The whole miserable chorus. I was caught in my own stories like a fly in amber — watching life happen from behind the glass, convinced I was somehow both the problem and the punishment.

My default was isolation. When I couldn’t bear things, I hid. And in hiding from my truth, I stopped loving myself entirely.

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” — C.G. Jung

He wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t only writing, if I’m honest. Pure bloody-mindedness played its part. So did a lot of tears, some truly baffling decisions, and eventually, a farmhouse in Andalusia with three elderly dogs who have no interest in my inner critic whatsoever.

Some Of The Back Story

When I was expelled from school, I called my dad at work expecting the usual telling-off. The sting of his words — “Are you mental or what?” — wrenched my heart. I held back the tears and swallowed hard. He put the phone down. No one talked to me or looked at me that week while I, slightly unconcerned, relished my newfound freedom. A few days later I found myself on a farm with the Moonies. But that’s a story for another day.

Then came the world of work.

Every day I dragged myself out of bed wanting more, but I was caught in a limbo land where I couldn’t move. Trapped in the spider’s web, watching horrified as life passed me by. I had some wonderful jobs — I won’t pretend otherwise — but I was never fulfilled. I wore the suits and did the stuff and on the inside I was dying.

I thought relationships would save me.

What I failed to understand was that life doesn’t get easier — you just get better at dealing with it. Blinkered and unaware of the tougher times to come, I drifted in a weird smog. My desire to learn, heal and grow never left me, but somehow I stranded myself on a loveless island with strange bedfellows. Not all at the same time.

Then, in what I thought was the sanctity of a boring marriage — the one where I thought I was safe — I was delivered a hellish wake-up call.

I relocated my life. But not my self-hatred.

Slowly, I learned about self-love.

I don’t know what the turning point was. I think I simply decided something had to give, and hating myself was a spectacular waste of time.

During this period, I came face to face with my demons and wrote thousands of words for a book called Journey to Self-Love — still unpublished, but oh boy, was it cathartic. Writing saved me. Again.

In writing that book, I learned a few things worth keeping.

Don’t look for the key. The key will find you. The same goes for love — don’t chase it, be it. Open your heart to receive, because constant giving without receiving is not love; it’s depletion. Listen to the signs and symbols; they are messages, always. Faith and trust are hard taskmasters, but they show up when you need them. And get dogs. They understand unconditional love in a way most humans are still working towards, and they give excellent licks when you cry.

What I have come to realise is that my crappy life is a fabulous gift. Writing continues to be my saviour. Through it, I discovered something I hadn’t expected: a right to love. 

The heart is the gateway

The heart chakra governs love, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, and the quality of our connection with others, including ourselves. When it’s healthy, love flows. You stop white-knuckling your way through giving and start noticing how you receive too.

None of my healing could have taken root without this. The heart had to come first.

Five fabulous reasons to cultivate self-love

1. You learn that self-love is not selfish

There’s still something that feels faintly dangerous about saying I love myself. But the conscious, evolved kind — the one where you honour and respect who you are — is quieter than it sounds. More solid. Through it, you begin to see that you have value. Not because of what you produce or who you please. Because you exist.

2. It lets you be who you are

I’ve always been a bit odd. My mother has the stories to prove it. I love to sing to my dogs — they enjoy it, I’m certain — dance around the kitchen, and generally relish being exactly who I am without the background noise of trying to be more palatable. Self-love gives you permission to just be. Not perform. Not manage. Be.

3. Your essence shines through

At my core, I am a free spirit who dislikes rules and loves freedom. Intuitive. Occasionally infuriating. Demanding of justice. When you love yourself, it becomes easier to stand by your values and walk your own path — not because you’ve stopped caring what people think, but because you’ve started caring more about what you think.

4. Acceptance replaces judgement

This is the hardest one, and also one of the most quietly satisfying. Catching yourself mid-judgement and doing something absurd with it — singing it away, laughing at it, reframing it into something kinder — works. Imperfectly. Not always. But it works. There is always room for expansion, even when you think you’ve grown past something.

5. You can stand tall around bullies

Loving yourself quietly closes the door on a great deal of nonsense. Where once you had porous boundaries, you begin to hold your head up. Saying no without a paragraph of apology becomes possible. Someone else’s emotional blackmail stops landing. It becomes clearly and simply, their stuff.

Self-love is not a destination. It is a practice — imperfect, ongoing, and sometimes ridiculous.

I ask myself this question regularly: Do I love myself enough to…?

From that one question, clearer and kinder decisions follow.

What about you? What has loving yourself given you? And if you haven’t started yet — what is the one thing you could do today?

Write it down. That’s always where it begins.

Dale x

PS: Join me in Journey Of The Heart.