To love yourself means having self-acceptance as you are right now. Loving yourself means having faith, trust, and a powerful belief in who you are and then taking action on it. Once you experience self-love in the form of inner faith and trust, the next step is to experience it in your outer world. You become the essence of self-love in your physical life.
See Your Life as a Series of Opportunities to Love Yourself
There are many ways for you to love yourself; it’s simply a matter of shifting your perception so that everything that happens to you can provide an occasion to love yourself.
We all have times when everything seems to be going against us. You know that feeling of “What else can go wrong today?” When we feel this way, it is a time to remember that events are happening to show what your blockages are and to give you a chance to clear and free yourself from the old habits, patterns, and karma that hold you back from reaching your full potential both as a human and as a spiritual being.
Pause for a moment and take a breath
Make a list of things that you can do to be loving toward yourself.
As I practice this exercise myself, at least ten things instantly come to mind.
How many things are coming to your mind right now?
As the day goes on, continue the exercise, and as you catch yourself, make a note of all the ways you can love yourself more.
As you reflect on your list, gently be aware if the old saboteur rears its ugly head. The part of you that reminds you that you are not carrying these things out now. It may be a loud voice; it may simply be a subtle nagging somewhere within that isn’t quite tangible; or it could be a dark cloud that begins to rise and overtake you. If this happens, LAUGH at yourself!! Don’t let a battle begin If you notice an inner war of self-doubt and making yourself wrong starts to play out, it can be draining and not a good use of your energy.
Catch yourself if you begin to look back into the past with regret, pondering how you could have handled a situation in a higher way, imagining, “If only I’d done this or that, things would have turned out better.”
Sometimes we look to the future as well to endorse that who we are now is inadequate. “Oh! I’ll be better when…” “Things will improve when…!”
I have had many occasions like this. Interestingly, one that comes to mind at this moment is my first attempt at writing a blog. I was excited to do it and looked forward to publication day with anticipation. When it was finally published, I read it and thought, “Ugh! I could have done that so much better!”
I had to catch myself and spin it around to feel happy that I’d published my first blog, and as it stood, it was good enough. In fact, a lot of people reached out and told me how much it had touched them inside, and a few asked to do further work with me.
Now, when this happens, I say, “STOP IT!!” “I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!!”
Moving into self-love is a time to make a contract with yourself and stick to it.
Pause and take a deep breath
Make an agreement with yourself to live in the present.
Remember, you are not wrong, bad, or inadequate because you haven’t achieved something yet. You are walking your path.
If you find yourself looking to the past, focus on remembering times in which you succeeded. Positive memories help to create a fresh outlook, make the future your friend, and create a positive vision of your next step.
Imagine that a positive wind is blowing through and around you and drawing the energy of all your positive achievements into the present. This works to form you into a being of self-love and propels you to continue believing in yourself and acting this way.
Love yourself, including who and where you are now, without reservation. This helps you to transcend any future inner battles.
Self-Love Means Stepping Out of Guilt
We have a tremendous amount of guilt in our society. Much of this is due to the many connections between people who are coming from the Solar Plexus. This is the power centre from which people try to persuade, convince, manipulate, and control others. To love yourself, it is important to step out of these kinds of relationships. To do this, you must let go of guilt.
In the world system, the trouble is that if you don’t play ball with those around you, they often feel threatened. They want you to act and think in a certain way so that you fit into their picture, and they try to gain power over you by making you feel guilty.
Often, parents are unskilled because they don’t know any other way of controlling their children. They may use guilt, anger, emotional blackmail, and the withdrawal of love to dominate. Then the child grows up and projects it all back onto the parents: “They did this to me,” and so forth. It can also happen with teachers, bosses at work, and others in authority. This only comes from a place of lack, which results in instigating power struggles to get what we want.
Behaviour like this results in excuses, white lies, and continued manipulation to cover tracks and protect feelings.
Most of us have ignorantly acted in this way to some degree at some point in our lives. But acting like this demonstrates you are not being loving to yourself. It gives your subconscious a message: “Who I am is not enough! People don’t accept me for who I am!”
To be free, it is vitally important not to be manipulative toward others but to give them their freedom. When you free others, you also free yourself. This can be tough at first, as you may feel you have lost control to some extent, but allowing others to think and live their lives their own way creates a new level of honesty and love that occurs from having the courage and willingness to release your control.
When you feel strong, positive, and in charge of your life, you come from the heart, from a place of love and compassion, and this extends out to the world around you.
This replaces the feelings of guilt and fear and the consequent, often subconscious, need to trigger guilt in others.
Pause and take a breath
Observe a situation that you found yourself in recently where you were affected by the reaction of someone or felt uncomfortable in someone’s presence.
