The ideal human condition would be for everyone to grow up so surrounded by love that they naturally learned to love themselves and everyone else unconditionally. Obviously, that is not the case in the world.
Instead, many of us grew up either without enough love, or knowing that we were loved, but not feeling it. Some of us were perceived as obstacles to our parents' own happiness. Some of us were objectified so that we would bring happiness to our parents, by controlling what we did, what we wore, and so on, so that our parents would feel happy. That kind of love is objective love; being loved as someone who makes another person happy.
Many of us grew up knowing we were loved, but not feeling it. Affection was infrequent, or if lacked the open warmth of unconditional love. Compliments were few (if any), while criticisms were many. Our feelings either did not count when we most felt we needed our feelings to be counted, or our feelings did not count as much as the feelings of others. Our basic needs were supplied, but our sense of self was rarely affirmed through attention to what was important to us. Our parents may have been too busy to pay attention to our inner thoughts and feelings. Our parents may have been caught up in their own emotional needs and therefore unable to deal with our emotional needs. Our parents may have simply not known how to deal with emotional needs - theirs, ours, or anyone's.
So, how do we learn to love ourselves - fully, warmly, and forever, if we grew up in a home where loving us warmly for who we are was not quite a top priority?
There are several basic steps that I have found helpful with myself and with clients.
The first step is to get a photo of one's self as a small child - two or three years old. All small children are cute and lovable in their own way. Their precious innocence, hopefulness, and vulnerability all speak to their soul-self - that pure soul that came into this body, and this lifetime, with a purpose, with a little bit of divine being-ness within themselves.
It is important to learn to be able to look at photos of your small child self, and see your own soul, and love yourself - your soul, your Self, very much. The goal is to be able to feel parental love - a sense of affection and protection - for your own vulnerable soul-self, and the little girl or boy inside you that can feel wounded instead of whole.
Learning to love ourselves means seeing ourselves from the perspective of our Higher Self - what some people might call 'A God's-Eye View' and loving ourselves subjectively for who we are. Seeing ourselves as whole beings who came into this life with potential and purpose, and desiring to protect our souls and fulfill that purpose is part of loving ourselves fully. Feeling affection towards our small child self is important as well, for the loving energy of affection can heal some of the inner wounds we have experienced against this precious Self.
No one else can do this for us.
Until we learn to love ourselves fully, we feel incomplete. Loving ourselves really is a pre-requisite to being able to love others as subjects rather than just as objects. We'll come back to that later, while for now, I would simply like to invite you to love yourself. If you don't choose to work at this project, your life will always feel incomplete, and your inner pains will remain and leak out in painful ways.
Why not begin today to love yourself more than you have before? Why not look for that divine spark within you that is evident in your small child self? Why not realize that through the power of unconditional love, you are whole and complete and lovable, and start feeling that love for yourself right now?
With Love & Light,
Carol
No comments:
Post a Comment