Self-Love
Self-love is the path to truly knowing
who we are. Yet, self-love is often confused with the ego, and its love for itself.
If this is the case it is important to make clear the definition of self-love
before we can discover the truth of who we are.
Think of self-love as accepting who we see in the mirror on the hardest day of our life. Why? Because it’s easy to love ourselves when we are sitting on the beach with our toes in the sand. The challenge is to look at ourselves and love who we see no matter what is going on in our day. Even if we are in emotional pain the way to healing is through self-love.
Another aspect of self-love is learning what thoughts, beliefs, and behavioral patterns do not serve our best interest. What thoughts cause harm to our health? What beliefs prevent us from living to the fullness of who we are? These thoughts and beliefs may limit the way we experience the world.
Don’t we want to see what we can accomplish, what we are really made of, and our true potential? If so, there must be some level of self-love driving us forward. Sitting on the couch choosing to do nothing to improve our life is not self-love.
I remember sacrificing my happiness with the expectation that by doing so, I would make others happy. What I realized was no matter how much of my life I sacrificed, I was never going to make others completely happy. In doing so I set aside my love for myself. My thinking was that by behaving this way I would feel love from someone else.
It didn’t work. All I felt was misery because I was not true to myself, or happy. Nor was the person for whom I was sacrificing happy either. By sacrificing my self-love and happiness, I was not making anyone happy.
As it turns out, the best way to make others happy is to make oneself happy by loving ourselves first. This way we are not placing the responsibility for our happiness in the hands of others.
Our expectations of pleasing others are often brought about by our ego. Because the ego needs constant validation. It cannot just sit quietly soaking up the love we have for ourselves. The ego must do something, otherwise it begins to feel useless and then it will create a scene, throwing a tantrum. It wants to be the center of attention. This is why we often sacrifice our desires because we think this will make us happy, thereby pleasing our fragile ego.
The thing about true self-love is it threatens the ego. When we are in a deep state of self-love we have no need to sacrifice who we are as a way to validate our existence. We love ourselves, just as we are, and that’s enough.
Yet there is much more to self-love. When in this positive place of love, we will not ask others to change who they are to please us. We love ourselves just as we are, and we also love others just as they are. We are not asking anyone to change because we accept them without judgement.
As we begin to live by the strength of our self-love, we realize that at every moment of our day we are doing the best we can. We see no need to judge ourselves harshly, nor do we have a need to judge others, because we know they are doing their best as well.
Negativity can often disrupt our sacred place of self-love. Yet in the elevated state of self-love, we can step aside from the negativity, and recognize the positive lessons being presented to us in the situation. This will keep us in higher levels of consciousness where we will benefit from these lessons.
If for some reason we lose focus and stumble into negativity, we can accept that we have faltered and seek a self-loving way forward. This way we do not criticize ourselves, or begin the downward spiral of harmful negative self-talk.
Life is filled with challenges, although if we are aware, these challenges will have lessons for the growth of our consciousness. Yet any true, lasting growth begins with learning to love ourselves without the need to satisfy our fragile ego.
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Can we learn to love ourselves in the
hardest day of our life?
Let me know what you think, I’m always open to exploring the subject further. Leave a comment below, or email me at paulhudonauthor@gmail.com.
Each week I email an article to those who have subscribed to my weekly. This week I wrote about anger. Here is an excerpt.
Anger is a funny thing because we can easily justify our behavior. “I’m angry for X.Y.Z. reasons.” What we fail to realize is our anger does not help any situation. It may only make it worst. When we justify our anger we add fuel to the fire of our anger. Where does that take us?
If you would like to read this article or receive my weekly emails scroll to the very bottom of the page where you will find a place to subscribe. Or email me at paulhudonauthor@gmail.com and I’ll add your name to the list.
I’m excited to announce that my second book, “A Complete Life, Discovering Your Authentic Self” has been handed off to the publisher with an expected launch date of Spring 2022. I’ll keep posting updates here, and on my social media platforms as to when I have an actual release date.
If you would like to purchase a copy of my book, “Your Inner Guidance, The Path to Discovering Your True Happiness” here is the link. Please feel free to leave a review.
I’m fortunate to write a monthly column for Conscious Shift Magazine. This month you can find my article, “The Cannonball.” Do we go through life like a tsunami or a gentle wave? Click the link to read more.
https://consciousshiftcommunity.com/the-cannonball/
Check out Conscious Shift Magazine as a
great resource for guidance and inspiration.
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Thank you for reading this post, and being a part of this wonderful adventure called life. I appreciate your support.
Peace and Well-Being
Copyright Paul Hudon 2022
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