Loving yourself means asserting yourself with compassion. This begins within you.
Find a simple image, sound, or something that resonates with you and helps you feel calm and loving.
It’s important to remember this and use it as a safe prompt.
Focus on your prompt and use it to shift yourself away from the negative feelings and emotions.
Centre yourself this way again and again until it becomes natural.
This helps you to be less affected by the energies of others. When you are willing to show yourself and others who you really are, you open a door for other people to reveal their real selves as well.
Self-Love is Moving Away from Judgment and Criticism
We have a habit of forming an opinion about someone, such as “He is lazy.” “She is a failure. “Look at the state of his clothes; he has no dress sense.” Every time we do this, it is a judgement. It sends a message to your subconscious that the world is a place where we should act in a certain way if we want to be accepted. Judging people sets up the wheel of rejection; you criticise others, and this in turn leads to an inner dialogue of self-criticism. Old negative images may come to you from the outside world. These are opinions, judgements, criticisms, and images that you previously sent out, and they come back to you.
If you think people don’t accept you as you are and that you need to try hard to please them, you draw those kinds of people into your life.
Whatever you believe about someone, you create that experience of them.
All of this is the opposite of self-love.
Pause and take a breath
Look at the messages that you send out to other people. What is your general pattern when you look out at others?
Try these affirmations, or feel free to make up your own:
- I accept others lovingly, without criticism and without putting them down.
- I always offer a smile, even if it’s on the inside.
- I am friendly.
- I allow others to feel good about themselves.
- I accept others as they are.
- I assist others in setting themselves free and finding their higher selves.
When you practice this, you find other people accepting you more lovingly as well.
I used to teach a Tai Chi class on Saturday mornings in a busy city centre. After the class, I had to walk through the daunting crowds to the train station and sensed a lot of hostility and negativity simply from being in a busy public place. It was draining, and I felt vulnerable, weakened, and threatened—even scared as a knot in my stomach developed into a rapid heartbeat and desire to flee. Then I caught myself. If I come into my heart centre and extend the love and compassion that are deep inside, everything will change. Loving everyone instead of feeling threatened created a massive shift, and I travelled a river of love and light to the train station and all the way home.
Self-Love is Forgiveness and Humility
We all hang onto old issues. The anger of past events, someone’s behaviour, or someone letting us down rises and grips us over and over. We get trapped in a negative spiral of this dark energy. This also leads to irritation at yourself for being in this position and not being able to get out of it.
The higher self knows only forgiveness.
If you are hanging onto anything—anger, hurt, jealousy, or any painful feeling around someone else—you keep this in your aura. The person you are directing this at is affected, but nowhere near as much as you are. Anything you hold towards someone sits in your aura and acts as a magnet for more of the same.
Forgiveness heals and, in turn, cleanses your aura. To forgive, you have to have humility, which is self-expression from the heart and not the ego. It does not imply a lack of self-confidence but a great deal of faith and trust in yourself.
Pause and take a breath
Try these affirmations, and then make up your own.
- I don’t have all the answers.
- I am open and willing to listen.
- I am open to receive your opinion.
- I am open to receive your love.
- I extend only love and compassion.
Catch yourself and practice these affirmations. Continue to set yourself and others free from all the negatives of lack, guilt, judgment, and control.
To Be a Strong Leader is to Express Self-Love as Humility
We all see and know leaders that we look up to and those that we have an aversion to. The fact is that leaders who act the most arrogant and coldly confident are those who lack the very characteristics they are trying to project.
People with self-love come across as very loving, generous, and kind. They express their self-confidence through humility, forgiveness, and inclusiveness.
If you come across people, particularly leaders, who seem very wise but put others down, reject friends, and make people feel bad about themselves, they are not in a place of self-love. No matter how high their principles, words, or teachings are, on the surface, they may seem convincing to some of us, but in truth, they still have to work on themselves.
Pause and take a breath
From today, how will you know if you are acting or thinking in a way that is loving to yourself?
How will you change your behaviour towards your physical body, relationships, job, or career to approach them with self-love?
What will your life be like if everything you do is an act of self-love?
Loving yourself involves embracing faith, trust, and belief in who you are. Live as your truth and experience joy from seeing, touching, and feeling the positive and beautiful things that are a reflection of your inner self-love. Trust yourself and follow your vision and path with action. Act upon your self-love and speak up for love, compassion, humility, and forgiveness. Radiate it to everyone and feel this open your heart to receive it from everyone with humility, as to give love always opens you to receive. It is a great service to free yourself, to free everyone, and to create your heaven on earth in the world.
To deepen your inner connection, you can join my recorded Ling Chi Healing Meditation Program on WU.
Check out my WU Profile Page for a short Chi Kung video to help you extend your self-love.
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