LOVING OURSELVES

I woke up a little crabby this Morning. I complained about this and I complained about that; fortunately Jamie didn't get defensive. She probable thought, "That old geezer is at it again". That was good. She loved herself sufficiently that she didn't take my complaints personally. Why was I complaining? In some way, I wasn't loving myself. When we love ourselves sufficiently, we don't see the outside world as dangerous. Attacks and criticism either roll off our back or are seen as calls for love, which they are. When we really love ourselves we know nothing can hurt us.

Although it is an old teaching; lack of love for oneself is the basis of all problems, we find that, we each need to learn it and sometimes, by rather painful lessons. Like most things we learn, the concept is simple. It is easy to grasp intellectually. Yet we resist it. We don't want to think that the problems we experience arise from not loving ourselves. We may be able to see it clearly in others, but ourselves, not so much.

If we accept the concept, we will see ourselves in a new way. When we are irritable we won't trick ourselves into thinking the irritation comes from others. Oh, we can always explain what bugs us in terms of the other, we don't have any difficulty doing that. We all become experts at blaming our crabbiness on the outside world. We can quit doing that.

Some form of meditation is invaluable. We can learn to do mini-meditations, that is, we can learn to drop into our quiet space just for a moment. This Morning when I felt the propensity to complain, I could have sat down, and dropped in to a quiet place for a few minutes, reminded myself that my crabbiness arose from some kind of self-criticism and avoided risking the inferno by complaining. We like to gamble. I might not have been able to see just what was bugging me; but I would have been able to realize it was my problem and not the worlds. The quiet is the Love that surrounds us. In that love all irritation dissolves.

Regardless of how we see ourselves, at this moment, it is helpful to convince ourselves that at our core we are love. It is not up for question; we are part of Source which is love. We can't quit being love no matter how we might try. Everything else we think about ourselves is illusion. It is an overlay caused by negativity.

When we know we are love it is easier to shuck away those layers of negativity that sometimes surround us. We know that whatever we are criticizing ourselves about, it is simply, not true.

We need to, not only love ourselves, we need to fall in love with ourselves and see ourselves as the great beings of light that we are. This is true humility. How can we be arrogant when we see that everybody is a great being of light?

We will shine our light on the world today and bring ourselves just a little closer to paradise.

Happy Friday.

Celebrate the Summer Solstice.

Love and Peace,  Gregg