SELF-LOVE
how do you relate to YOURSELF?
To the extent you have self-acceptance and self-love is the extent that someone else is able to love you
Carl Rogers - ‘it wasn’t until I accepted myself just as I was that I was free to change’ and ‘Interrupting the pattern of anxiety about imperfection, putting ourselves down for imperfection. Interrupting that with an accepting mindfulness, is the precursor to transformation’
It is a natural human state to be focused on our ‘not good enough’-ness and to be anxious about our imperfections.
We also have the capacity to recognise and wake up from this as an unhealthy way of living. Sometimes it takes a jolt from an event to allow us to realise that we are harming ourselves with this kind of unhealthy thinking. This state also creates judgment of others which can create tension in relationships as well as internally.
The challenge for us is to not chastise ourselves but to understand with compassion and mindfulness and unhook from the egoic state of judgment. When we are able to do this we access the wiser and kinder part of us.
