Today I am tired. And crabby. And my hair is sticking up all over the place. But you know what? I love myself anyway. Even though I feel all those things, even though my physical appearance is not what I’d like, I still love myself. And that is practically a miracle. (Actually Marianne Williamson would say it is a miracle.)
In September I wrote a post on being in a funk but knowing God loves me anyway. Today I’m in a funk and I love myself anyway. Woohoo progress!
Several months ago I had a conversation with a friend of a friend and I told him it’s my wish everyone felt beautiful. He told me in no uncertain terms that was a horrible idea, and if everyone went around loving themselves and accepting themselves as they are, the world would be filled with fat and lazy people.
You know, I don’t blame him for thinking that way. I too used to think in order to become “perfect,” in order to realize my full potential, I had to criticize myself. Yell at myself for making mistakes. Chip away all the “bad” parts to get to the good. Because if I’m not critical how on Earth will I change?? How will I become better?? If I accept myself as I am that means I’m ok with being me and who I am right now is not ok!! I must be better!
The human mind is very simple. As you think, so you become. If you constantly think you’re not good enough, that you’re stupid, that you make mistakes, that’s precisely the reality you’ll create. Constant criticism means you’ll constantly find something to criticize.
Love on the other hand? Love allows us room to flourish. My friend’s friend worried if we all loved ourselves, thought of ourselves as beautiful just because we exist, we’d become hedonistic. We’d indulge every whim. That my friends? Is not self-love. Loving the self means taking loving care of the self. It means giving the self proper food and exercise and attention. Eating ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner is not self-love.
The crazy contrary thing about loving and accepting the self is that’s when change happens. With love I feel safe and secure. With love my control issues have slipped away. With love I’m releasing my fears. With love I feel more patient. With love I recognize when an issue is not mine. With love I’m able to remain more even keel in the face of adversity. With love my physical appearance has also changed. In short, with love I’ve become the person I always wanted to be.
I don’t know I’m articulating this well but I guess I mean to say I am more at ease with my life and who I am now because I love myself. Even when I make certain choices, I love myself. I love all parts of me. Every part is a divine expression of life no better or worse than the other.
I dream of a world where we love ourselves unconditionally. A world where we allow ourselves to thrive under the auspices of love. A world where we recognize ourselves for the divine, magnificent beings we are. Beings who experience a wide range of emotions and physical states. Beings who are love incarnate. I dream of a world where we come to know that, a world where we realize love is all there is.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Your friend of a friend makes a good point if we view what you say in terms of the mistaken understanding the hippie movement created in this country regarding "eastern" philosophy (the direction is rather
arbitrary). As I see it the problem is largely one of semantics, or said in another way it is a problem of context. Language has a great deficiency of appearing to make absolute assertions about the nature of reality, at least the way it is used in the "western" tradition. No
doubt such use has its function, but that function is not
understanding the subjective. Rational thinking is severely inadequate to delve deep into the realm of the psyche. I believe humans are at a stage in their collective development where an evolution of language is necessary to deal with the evolution of our minds and the commingling of the eastern and western schools of thought. Such an evolution in language will be able to properly contextualize our thoughts in either their subjective or objective form and also facilitate psychological growth.