How to love yourself


Learning how to love yourself is a key ingredient for happiness. Self love is at the very core of wellbeing, joy, self-empowerment, and our ability to  enjoy the kind of life we want. Even if you had everything else in your life exactly the way you wanted it, you wouldn't be able to enjoy it if you weren't at peace with yourself.

Besides that, every relationship you ever have with someone else exactly mirrors one or more aspects of the relationship you have with yourself.

What are the effects of not loving yourself?

Not knowing how to love yourself can be severely debilitating. At the very least, you’re plagued by indecision and self doubt. In more intense cases there is depression and self hatred, which cripples you in every area of your life. Self-focused negativity obscures our awareness of our Oneness with Life Force, our connection with all that IS.

Until you know how to love yourself there will be an inner mental war going on within that creates the experience of dividing your energy and sabotaging your efforts to enjoy life.

Additionally, if you feel separate from your own love you will attract people and circumstances that mirror your negative beliefs and feelings about yourself. By the Law of Attraction it couldn’t be any other way. We experience the manifestations of what we FEEL and have attention on. So, in order for you to experience loving people and circumstances, you need to know how to love yourself first.


We already ARE love

We are Pure Awareness, the field of Love everything appears in. Just as waves arise within an ocean, the experience of a body, thoughts, feelings, and all within our lives arise as vibrations within us, Awareness.

When we identify with being a separate wave rather than the entire ocean, we suffer. Inherent in believing we are separate is the feeling of lack and incompleteness. If we really believe all we are is a separate part – a composite of just our body, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, etc. – it is actually that belief of being separate that keeps us feeling disconnected from love.

To truly know how to love yourself, we just need to become aware that we are not just a separate part. As the wave is to the ocean, we are the wave, and we are also the entire ocean that the wave arises in.

You make think you need to LEARN how to love yourself, but actually the most direct way to love yourself is to turn your attention inward to yourSelf, the Presence that you are that is simply here, and already IS love.

How to experience yourself as love – pure awareness

The following exercise is based on my understanding and practice of the Advaita Teachings of Rupert Spira and Ramana Maharshi.

Exercise: "Am I here?"

Let your eyes focus on an object. Now, rather than attentively engaging with the object, with your eyes still resting on it, let them soften. Un-focus them.

Feel yourself as this that is simply here. Ask yourself, "Am I here?" Feel the you that says "Yes." The you that is simply here.

Rest in this you. You don't have to ADD anything to yourself to be All that is, to be Oneness. Just shift attention to this transparent you that is simply here, pure aware energy, already One, already Love.

Notice that this you that is simply here, has ALWAYS been here. If you look back through all your experiences, the common denominator of all of them is YOU.

This simple experience of knowing ourselves in this way is always here but our attention is usually directed away from ourSelf and is instead centered on thoughts, emotions, body sensations and circumstances. 

This is like a body of water that has debris floating on the surface. The debris in this metaphor is made up of the thoughts, emotions, and perceptions of being a body. If we keep our attention on the debris we won't notice that we are the water. The rest of it is just stuff floating through.

However, even when our attention is on the thoughts, emotions, and identifications with being a body, the Presence that we are is still in the background of our attention. We are always here. Even if we don't know WHAT we are, we do know that we are here.

I recommend doing the exercise above at least once every day, and even better, several times a day! At first it is best to do it while you're just sitting quietly so you can learn to focus. Later, I invite you to do it while doing other things, like going for a walk or talking to a friend. Just check in with yourself and ask "Am I here?" And BE this you which is simply here.

Woman of Light

This simple, present, Aliveness which is you already IS love. It is only when you identify with being the "debris floating on the surface" that you'll think you need to do something to learn how to love yourself, or have something added to you, such as having someone else love you to be complete.

As this Presence that we are, we occupy the same space with Love, God, with All That Is. We are One continuous energy field.

Awakening to the Truth of who we are and enlightenment are believed to be events that only happen to the special few, and that something is somehow added to us in the process. Instead, awakening is the simple shifting of attention from the debris to the water! 

Other portals to help you realize you already ARE love

Here are links which will also help point you into the experience of yourself as Love:

And here is a video by Rupert Spira where he gently, lovingly guides your attention into your Self, Pure Awareness:



Allow the feeling sensation of not loving yourself to be here

A good place to start learning how to love yourself, is to first be in allowance of whatever you are now experiencing, including how it feels to NOT love yourself.

