What does it mean to love myself?
What loving yourself really means
I guess we’ve all heard about this, loving yourself is important. We hear it all the time. We know we cannot give it to others without giving it to ourselves and yet, there are times when we want others to love us first or maybe even show us that it’s possible for us to be loved. But have we ever actually paused and questioned it - what does it truly mean? What does it mean to love myself? Not what it means to others, not as a method to improve yourself or feel better, not as a practice that you feed yourself with force, attempts and striving...and not even as a simple affirmation that fades away as the wind of change passes through you. I have said that to myself many times. And sometimes it was easy, some other times it was hard. What makes the difference? Understanding that it doesn’t really sink in past the words. Because there’s still something within ourselves blocking its pathway. I hadn’t really understood it and I kept trying...kept trying to love myself, to engrave it in my lips, to carve it in my mind. However, it’s the heart that counts, where the knowing is grounded, it’s the Source of Love, a symbol, a key, a door that we all have the power to open if we so desire. Each time I would realize that things weren’t really going well and that love is the answer to everything. The answer was there, the realization was there. But something was missing. Love is action and it is anchored through repeated, conscious action. Pay attention: I said conscious action, this is about stopping in your tracks, inquiring and then moving with heartfelt intent, it’s about tuning in and listening, sensing the way. This is what embodiment of love is also about, I guess. I would tell “I love myself” but it wasn’t a choice. It was words. Choosing to love yourself means to love all of it, flaws and mistakes included, things that make you cringe or that made you feel bad about yourself. Something that helped me to see and have this magnificent breakthrough was watching this video where the person said: "If you don't look yourself in the mirror and say, "I love every bad decision I've ever made. I love myself for taking a ride on this crazy roller coaster, I love myself for who I am today, and I accept myself for who I am today." Now you started to fill the cup which means when you're loving others, you're doing it from a state of love." Magical, isn’t it? It’s easy but you can be so blinded by your own beliefs about yourself that you just forget that. Love starts with yourself, love who you are every moment! In the past months, I wouldn’t understand what was missing and why I felt reactive...and then I realized that I wasn’t starting with myself and I was running on empty… When you try to love others without loving yourself first, it’s like trying to connect a cable to the multiple plug socket without first connecting it to the Source… then you wonder what’s wrong and what's not working. I personally resonate a lot with Neale Donald Walsch’s quote, "What would love do now?", (which is a central tenet from his Conversations with God series, designed to guide decision-making toward love rather than fear). We are not simply someone who loves themselves and others, we are Love itself, we are Love In Action. The moment its true meaning came to me, I decided to sit with myself and just accept mistakes that I had done the previous months, things I wanted to deny about myself, things that I thought “I could have avoided that”, or even the beliefs that I had to do better, to understand things quicker… I guess loving yourself is truly about having compassion for yourself and that part of you who is unconscious, the part who reacts, the part who gets looped back into auto-pilot, and that does things you wouldn’t normally do when you are in alignment with your true Self. And this is growth, growth is looking back and releasing the resistance, the self-rejection; when you notice all the flaws, or how you were being neurotic, or how you were acting desperately, or how you were everything but aligned, it’s about making peace with those things and loving them despite it all. It’s really about looking back and accepting and saying “I choose to love this version of me”. Writing helps with that, because then you look back at your words and you see how you were progressing, how you were doing and deciding that version of me is as worthy as this present version, because ultimately we are One with all these versions of ourselves and wholeness is found in Unity, and love is Unity. It’s really about not trying to erase who we’ve been and what we’ve done, but embracing it and allow it to transform within, to be fused in the warmth of love, with acceptance and compassion, to see it arise again more real than ever. Think of how glass is made and how each piece is raw material, worked attentively and lovingly... and the same goes for us and we have an active role in this inner shaping, choosing to love yourself is also understanding how you can truly do that and what it means to you. Tune in, listen and implement those insights in your life by choosing what truly nurtures you. But if you still find resistance to loving that part of you that you judge or criticize, you can pray….pray to be shown the way, to be taught, to receive guidance with clarity. And if you don’t believe this is possible, I want to remind you of a Bible verse, Mark 9:24. In this passage, a father brings his son to Jesus after the disciples were unable to heal him. When Jesus says, "Everything is possible for one who believes," the father cries out with tears “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!". Regardless of your faith, culture or whatever, you can also address your disbelief and receive help with that (prayer is a universal tool, it is connection to the Creator, you don’t even have to be religious to pray). And once you do that, prepare yourself because God answers even before you call. Because God is always calling us, and it is up to us to answer the call, the call of Love.