HOW TO LOVE YOURSELF UNCONDITIONALLY

One book I recommend unhesitatingly is YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE by Louise L. Hay. I believe that every person on the planet can benefit from reading this book. Since my first reading of it last year I have developed more quickly and more profoundly than in any other time in my life.

This post is meant to get you started, or get you back on track, or at least share some my experiences. I encourage you to read Hay's book if you have not already.

Learning to love myself was very difficult for me. My life has been hellish at times, and my childhood was lacking in appropriately nurturing and sustaining relationships. Only in the last two years have I really been able to understand the idea of "love yourself."

For the last two weeks I have been posting about romantic love, and that was mainly where I looked for the missing parts of myself. Romantic love was always where I looked for the Love to make me whole. My response to "love yourself" would have been "but that isn't enough, I need _____ to love me!" That was the only Love I would accept, the love another. I could only Love myself through someone else's eyes.

I mentioned Harville Hendrix in my posts on romantic love. There is another book I recommend both for self-healing and to understand the sacred aspects of romantic/carnal love. ANAM CARA by John O'Donohue. In it he says:

"No one can see his life totally. As there is a blind spot in the retina of the human eye, there is also in the soul a blind side where you are not able to see. Therefore you must depend on the one you love to see for you what you cannot see for yourself."

I usually make it a practice to always compliment people on anything I notice about them that I like. I think we all need validation. But it has always been difficult for me to accept compliments. This is because I had never had enough belief in myself to accept my good. I saw myself as unworthy of the world. As Lady Pink sings "Every day I fight a war against the mirror/ Can't stand the person staring back at me/ I'm hazard to myself/ Don't let me get me/ I'm my own worst enemy. "

And I was. I was my own worst enemy.

O'Donohue points out: "To recognize how you see things can bring you self-knowledge and enable you to glimpse the wonderful treasures you secretly hold."

If you see the world as a mean, threatening, unfriendly place, where you have to fight for survival and there is never enough to go around, you are seeing yourself as hurt, friendless, beaten down, and lacking. But for me, realising that I saw the world as a hostile place was the first step in self-Love. I began by Loving myself for having to live in such a horrible world, and eventually I traced that belief back to its origins in my early childhood.

I worked very hard this year to forgive my father for abandoning my mother, and me and my sister. It was like trying to catch a greased pig. I'd fall in the mud with a thud, thinking I'd gotten ahold of the swine, and it would wriggle out of my grasp.

At one point, after a THE SECRET viewing marathon, a friend of mine said to me "You have loved all of these other men, and most of them were no better than your father. And you love and forgive all of these people that have done much worse things, so what is it about him? What are you hanging onto this anger for? What is it doing for you? It's not doing anything to him, it's only doing something to you."

I was hanging onto my own feelings of unworthiness. Because once I forgave him I would have no where to turn to blame for all of the really (sorry, no other word will work here) f**ked up things I had done to myself over the years. Then I would have to accept responsibility for all of the f**ked up things I have done to other people.

There is a passage in the journey to self-Love that is like a descent into darkness. There is a moment where you take responsibility for every event in your life and you realise that so much of the suffering you put yourself through was needless.

I read Hay's book every day. And slowly her words have penetrated down into my subconscious, and I heard it as if she were standing next to me speaking into my ear.

"Forgive yourself. You were doing the best you could. Love yourself unconditionally. No matter what, Love yourself."

I have done worse than some, better than others, but I was always doing the best I could. I can't go back and change my past anymore than my father can go back and change his. But I can stop carrying all of this pain and anger and guilt and resentment around. That was the first step in Loving myself.

So I ran to the mirror and told myself how much I loved myself, even though I have done some truly awful things. Then I told myself how much I loved myself for forgiving my father... and for changing my life... and for doing the best I could... And soon I began to see good things, even sometimes in the awful things. And I began to see that Loving myself was like Loving a lover.

I have always been willing to give the people I Love everything I have to give, but I was never willing to give that to myself. Often I would give at expense of myself. I have come to understand that to truly give is not at the expense of one's self. Often true giving and being Loving means that you must make a sacrifice, but if you give in the spirit of Love, and not from fear, the sacrifice becomes a gift. A gift to yourself and the other person.

True love only gives appropriately. To quote the Apostle:
"Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails."
Cor 13:4-8

This is true for self Love as well. If you do not Love yourself unconditionally you can never Love another. Whatever you Love outside of yourself-- I hope it is other people, but even if it is a sport or game or hobby-- give that same Love to yourself. Give yourself your full attention. Give yourself your best moments. Give yourself your full understanding. Compliment yourself, congratulate yourself, forgive yourself, coddle yourself, encourage yourself, spend time getting to know every single aspect of yourself. Look yourself in the eye every day and tell yourself how much you Love you, and how wonderful you are. Tell yourself everything you would say if you were your own lover.

During the time that I was working on forgiveness of my father I was also working through many of my feelings about men and my relationships. Another friend, a fellow psychic and mentor, told me "You need to laugh at your own jokes, put your energy into yourself, admire yourself and your own strengths." He told me that I had never learned to give to myself.

He was right. But I am learning now. And I know that if I can learn to Love myself, anyone can.

When I was searching for the quotes in ANAM CARA I came across this passage, and I really understood it, as I had not been able to fully when I read the book earlier this year.

"You can never love another person unless you are equally involved in the beautiful but difficult spiritual work of learning to love yourself... The greatest gift new love brings into your life is the awakening to the hidden love within. This make you independent. You are now able to come close to the other, not out of need or with the wearing apparatus of projection, but out of genuine intimacy, affinity and belonging. It is a freedom."

Learning to Love myself has made it possible for me to Love other people more deeply. I am able to be intimate with myself in a way that previously I could only be when I was with a lover. (No I am not talking about that kind of intimacy! ;o) I am free to truly Love others because I do not need them to Love me. I am never without Love. I am never without my "soul-mate" because I am my soul's mate. And now my soul has a wonderful Lover, and I have more Love to give to others.

Love to all of you!

PRAISES, THANKS, & BLESSINGS!!!