After reading the previous sentence, you might be thinking, "What? I'm trying to get RID of these feelings." And yes, that is what we are generally conditioned to do. And THAT is the very problem. It is in fact the ONLY problem.

Exercise: Loving yourself as you ARE – embracing your hurt child

Ponder this for a moment:

Let’s say that you hear a knock on the door. You go to the door and open it. Standing there on your doorstep is you as a young child and s/he is hurting. S/he is feeling unloved and is also judging her/himself as not BEING lovable.

Imagine how this child might feel if you say to them, “You need to go away. I need to release you.”

This would be layering yet another layer of trauma in the mind of an already traumatized child. In essence, this is exactly what we do to ourselves when we try to release or get rid of our sensations of hurt.

Instead, what would be most healing to the child?

It would be to open your arms wide and tell this precious little one, “I’m so happy to see you! You are totally welcome here. Please come in just as you are and I will join with you. Let us be together. You don’t have to change in any way. I am happy to be with you in whatever way that you are appearing. You are me and I am you. We are One.”

A hurt child treated in this way would eventually realize they are loved just as they are and more importantly, that they ARE love.


It is actually the dividing off from uncomfortable energies within ourselves, such as anger or fear, by saying "I must release this" or "I don't want this" or "This is bad" that creates the suffering.

In truth, there is no place to release anything to. Us, Awareness is One infinite energy field. When we decline to try to separate from ourselves by trying to push a part of ourselves away by "releasing" it, we become aware of the Oneness we are and then we automatically experience that as a "release" from suffering.

By embracing whatever we are aware of within us, we begin to feel relief because we're no longer fighting with ourselves. Consequently, the mind / body / emotions integrate by themselves and peace is the result. What begins as a feeling of relief turns into peace and deepens into awareness of yourSelf as love. This is the best way to experience how to love yourself.

When you feel like you're not loving yourself

  • Notice what sensations you feel in the body when you feel unloved by others and / or yourself. You might feel a tightness or constriction in the heart, throat or stomach area. Or, you might be aware of an entirely different sensation in one of those areas or in another area of the body.

  • Let go of any labels about the sensation such as "tight," "painful," "bad," "angry," "sad," or "depressed" and etc.

  • See the sensation as just a nameless vibration. It is made out of the very same energy that YOU are made out of. It is like a wave arising within you, the ocean. It is not separate from you.

  • Whatever the sensation is, turn toward it rather than away.

  • Go right into the middle of the sensation.

  • Occupy the same space that it occupies. Be One with it. Every place where it is, be there too.

As you learn how to love yourself, there are layers to letting go of the habit of dividing from ourselves and creating suffering. I recommend doing this "Allowing The Sensation" exercise at least once a day. Just check in with yourself and notice if there is a subject that troubles you. Then as you think of the subject, notice the sensations that come up and work with those, as outlined above.



Your self-dialogue is key

Most of us would be shocked if we could hear a tape recording of our inner dialogue. We would see just how many times a day we judge or criticize ourselves harshly. Sometimes we treat ourselves far worse than we could imagine treating someone else.

To learn how to love yourself, listen to how you talk to yourself. Do any of the following thoughts sound familiar?

"There is something wrong with me. I’m really messed up."

"I’m bad."

"It’s all my fault."

"I’m incompetent. I don’t know what I’m doing."

"I’m not (good, smart, attractive, rich, etc.) enough."

"I should / shouldn't have (fill in the blank)."

"I’m not as (good, smart, attractive, successful, etc.) as that person."

"I’ll never get that job."

"I’ll never be able to do this. I don’t have what it takes."

At a deeper level, you might hear:

"I don’t deserve to be happy. I don’t deserve to be loved. I don’t deserve to have what I want."

"I deserve to be punished. I don’t deserve to be forgiven."

Lack of self love can also get projected out as: 

"That person doesn’t like me. No one likes me."

Until we learn how to love ourselves, this is how we cripple ourselves so that we can’t move forward or go after the things we want.

Underlying this negative self talk can be long-held beliefs about yourself that aren’t based on reality. Sometimes we hear these thoughts in someone else’s voice – perhaps in the scolding voice of a parent.

