The Challenge of Loving Ourselves
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It’s a popular thing these days in the self help world, the importance of loving ourselves. We are told to love ourselves and of course it makes sense but how far do we really get down that road? It’s not always easy to love ourselves, mainly because we are often our own worst critics. It’s hard to watch people we love get down on themselves and it’s even harder when we fall into the same rut. There are many reasons why it’s difficult to love ourselves, probably as many reasons as there are people. How can we deepen our love for ourselves in a more meaningful way?
I think a lot of the problem, yep, you guessed it, is with our minds, our thoughts. First of all, the unenlightened mind has all kinds of labels for who we are, none of which really capture our true essence. We are not what we do, we are not what we feel and thank god we are not what we think. But the mind thinks we are what we do or think or feel and that makes it nearly impossible to love ourselves. Because we aren’t always “good” or “nice” or whatever it is we think we need to be to be lovable. I contend that we are lovable because we exist but this takes a deep level of realization to really feel.
The other problem is that we are filled with all kinds of ideas of how we SHOULD BE. We all have this ideal image of the way we are supposed to be and this causes us so to suffer endlessly and needlessly. If only I lost about 10lbs, wasn’t so argumentative, had a better paying job and my own home, THEN, THEN I will be nearly perfect and THEN I will love myself. That’s the lie - that we need to be any “better” or different from the way we are RIGHT NOW to be worthy of our own love. For some of us it’s easier to love others that way but unless we can learn to really love ourselves unconditionally we really can’t love others very deeply.
I notice this all the time in my own experience, the many ideas my mind has of how I should be better or different and how this robs me of the ability to love and accept myself NOW. I also notice it constantly in the people I work with, it is important work we do together, uncovering these lies. It truly is this inner critic that makes it nearly impossible for us to love ourselves. There are many ways to work with this part of the mind. I can recommend a pretty good book that might help. Byron Brown’s book Soul Without Shame is really great in this department.
But one way or another, we need to learn how to DISENGAGE from this part of our minds because the list will never end of how you could be better according to it and as long as it is around broadcasting it’s propaganda our chances of loving ourselves are pretty slim. Start noticing when you are comparing yourself to some ideal image you have of how you SHOULD be and see the suffering this causes. CHOOSE to love yourself as you are now, you have this power, claim it. This is true self mastery, this is true spiritual warriorship.
Love to All…
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