Have you ever experienced so much beauty and joy that your heart opened fully? Love flowed through you, and you felt humbling amounts of forgiveness, compassion and peace. Maybe it was at the birth of a child, standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, or looking deeply into the eyes of your beloved.
In moments of grace such as these, we experience love in its purest form. When we extend that love inward toward ourselves, we open to being in flow. We connect with the universal energy of love, and we recognize that we are part of the web of life. We feel acceptance and compassion toward all living beings because we see that they are a part of us and we are a part of them.
We know that love feels good. It’s the ultimate goal of most spiritual practices. So how do we cultivate being in that space of love toward ourselves more fully?
One way is to give away love freely from a place of non-expectation. Giving it away attracts more into our life.
Another philosophy proposes that we focus first on loving ourselves, then sharing it with the world – similar to in-flight safety instructions. If we put our oxygen mask on first, we ensure we will still be conscious and able to tend to those around us. When we love ourselves first, we have more to share with the world.
As a dear friend says, “Loving ourselves is an inside out job.” It means forgiving ourselves for whatever regrets we have from the past. And it means forgiving those who raised us for the untruths they taught us about ourselves. Most importantly, it means loving ourselves right now, in this moment, without the need to change anything about us.
Like other aspects of our healing journey, learning to love ourselves is a process – one that often takes a lifetime to master. Some days we are more able to love ourselves than others. (See Doing the best we can.) And that is also part of the process – learning to give ourselves the gift of being gentle, kind and forgiving with ourselves. When we sit in a space without shame, judgment or guilt, we free up a tremendous amount of energy to extend toward ourselves (and share with others) as love.
Here are some helpful tools for beginning the process of learning to love ourselves:
· Set an intention to love yourself. Word it in whatever way has meaning for you. Examples: “I love myself.” “I embrace all of who I am.” “I open my heart to myself.”
· Breathe and release the heavy energy when any regrets from the past come up.
· Set aside at least ten minutes a day as a gift for yourself.
· Treat yourself with the same level of respect, thoughtfulness, kindness and love that you would a dear friend.
· Greet yourself each morning by looking into the mirror, meeting your eyes and saying, “_______{insert your name here}________, I love you.”
· See a shamanic healer for a soul retrieval if you feel like there’s a hole in your heart or a piece of yourself missing.
· Use a filter question if necessary to get started. In any situation you’re not sure of, ask yourself, “How would someone who loved themselves act?”
· Breathe into your heart. Bring your attention there and gently breathe in, allowing your heart to expand.
· Open up your seventh chakra – the energy center at the top of your crown. This is our connection to the divine and remembering who we are at a soul level.