Self-Love…the magical elixir for what ails us
The topic of self-love seems to come up over and over for many of us. Why do we think this is so? For me, I was taught to believe that “It’s better to give than receive.” I thought loving myself was selfish or self-absorbed. If I tried to share my accomplishments because I was proud of them, I was made to feel as if I was conceited or “full of myself.” However, through my Catholic education, I was also taught to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” That seemed like an oxymoron.
If I don’t love myself wholly and completely, then I can’t love my neighbor that way either. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the words, “Who do you think you are,” from my father, as if who I am was not as great as my innocent, young mind thought. My father was a good man, but he learned those phrases and attitudes from his own childhood. I don’t believe he was trying to hurt me. I think, what I said or did, triggered something in him and those words were his automatic response. For the record, my childhood was wonderful, memorable, and fun. My parents were both only children and endured monstrously difficult childhoods. Yet, they raised eight children around the parameters of love, forgiveness, and unity. They did a terrific job, and the best they could. Yet, like the rest of us, they were not perfect.
To continue, hearing such responses from my family to my innate knowingness of my true magnificence, along with my desire to shine my light as brightly as I could, was confusing. I didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want me to shine my inner light for all the world to see and enjoy. Yet, the truth is that life here on the earth plane is governed by a different set of truths.
In the spirit world there is no competition, judgement, or hierarchy. We are all guided to understand that each and everyone of us is perfect, magnificent, and whole. By Divine right, we are entitled to all the abundance we need and want in order to carry out our soul’s mission. We don’t have to change who we are as a soul. Why? It is because our Creator constructed each of our energetic makeups uniquely and intricately. Our spiritual, energetic DNA, so to speak, is pure Divine Love. Yet, no soul ever created has exactly the same energetic configuration. No one is better than anyone else. Yet, we are each vitally necessary to the health and wellness of the one energy that binds us to each other. The brighter we shine individually, the more brilliantly we all shine together.
In this world, there is competition, judgement, and scarcity. There is a hierarchy that is defined by social or political status, educational level, in some cultures gender, and or by monetary worth. Many, but not all who achieve the higher levels look down upon and judge those below them as being less than or not worthy of their time or energy. Yet, there are many more who see the equality and the value of all lives no matter how much wealth, power, intellect, or notoriety one might have.
If we learned early on in our lives that it’s wonderful and necessary to love and care for ourselves first if we want to love and care for others, self-love would be a given. If we were also taught that we can’t give away what we don’t have, we would have also learned to take the time to regularly turn our attention inward to see what we need or desire to stay healthy, strong, and joyful. We would have known and understood, it is not selfish to take time for ourselves to recharge our batteries to optimum power. By nurturing and caring for our own needs, we would have an abundance of energy to care for and love others, the world, and to complete our soul’s loving mission.
Due to my misguided belief system from my childhood, I inadvertently decided that to be loved by others, it was safer to make myself small and needy. I unconsciously turned myself inside out to please others at the expense of being my purely authentic and fantastical self. I became a doormat and as a result I drew some people, like my ex-husband, into my life who knew they could control me and use me for their own personal needs or self-gratification. My self-esteem weakened further as I gave away more and more of my power to him and others in positions of authority until the real me was lost in a forest of despair and hopelessness.
Thankfully, through deep inner work and assistance from my team of light, I found my way back out of the darkness of the forest and into the open spaces of my remembrance and infinite light. In retrospect, I wish I had discovered that wisdom sooner, but I know that everything I went through was necessary for me to be where I now am today. I share my story with you now, not in an attempt to bemoan my own personal choices, but in hopes that I can help those of you who may also be lost in your own dark jungle of self-deprecation, confusion, and immobility. The point of power is always in the present moment. We are all destined to come to a place where we truly own our superpowers, love ourselves without condition, and never for a moment stop shining our beautiful light.
Of course, we will always have our outer “Clark Kent” moments when we are going about our everyday lives and taking care of business. However, underneath our necessary need and desire to function in a very material world, we are always wearing our colorful cape, and our flashy superpower attire emboldened with a huge “S,” for “Self-Love.” Our ethereal phone booth is always beside us so that we can discard the dark glasses and professional, or earthly attire, representing our physical self, and step into the power and transcendence of our infinite, divine self.
Let us never underestimate our vast and endless power. It is our heritage and divine right, as a soul, to have access to and utilize every bit of it in order to change the world and anchor more love onto our, presently, very troubled planet. Yet, none of that will be possible unless we learn to love ourselves unconditionally. All of our faults, perceived weaknesses, shortcomings, and mortal imperfections are but an illusion created by a world that forgot to put on its rose-colored glasses made of self-love. However, we don’t have to forget to put on ours. There is love everywhere we look if we choose to see it, but without self-love as our inner vision, the beauty and light within others and the world will be obscured from our view. We will most likely only see the fear and darkness.
Let today be the day that we all go deeper within our own soul’s temple, unlock the treasure box housing the last bit of our spiritual superpowers, and retrieve not some, but all of our unending and infinite self-love. May today be the day we remember who we are and will always be, a glorious, holy, and beautiful being of infinite, transcendent love and brilliant light.