Self love...

Self-Love

What arises in you when you hear these words?

Massage and long candlelit baths?  Playing with your children? Connecting with a loved one? Sticking to your exercise routine? Self-pleasuring sensually and sexually? Eating foods that you know support your optimal being? Doing your inner work, processing your stories and being real with your emotions?

Or does this term make you cringe, offering up some artificial mustering up of an emotion you don’t know if it is possible to feel? Or some excuse for self-indulgence which is often just a buffer or way to escape the uncomfortable emotions and patterns that become ingrained in your days? Is it another source of shame, something you don’t feel like you can do, so just one more thing in that growing list of faults you can find in yourself? Is it the gift you give yourself after working yourself to the bone to try to make up for days that did not embody much love or self-compassion?

I know, that last paragraph is rough. But real. So many of us has been there. I get it! And being real with these questions or any other gremlins that arise for you is worthwhile, important, and I would pose, is a form of self-love.

Fundamentally, Life essence is Love. So, self-love isn’t something we have to strive for, or manufacture. There is no right path to experiencing it. It is what we are, at our very core. And the only way in is to remember. There are many roads to remembering. The love we feel for another, for a partner, a child, a friend, a pet can be a window in. The expression of our passion, the delight in play, a moment of pure peace in nature - these too can be a window in. A moment of stillness and breaking wide open in meditation, the taste of beautiful, fragrant, nourishing food might be a way in. A luxuriant day of massage and immersing in beauty may be a way in. For you see, life is love. And life is expressing love every moment, over and over again. Love is: sunshine on your skin, the fragrance of a spring blossom, the song of a bird as it greets the sunrise, hydrating water, satisfaction and nourishment of food, stability of the earth under our feet, a warm fire to heat our skin and cook our food, the shade of a giant oak, the smile of a friend, the laugh of a child, the shining eyes of one who has just shared their wide open vulnerable heart: the simple act of being, of being you, of being me.

Self-love arises from a self-confidence. This is not a shallow “you deserve it” statement without ground or meaning. It is a heartfelt, fundamental truth of being. “Confidence is a delicate term” according to Swami Chidvilasananda. “It is one of those qualities that cannot be understood without humility.” This confidence arises from your true self, the very essence of life that manifests as you. Some would call this the Soul; some Divine Essence; some Supreme Power. The words are pointers to the very essence of life: creative, Divine, pure Love that manifests as rose, oak, stone, water, sun and you. This supreme power makes you, moves as you, delights in being you. It has been you since the beginning and will be to the end. Confidence in this is rooted in truth and inspires, invites, provokes deep love and reverence.  

This love invites delight. It invites self-nourishment. It invites self-exploration. It invites connection, love of others, love of beauty and nature. It invites self-care and knowing and speaking our needs and receiving with hearts wide open. Our needs are part of our unique expression of this perfect Life essence. This self-love is perfect love. It is without condition. It is our essence nature.

And so what about all of those beautiful expressions of self-love mentioned in the beginning? They are amazing and many of them plus a myriad of others bring delight to each of us. Engage in them, invite them in to your life, and as you do, I invite you to notice how they allow for you to tap into the fundamental Love that is you. Embrace the confidence that you are the perfect expression of life in the form it delights in as you, and in this expression; massage, play, self-exploration all become a delightful nourishment and celebration of all that is you, and invites the expression of you that is most needed in life and most fulfilling.

Love is you! How does love move through you? How does love nourish you? How does love express through you? I invite you to this delightful and powerful play.

Dr Amy