Loving Yourself

I'm currently reading "The Healing Handbook, A Spiritual guide to healing yourself and others". I found this book while walking by Coles in our local mall. Anyways after purchasing the book, it sat on my bookshelf for months before I even attempted to pop-it open. This is my second try at reading it and it's not because the book isn't very good - cause it is. It's just it requires a lot discipline and 'time' to preform the required exercises. The book goes through various techniques of healing and meditation and so to properly submerge yourself to these exercises you need alone and quiet time. Not something that runs freely in my home, currently... but working on it! :-)

Anyways I wanted to expose a section of the book that prompted me internally to share with others:

Loving Yourself 

It may sound a rather odd phrase: loving yourself. It may also not sound very spiritual to you. Surely, if you love yourself, you are being selfish and indulgent. Is spirituality not all about giving to others and not concentrating on yourself? In fact, spirituality is all about loving yourself. Many would say until you learn to love yourself, you cannot heal either yourself or others. Loving yourself is also a very emotional issue for a lot of people. It is up to you to be gently with yourself during this chapter and work at the pace which feels right for you. If you become too emotional while doing some of the exercises, you can leave them until a later stage. On the other hand, you may find this area deeply rewarding and illuminating and it may help to clear blocks which you have created in your energies over the years. Clearing blockages does not have to be distressing or difficult. It can be uplifting and leave you feeling absolutely wonderful about yourself and others. 

Have you ever thought about what 'love' really means? Most people only consider the word when it is in relation to someone or something else. They think about it in terms of their relationship with a family member, for example, such as a parent or sibling. They start to question the meaning of love when they embark on an adult, usually sexual, relationship. But how often have you asked yourself what it means to love yourself? Let's look at some of the dictionary definitions of love - 'a deep affection... for someone', 'good will towards others', 'devotion for someone or something.' These seem to add fuel to the idea of love as fundamentally something which relates to others, not to yourself! No wonder so many people grow up believing that to love oneself is somehow unhealthy and narcissistic. 

So let's look at what loving yourself does not mean. It is not about only thinking of yourself all the time. It is not about ego and feeling you are the most important person alive. It is not about feeling superior or arrogant. It is not about spending endless hours in pursuit of what you enjoy without consideration to others. It is not about filling your life with material and financial riches. It is not about preening yourself in front of a mirror constantly. It is not about telling everyone you are a terrific person all the time, while a gnawing doubt eats away at your inside. It is not about pushing people away from you with the excuse that you need no one in your life because you are self-sufficient.  

All the above have nothing to do with loving yourself. Truly loving yourself is a simple unselfish act that comes from deep within. It takes the form of a deep, unshakable sense of knowing that you are perfect just as you are. This is not easy for everyone. It means accepting all those apparently unappealing qualities in yourself that everyone can find if they look hard enough. These can be mundane dislikes, such as being too thin/fat, tall/short, introvert/extrovert, old/young, lazy/over-ambitious, a doormat/too aggressive. The list is endless. Most of us have dissatisfactions about some part of ourselves. Can you honestly look at yourself and say that you accept absolutely everything about yourself, exactly as you are at this moment? Almost everyone finds that hard to do. Basically. loving yourself is about reaching the stage where you truly know that you are prefect as you are. 

It's also more than that. Loving yourself is about knowing your place within the larger scheme of life. This means knowing that the family you were born into or brought up in is the right one for you to have in your life, no matter what your childhood experience may have been. 

Loving yourself means knowing that you have a special, unique part to play in the evolution of life and that you are willing to take part in whatever unfolds for you. You even look forward to the experiences ahead of you, good and bad. In fact, there is no such thing as a 'bad' experience in life; that is only a label we attach to some event whose significance we do not understand; we will look at examples of this as we go along. 

It is only once we love ourselves at these levels that we can truly love others as well. Loving others means also accepting in them qualities we may not like. How many of your friends and family can you say that you love exactly as they are? If you had the choice to change certain qualities in others, would you like to be able to to do that? Very few of us can truly say we would not change a thing about another person. Loving yourself means knowing that everyone else is perfect at whatever stage they are at in their life. 

So let's list some of the benefits of loving yourself which will help clarify the importance of this act. you need to understand that loving yourself is an essential part of holistic health.
These benefits are that:

• You have great self-esteem, knowing you are worthy of every task you set out to accomplish.

• You find it easy to love others and to accept people as they are, because you have already accepted yourself completely as you are.

• You can accept setbacks in your own life and see them as part of a learning curve, rather than punishments for not being a good person.

• You do not rely on others for praise and encouragement because you have your own in-built sense of self-worth.

• You do not blame others for problems in life, because you take responsibility for everything that happens to you.

• You take joy in the accomplishments of others, without envy or resentment.

• You know that everything you do is worthwhile and has a purpose.

• You love all of life.

All the above states are difficult to achieve if you do not love yourself. It is the single, most powerful starting point for all spiritual healing. Loving yourself will render all of the above conditions possible for you. 

Is loving yourself beginning to sound rather daunting? In fact, this is a journey that lasts right through our life. Loving yourself has endless possibilities, for how we view life and for what we put into and get out of it. Life can be as wonderful or as dreadful as you choose, and your attitude to it is relevant to your ability to love yourself.

Wow what a description. When I started thinking about it... I though, "Hummm... how do you really know if you love yourself, or if you are truly 'there'?" With Tara Ward's description, loving myself takes on a whole new concept. I could see myself in some of her bullet points and others where I still need to work on...

As I learn more from this book I hope to share further, until then, take care and continue to pursue the life you want to live by creating it yourself.

In the meantime here a little optimism in action:

Freedom - Acrostic Poem

In the Fall of 2010, I attended a conference where we built together, as a team, an acrostic poem with the word "Freedom"; and we had to use "Freedom" associated words for each of the letters.

Here is my representation, from what I can remember, of the Freedom-Acrostic Poem.

Click to view bigger version.

What does Freedom mean to you, and do you have other words and/or meaning for the letters presented?