This link will help you identify and let go of these beliefs.


“
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

~ Siddhartha Guatama Buddha


The power of words

Dr. Masaru Emoto did some famous research that shows the powerful effect that our thoughts and words have on us. In his experiments he attached written words to containers of water, such as “Thank you,” “I love you,” and “You fool!” Then he froze the water and took photos of the water crystals with a microscopic camera. In addition to using written words, he varied his experiments with thoughts, music and pictures.

In order to keep the tests using written words pure, they did it “blind.” After the words were written, they covered them up so that no one knew which words were written on which containers until the end of the experiment. That way the test wasn’t influenced by the thoughts of the people involved in it.

The results were amazing! You can view them in his books Messages From Water, Vols. 1 and 2. In every case when there was a positive energy used, whether it was a written word, a verbal statement, or a picture, the photos of the frozen crystals were exquisitely beautiful. The water crystals formed into intricate symmetrical patterns, all harmonically woven together. Some of them look like shimmering diamonds.

On the other hand, in every case where the stimulus was negative, the crystals were small, misshapen and deformed! This so clearly demonstrates the effects of the negativity hurled at oneself until you learn how to love yourself.

Our bodies are about 60% water (it varies, depending on the individual), and this is just revealing what happens to the part of the body that is water when experiencing negative thoughts. My sense is that it has the same debilitating effect on ALL parts of ALL the cells of the body. No wonder there is mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual illness in the world!

Also, remember that these experiments show what happens when the negativity comes from the OUTSIDE. I’m sure that the effects of negativity is even more extreme if the negativity is SELF generated. This is a powerful demonstration of the crippling effects of not knowing how to love yourself.

Then, with the Law of Attraction as those cells vibrate with negativity, that vibration creates the experience of more of the same.



Becoming aware of your thoughts

A good step in learning how to love yourself is to periodically check in with yourself through the day and notice how you’re feeling – happy, alive and open? Closed and contracted? Neutral?

If you are feeling upset, trace back to when you first started feeling that way. Chances are really good that somewhere at that juncture you told yourself something negative about yourself and then invested that thought with belief.

What might first come to your awareness is a negative attitude or thought about someone else. However, if you look closer you’ll find that somewhere along the way the part that really got you feeling bad was a negative thought about yourself. It might have been guilt about the negative thought about someone else, or feelings of inadequacy.

This debilitating self-talk is a symptom that shows up chronically until you learn how to love yourself.

Let’s take a slight detour here for just a moment …

Here’s an interesting question …

Which do you prefer: guilt or blame? Neither feels good, but I think you’ll agree that between the two, guilt is the most painful and the most debilitating. Why? Blame at least has some energy mobilization. There is SOME degree of taking charge of the situation and having control.

Guilt, on the other hand, is pure powerlessness – just heart-wrenching inadequacy and self-condemnation. Blame is focused on other; guilt is focused on self. On the emotional spectrum, what we do to ourselves is MUCH more painful and destructive than anything anyone else could do to us. Self-focused negativity cuts off our recognition of our Oneness with Life Force.


Voice dialogue

Years ago I studied the Voice Dialogue work of Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone. It was extremely powerful for me at the time. Voice Dialogue works with the many selves or sub-personalities that we all have within our psyche. Each of these different aspects of yourself has different wants, needs and beliefs than the other aspects.

In the Stone’s Voice Dialogue work you learn to identify these sub-personalities and then let them dialogue and find agreements with each other. This process is a great way to get started in learning how to love yourself, creating more self-understanding, acceptance, and harmony.

Let’s use this information to support YOU in building self esteem and self love.

Changing your self-dialogue

Earlier in this article we talked about becoming aware of when you feel negativity and then looking back to find the point where you started feeling that way. In this process, to help you learn how to love yourself, you first look for the judgment thought you had about yourself. For example you might hear something like the ever-popular, “I’m a bad person.”

As you hear those words within, see if a picture comes to mind, or use your imagination to make one up. Can you see this aspect of yourself in your inner vision? You may get an indistinct glimpse of yourself at a younger age. Maybe as a toddler? A teenager?

Don’t worry if you don’t get a visual picture. Some people are visually oriented and some are more feeling, sensing, or hearing oriented.

