Articles on
loving the self are not exactly in short supply on my blog and website, but I believe another one is not amiss, because people continue to have such
difficulty in truly loving the self.
Here are
some ideas to consider:
- How do you feel about your body?
- Do you really love it? Maybe not. But
even if you don't, is it not true that you always take very good (or
reasonably good) care of it?
- And don't you always dress it as well and
as beautifully as possible?
- And you furthermore take care of your
hair, your skin, and your nails to look as good as possible, right?
- How about being
that loving way with YOU?
- How do you feel about a small child?
Especially your small child, or
perhaps a grandchild or niece or nephew or favorite neighbourhood child?
- Isn't it true that you love it? And that
you always behave lovingly towards it, at least on those occasions when
you are with it?
- Do you shout at it, criticize it,
belittle it and demean it? Of course not!
- How about being
that loving way with YOU?
- How do you behave with aches and pains
when they occur in your body? A headache, a small cut, a bruise, an
infection, a fever?
- Isn't it true that you always take care
of them as quickly as possible?
- How about being
that loving way with YOU and
whatever ails you in your feelings and emotions and thoughts?
- Why do you do all of the above things for
those others or your body?
- Partially because you want to be seen as
looking as good as possible, but also because you want to ease physical discomfort.
- And one of the biggest reasons that you
tend to do this very quickly, is because you are very conscious and aware
of your body, your looks and all your aches and pains.
- How about being
that loving way with YOU?
- In other words, how about becoming conscious
and aware of all that goes on inside of you, because that is the beginning
of learning to love the self.
- How do you feel when others trespass your
boundaries? And what do you consciously do about it?
- How do you feel when you are stressed? And
what do you consciously do about it?
- How do you feel when you are angry, impatient,
jealous and afraid? And what do you consciously do about it?
The Ten Steps
Undertaking
the following ten steps can set you on your path to loving the self. Note that you need not
overwhelm yourself and attempt to undertake all ten steps at once. Just tackle
the one that seems most amenable to your current state of being and then
continue on to another one when you feel you are able to:
Step #1
Become
conscious and aware. Simply by doing that alone you will begin to show yourself
on a subliminal level that you are serious about loving the self. You MUST pay
attention to the state of your feelings. Your intention needs to be that you
become conscious and aware at all times,
but get to that place bit by bit.
Step # 2
Take the
decision to do something about how you are feeling. This means that you begin
to love yourself by learning how to soothe yourself in healthy ways. (There is
an entire chapter on soothing the self in my book Rewiring the Soul, but
if you prefer not to get it right now, you can read about some of those soothing mechanisms in the following steps of this
post).
Step # 3
Use the beauty
and gratitude exercise. See: Ten Reasons Why Gratitude Should
Form Part of Your Daily Routine
Step # 4
Step # 5
Learn how
to forgive. By forgiving (not
condoning), you loosen and eventually sever your energetic connections to the
painful or bitter past and by so doing, you not only begin to live in the
present, but you also show yourself (again) that
you love yourself or care enough about yourself to do this.
Step # 6
Let of the
past. Living in the past means that only a portion of you is in the here and
now. Your psychic energy is invested in past events and not your present life!
See Cellular Responsibility and Reliving Your Pain & Making it Worse
Step # 7
Establish
healthy boundaries. This is one of the most effective ways of showing yourself
you love yourself because you are truly
taking care of yourself when you establish those healthy boundaries. This
empowers you. This gives you energy.
This signifies that others will no longer have power over you, nor will they be
able to drain you of your energy. See: Do Your Relationship Boundaries
Contribute to Your Well-Being? and Emotional and Energetic Vampires and Finding it Hard to Love Yourself?
Check Out Your Boundaries
Step # 8
Learn how
to communicate effectively. There will be much new material about this subject
in my next book: The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, out September 2012.
Step # 9
Spend at
least as much time on your inner state of well-being as on the outer one. Who
is the real you? Is it the
25-year-old or the 40-year-old or the 68-year-old who wears designer clothing
or grunge, who rides a bike to work or drives a Porsche, or is it the self that you are attempting to connect
to and discover in this process of loving the self that we are describing here?
And if you agree that the real you is
the latter, then does it not make sense that you dedicate at least as much time to it, as to your body, nails, hair, clothes
and car buying decisions?
Step #10
Take responsibility for your own happiness and
inner well-being, seeking to re-establish
inner balance whenever necessary.
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