Forget Self-Love

Forget Self-Love

Seriously. If you are wounded, unhealed, if you grew up in a dysfunctional family, if you grew up in poverty, war, racism, sexual threats or assault (this covers just about everyone, no?) where on Earth have you learned the skills on how to give yourself  healthy self-love? Bombarded by consumerism commercials and the new age messed up messages of “you deserve it” you will be shooting in the dark trying to do something that you have never seen modeled for you and never experienced.  Self-love has become a co-opted slogan to sell you “stuff” or “experiences” including all the current workshops that “sell” hope and liberation, guaranteed after attending one weekend. Lord.  Let’s dial it back.

Start instead with self-care. This will be difficult enough. For those of you who had children, think back on how complex it was figuring out how to care for your first child. You can do the same thing remembering your first pet (as an adult). No matter how much you prepared, you were not prepared, you could not be. As you learned, you made mistakes. You also discovered that sometimes caring for your child meant doing things that the child did not like, or even hated and your child would cry, fight, throw a tantrum etc. while you tried to keep him/her away from the hot stove, or from putting something harmful in his/her mouth.  Learning self-care, you will be the child and Spirit will be the  parent. You will make mistakes and you will resist because some of the things you currently think are acts of self-care are actually harmful to you.

Typically people do not know what self-care is. They know what self –indulgence is, they know how to stuff feelings, they know distraction and how to layer “positive thinking” or affirmations on top of uncomfortable or unbearable emotions. Now the question is, how to do this? First off, slow way down. Second, try new things and be slow to judge if you like the new things or not. Talk to your deep best friends, but only if you see their lives are in order meaning they are not sexing, eating, drinking, drugging, affirming, or obsessing their way through life. Your healthy best friends might have some good ideas. Try  going to 12-Step meetings, there people master self-care; Al Anon for those of you with alcoholics (even those currently not drinking) in your circle, co-dependents anonymous (CODA), adult children of alcoholics and other dysfunctions (ACA or ACOA), AA if you are drinking even if just socially. Get with a good therapist (good being a key word), Spiritual Teacher, Healer.

Learn to pray before you meditate. Pray by simply saying “Help me” or “Show me”. Then pay attention as the Guidance will come in a subtle fashion because you have to WANT to receive the Guidance so you will be required to do some work such as mindfulness and self-awareness, and then have the courage to take some action.  Change your focus from outcomes to “How does each step feel?” and remember that new things will feel uncomfortable at first.  A great exercise to use (works best if you already have a silent meditation practice), write out your two options, such as going to a movie with a friend or staying home and taking a bath. Write out each option on a piece of paper, fold them up so you cannot tell them apart and mix them up so you don’t know which is which. Then settle yourself. Pick up one piece of paper, hold in between the palms of your two hands and internally ask “What will I learn with this option?”  Make some notes about what you notice after asking that question internally. Then do the same with the other paper and then open each one. This will teach you to focus on your growth and evolution rather than obsess about outcomes. You will learn that every choice brings you learning and growth and there is no “right” way. You will learn to make better choices for yourself with the help of Source because when you are asking “What will I learn with this choice” you are asking that question of Source and the Guidance will be coming from Source, not from your wounds or ego desires.

If you work on self-care, self-love will grow and ultimately be “granted” to you, like a kind of Grace, granted to you by Source. Just like if you work on your honest dark feelings, Source will “grant” you the gift of forgiveness because your work on that lesson, with that person, is now complete. Source declares it complete by granting forgiveness, instead of you declaring the lesson complete by grabbing at some concept of forgiveness because you cannot handle the uncomfortable emotions of the lesson at hand.  You cannot teach or heal yourself with your wounded mind or your dysfunctional energy field. Even your Spirit Guides talking to you using words will only be able to communicate to you at your current level of functioning. If you want to grow beyond that level, you need Source and Source only works with you via what can only be called energy although that is not exactly a precise word either. Allow yourself to “not know” so you can be open to being “taught”, to learning something you currently cannot even imagine, so much so you cannot even ask for “it”  because” it” is currently beyond your comprehension, beyond language. Get and use support. Use prayer and meditation (the mainstay of 12-Step programs as well), the key word here is use. Joyfully make mistakes and adjustments as you experiment with new ways of being.  

Journey On