Abstract Blue Waves

You might feel a specific feeling sensation in your body or an emotion that floods in. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Just notice whatever arises when you hear whatever the negative phrase is that you’re working on, which in this example is “I’m a bad person.”

Now, find another aspect of yourself who feels like a best friend to this self-judging aspect and who is eager to come forward. If he/she isn’t eager, that’s okay. Just ask inside for the best friend to come forward and if you are patient and sincere, that aspect will come into your awareness. This aspect of yourself already knows how to love yourself.

Don’t get discouraged if you don't become immediately aware of this part of yourself the first time you do this. For some of us, the flame of self love is so low that the positive voice inside is all but snuffed out. If this describes you, please be gentle with yourself. Don’t use this exercise to beat yourself up even more.

If you can’t find the aspect that already knows how to love yourself, then make one up. The imagination is a powerful tool that can be used for great healing. Just imagine a kind being who loves you unconditionally. Imagine or make up what that person would say to you if they heard you saying “I’m a bad person” to yourself. You might hear something like:

“I love you. I see you as you are and you are perfect, exactly as you are right now in this moment.

You are Aliveness itself, Pure Awareness.

You are made of the same substance that God and All Life is made of.

I know your beautiful heart, which is the same loving heart which beats at the core of all life.

I know it seems challenging for you right now because you are coming up against a growth area for you.

You will get through this. I am with you and I love you, just as you are in this moment.”


Stay with this dialogue for as long as you can. It may feel strange and uncomfortable at first because it is new. That’s okay, just stay with it. Really hear the response from the best friend aspect. Let the aspect of you who uttered “I’m a bad person” soak up the love and support. If you stay with it, you will find a noticeable increase in your self love.

Try doing the dialogue in writing. For some people that is easier.

You can also do a mini version of this as you go about your day and you become aware of slipping into negative self talk. Once you’ve identified the best friend aspect of yourself the first time it gets much easier to call it up again. Learning how to love yourself is like exercising a muscle you didn’t know you had. The more you do it, the stronger it gets.

Listen to your best friend aspect’s words of love and encouragement. Drink it in and indulge in the good feelings.

The goal is to derail any kind of negative self talk as quickly as possible by bringing in your best friend aspect. By learning how to love yourself in this way you will train yourself into the experience of much greater harmony and wellbeing.

If the multiple sub-personality idea bothers you, don’t worry. We ALL have a multitude of these aspects within our psyche that have developed out of our early life experiences. This process is a healthy and natural way to learn how to love yourself.


The steps for changing your self-dialogue

  • Be on alert for inner negativity.

  • Scan back to when you first started feeling that way.

  • Zero in on what you told yourself about yourself at that point – the thought that triggered the upset.

  • Call up your best friend aspect and let him / her love you.

  • Drink in the love, encouragement and support from this aspect of yourself.


Watch out for the comparison trap

One of the common potholes of life that you may fall into on the road to learning how to love yourself is the old comparison trap. You know the one. “Sheesh, that person is way better than me.”

Or it could flip into what appears to be high self esteem: “I’m much better than that person.” This is just the other side of the same coin. It can flip in either direction. Either way, staying with this stream of thought causes self-suffering.

Are you struggling? I’m here to support you.

Are you struggling?
I’m here to support you.

No person is better or worse than another. We all have different growth workshops for this lifetime. Consequently, we all have different areas of mastery as well as different areas that are steep learning curves. As you learn how to love yourself, don't be fooled by how someone else appears.

So, while Betty Sue may have already mastered personal relationships, she hasn’t quite figured out how to open up to receiving abundance yet. And Bobby Lee is a multi-millionaire but can’t seem to get it together in his personal relationships.

If you find yourself falling into the comparison trap frequently, it would be a good idea to do a Voice Dialogue session on the subject. If it is chronically about not being as good as other people in some way, find the aspect within who feels that way and let them talk. Then find your best friend aspect and hear their loving response.

You can use this same technique if you find yourself chronically on the other side of the coin: “I’m better than that person.” What you will find is that the aspect who feels better than others is the same aspect as the one who feels less than others.

The stance of feeling better than someone else is just a buffer to protect you from the wrenching feelings of not good enough. What appears to be high self esteem is a cover up for low self esteem.

