CONTENTS
Looking for love in all the wrong places.
A source of unhappiness
The irony
How, then, shall I love myself?
The ways to love yourself
What to do
What to read
Inspirational song - the question is "who is the 'you'?"
________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
"Getting love from someone else is like trying to get a result based on hoping that something outside of you that you do not control will deliver it to you. Living your life based on violating the Principle Of Control doesn't work.
The first and best source of getting love is yourself. It is something you can control. But it is something you need to learn."
The BuddhaKahuna
_________________________________________________________
LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
A vital key to living a good life is creating love for yourself.
It is not "to get love from someone else so that I'll finally be happy." We are hypnotized to believe this absurdity (don't you wince a bit when you read that, as it cuts to the core of something most of us believe and rely on).
First of all, getting love from someone else is like trying to get a result based on hoping that something outside of you that you do not control will deliver it to you. Living your life based on violating the Principle Of Control doesn't work.
The first and best source of getting love is yourself. It is something you can control. But it is something you need to learn.
First, you likely do not know how to do it. It is vital, vital, vital that you learn to do it, for loving yourself is far, far above others loving you in true significance and in actually getting the result you want!
Second (though this could justifiably be "first") we believe that it is only significant if someone else loves us, but not meaningful if we give it to ourselves.
That belief is hogwash, as you'll learn as you read the following pieces. It is based on the propaganda perpetuating the myth, plus a little of the "I must be loved or I won't survive" issue, which would certainly make that source more meaningful - if it were true. It isn't.
The place to look for love is not "out there". Like many other important things in life, it is about finding it "inside" of you.
A SOURCE OF UNHAPPINESS
Caught in the trap of being stuck in childhood thinking that we must be loved in order to survive, we seek to "lock in" approval from others, we seek to "look good" (even to perfect strangers!), and we "get hurt" when we don't get it. Actually, the latter is not true - it is true that we hurt ourselves through false beliefs - and that the way out is to replace those beliefs with what is true. See The Process For Changing Beliefs.
We go through much (needless) anxiety and even angst in trying to get enough approval (love). We spend huge amounts of time on it, alot with very little results and some with alot of suffering. And that is time we could spend loving ourselves and doing things that are more meaningful to us.
True independence (a sign of adulthood) and true freedom can only be reached if you are no longer dependent on the belief that you must "get something" from "out there". Find out more about this reading and following the advice in Being self-sufficient, giving oneself what is needed
One of the first and most vital things to understand related to your happiness in life is how you create the opposite - read Suffering And Struggle, and see if can really "get" the truth of it AND how to operate in life to eliminate that suffering!!!!!!
THE IRONY
The irony is that by loving ourselves completely and filling our own love tanks, we are no longer being needy and as a result we create a spaciousness for loving others. The seemingly trite statement that you must love yourself first in order to be able to love another is actually very true.
Also, by loving ourselves well, we actually learn to love - to actually be a generator of love. And when we are true "generators" of love, amazingly, more love comes to us, not in the form of the false indicator of approval but in the form of actual love.
HOW, THEN, SHALL I LOVE MYSELF?
There are lots of ways to love oneself and most are similar to the way you would love another, but they are even more important - as the degree to which you love yourself determines the degree to which you feel the quality of life, while also freeing you up from much wasted angst and energy around trying to get love from others - and that energy could be better utilized to benefit you elsewhere.
THE WAYS TO LOVE YOURSELF
Are you doing these?
(You many wish to copy and paste this part of the section into a word document for your self development notebook and check mark those you are doing, circle the others you want to develop)
What I consider to be the key ways of loving yourself:
self-blame !!!!! (Read piece under What To Read below first, then this is the
second piece to read.)
___ Treating oneself with care
___ Soothing and stroking oneself
___ Interacting with oneself in a constructive conversation
___ Creating more of what one wants in life
___ Eliminating or minimizing what one does not want in life
___ Making oneself stronger and more capable of creating what one wants
in life
___ Managing oneself so that one is more fulfilled and happy
___ Implementing "practices" in one's life that provide a whole
newly wonderful life.
___ Taking a stand for oneself
___ Freeing oneself up from limiting beliefs
___ Assuaging and diminishing or eliminating one's fears, worries, and/or
anxieties
(Remember, you can use the search engine to go to items that are not pre-linked here for you.)
One can make great leaps forward in this process by learning that one has, using metaphors, a Powerful, Nurturing Adult within that will handle most anything that the metaphorical Child needs and will accept and love the being no matter what is done, no matter what is known or not known, and just plain "no matter what". See below the Caring, Feeling Presence - LovingYouself - I would propose that some version of this is ESSENTIAL to living a great life that one fully experiences.
materials in that area relate directly to the overall "love" pool.
WHAT TO DO
page.
WHAT TO READ
essential for relationships, but the greatest impact is learning how to apply it to oneself -
which is an essential ingredient to having true self-esteem. In turn, without esteeming
oneself, one cannot love oneself!!!!! See also the section under Relationships,
Communication, Criticism/Blame/Victim.
Read the pieces imbedded in the text above
Processes that are self-soothing, self-illuminating, and/or self-empowering:
requisite for living a great life and for experiencing true happiness and peace. In this
process, you create your "allies", which will serve you well when you need wisdom
and support for your "inner child" or "self".
a format for taking one back from fears and emotions experienced in the present
but due to "Earlier Similar" occurrences that affected the child within you. There
are 5 to 10 significant ones that repeat in your life and you can "handle them" so
that they are less (or none at all) of an influence.
INSPIRATIONAL SONGS - WHO IS THE 'YOU'?:
YOU RAISE ME UP (As sung by Josh Groban)
When I am down and oh my soul so weary
and troubles come and my heart burdened-be
then I am still and wait here in the silence,
until you come and sit awhile with me...
You raise me up so I can stand on mountains,
you raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders,
you raise me up to more than I can be
The question here is "who is the 'you'?
While you can insert anyone or anything into that, I would propose regardless that there is a (higher) 'you' that is within you - wherein you can use a metaphorical part [actually a part of your higher brain function] to "do" certain functions. In the Caring, Feeling Presence, above, we create the model and the method that actually works, and then, below that, we create an example of a format that works.
To those who might resist, I say "Hey, you talk to yourself anyway. Why not just do it in a more constructive way!"
