Love Yourself

So what happens if we do not love ourselves? What happens if we do not have a relationship with ourselves, connected to how we think, aware of how life has shaped us, and knowing how our own thoughts and feelings effect how we act? If this relationship is broken, relationships with God and other people are also impossible.

The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

Galatians 5:14-15

If we cannot love ourselves and understand what drives us to do what we do, we are left to make judgments about people and situations that are not true. We must take the time, space, and silence to love ourselves, understanding our inner world, and making our inner world more and more like Jesus. If I do not have the "mind of Christ" how can I love others? How could I ever have empathy and compassion for them? If I do not have the mind of Christ then my reactions to people become a series of projections of what I think they should be, rather than how they really are. My reality becomes what I hope and what I want it to look like rather than what it really is. Without the living connection to ourselves that our soul makes possible, we are like a ship without a rudder, or an uprooted tree. We become ill, angry, depressed, and seek a substitution for love. For a person to have relationships that work they must love themselves. They must let go of the ego and the need to "feel good" all the time, and be willing to face and love what is within so that it can be changed.

There is a saying that I tell my clients all the time - what we resist persist. If my relationships are not working maybe I am not loving myself. Maybe I am not looking deeply at my reactions, my thoughts, my feelings, and my own behaviors. If I am not, there is no way I am loving myself. If I am not able to love myself - I cannot give away what I do not have - I cannot love others. This is the beginning of how we devour and anger each other. With no inner peace for ourselves, there can be no peace outside of ourselves. So today look at your own reactions and thoughts. Look at yourself and accept and love yourself for who you are. Stop trying to avoid it, change it, or dismiss it. This is not love for yourself and you will act the same towards others as you do yourself. Love today, but let it begin with loving yourself.

Namaste'