More ways to love yourself

Say "YES"

When you find yourself feeling negativity, say YES to the whole situation that evoked it. The word “YES” carries a powerful energy that can unlock the flow of wellbeing inside you. From within, say YES to everything you’re feeling and to all people involved, past and present.

This doesn’t mean that you need to agree with what someone else is doing. This is not at all about them. It is just an exercise for YOU to release resistance, for your own wellbeing in learning how to love yourself. Resisting anything feeds it energy and keeps recreating the same scenario. Saying YES to it opens the flow of love and gives space for the situation to release and transform.

Self nurturing

While you're learning how to love yourself, do as many things as you can to nurture yourself on all levels – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. See what draws you and evokes positive feelings … Yoga? Joining a gym? Or you might want to learn to dance, change your eating habits, or listen to music you love more often. Decide to do at least one activity each day that is exclusively for your own self-nurturing.

Exercise: See yourself

This exercise is a powerful way to learn how to love yourself. Go to a mirror and look into your eyes. Ignore whatever critical thoughts that may arise, and just focus on your eyes. Really look inside the person you see reflected there. Keep looking until you can see your tender beautiful heart.


What changes can you expect?

  • As you take steps in learning how to love yourself, the wars within will diminish and your wellbeing will expand. You will begin to trust yourself more as your self-appreciation increases, and doubt yourself less. You’ll feel more self-empowered and grounded. You’ll feel more confident and competent.

  • Areas where you previously felt stuck in your life will begin to open up, as if the locks are being removed.

  • You will feel more energy to move forward in your life.

  • As you learn how to love yourself, your experience of self love will have a positive effect on others around you, without them even knowing what you are up to. Also, as you judge yourself less, you’ll find that you’ll judge others less as well.

  • As you treat yourself more kindly, you will attract people who treat you the same loving way you are learning to treat yourself. The circumstances of your life will change to a more positive state as well, mirroring this new perspective of yourself.

Your self love uplifts us all

Besides the many personal benefits YOU will experience from learning how to love yourself, there is a gift you’ll be giving to all of your fellow beings: you will be uplifting all of us.

Although we look like separate beings running around doing our individual things, we are One Being. If you could look at this plane of reality from a quantum physics perspective, you would see one continuous, contiguous energy field that includes our planet and everything on it, and the whole universe.

In other words, if someone saw you right now from that perspective, they’d see your body, the space between you and your computer, your computer, and everything else around you as one big ocean of energy. The area of energy perceived as “you” would be vibrating in a different way than your computer, but all of it would be one mass of energy.

So what is my point? As you learn how to love yourself, since we are all part of One big energy field, ALL of us are infused and uplifted by you as you learn self love.

So ... thank you for loving yourself!


More support to learn how to love yourself

Forgiveness Prayer – How We Can All Heal Together. Healing for ourselves and the world.

Meditative Healing Exercise

Meditation Therapy For Personal And Global Healing. Several practices to help you learn how to love yourself and others.

What if you sincerely don’t FEEL love for the intense emotional energies and sensations within yourself?

Begin to experience yourself as Spirit by letting everything arise that naturally comes into awareness and observing it without feeding energy to it. The Neutral Observer Meditation can help you do that.

Practice compassion for yourself. This is a key step in learning how to love yourself. Until we learn self-compassion, we stand outside our own love and feel separate from Source, God, The Divine (insert the word you know It by). This feeling of separation from Source is at the core of all our discomfort and disease, on all levels of our being.

Self-acceptance is the beginning stage of self-love. This page will help you accept yourself as you are.

Forgive yourself and forgive others, to free yourself (This is easier than you think). This page can help with that also: Everyone Is Doing The Best They Can.

In a WellBeing Alignment Session I guide and assist you in letting go of the mechanisms that cause suffering for you. Together we shift attention to yourSelf as Loving Awareness.

Use the Gratitude List exercise to list things you appreciate about yourself. This is a powerful way to switch your feelings about yourself from negative to loving.

Identify and break free of old beliefs that could be holding you back.

Use your power of choice to choose happiness.

Tap into the root of happiness inside you.

Your creative gifts are a doorway into wellbeing and the fulfillment of your life path. Open to them and they will help you know and appreciate the unique and beautiful being you are.

Experience your vulnerability as true strength.

I also highly recommend:



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