Growing as a person has always been important to me, I want to be the best me that I can be, but I've come to remember lately that growing means letting go of things that no longer serve us, and letting go means first accepting those things about ourselves that may not be the best or most beautiful qualities. Lately, I've been reading a lot of blogs that talk about self-acceptance and self-love. It can be difficult to come to a place of acceptance for ourselves when we see things that we might perceive as flaws or even dysfunction, and that's what I've been struggling with.
There are so many messages that bombard us from the outside that tell us we are not as good as we could be. As children, many of us received messages from our families that we were not good enough, or that who we were was unacceptable, or even incomprehensible; I know I did. These messages have created in me an inner critic whose voice becomes quite loud especially when I am tired or stressed. This critic tells me that I need to do better, that I need to get rid of these qualities, that I'm not developed enough and that I need to grow, but what it doesn't tell me is that first, I have to love those parts of myself.
It's difficult to stop and love the parts of ourselves that we need to change. On a path forward it seems counter intuitive to stop and embrace the things within us that we see as holding us back, but it's so necessary. Any journey is a combination of action and inaction, something I sometimes have a difficult time remembering, but we do need to stop and not only smell the roses, but the skunk weed as well.
Taking the time to embrace ourselves, exactly as we are, without judgment, is a profound act of self-love. It helps us really see all that is within us and understand how all of our experiences have helped to inform the person we have become. When we don't do this, when we judge ourselves harshly, when we decide we just need to let go without first embracing each part of us, we exile those parts we want to have growth in. Always looking ahead to growth means that we aren't looking at where we are now, and without doing that, we cannot accomplish the growth we desire.
I'm a big fan of structure. I like having structure in my life because I feel as though I have some sort of framework to grow in, but lately I've become aware that too much structure, or too much rigidity in the structures I create can actually hamper growth. In order to embrace myself as I am, I have to come to place of self-love and love needs space to move freely. When we can allow this space to exist, love moves us into places within ourselves that we have not been able to access previously. We can then touch each thought, each wound, each perspective, each emotion gently and lovingly. We can observe all of these things and see how they move and act within us, and then we can move into a place of healing and loving growth within ourselves.
Over and over again, in the blogs I have read the past few days the writers have been searching for a way to be more loving in the world. Over and over again, the writers of these blogs have discovered that they can not love all those around them the way they would like until they learn to love and accept themselves. In many spiritual traditions we are reminded of this lesson. "Love your neighbor as yourself", the Golden Rule, Buddhist teachings, Hindu teachings how many times have we heard these reminders, agreed with them and never thought more about how we actually love ourselves?
I've spent much of my life trying to get my ego out of the way so I can be more loving, but I never thought to love my ego exactly as it is, to understand it, to allow for it to exist. I just pushed everything away that I thought was unworthy to be a part of me, without understanding that it already was. This is a path to pain. The parts of ourselves (which I talked about in the Dark, Crazy, Strange and Unwanted blog post) more than anything need our love. They need to be heard, understood, observed, accepted and loved, only then can we heal those parts of ourselves and allow them to transform into something beautiful and valued within us.
This is what I am working on now. I find it difficult because although there are things I can read, meditations I can do, reminders I can give myself, there's no actual task that is going to bring me to self-love and acceptance. I just have to relax into it and relax into the loving arms of the Universe. Acceptance is not a task that can be checked off on a to-do list; acceptance is a sinking into love, a sitting back and observing without judgment, without criticism, it is something of a passive act that creates the space for love and wonder to come in.
I realize I write a lot about self-love and all I can say is that it is something I keep working on, I haven't got it yet and I think it's one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. I think that a lot of people think that they love themselves, but don't acknowledge all the ways in which they withhold love. Since this is on my mind, I'm sharing this process, hoping to reinforce what I already know, hoping to deepen in the understanding that I have and hoping that in continuing to talk about this and acknowledge this process it will stay in the light and not become hidden in the shadow.
As I write this, I am filled with wonder for the marvelous opportunities that we have to observe and participate in love and growth. I am grateful for the experiences I perceive as challenges and those that I perceive as blessings. I am reminded that for me, the Universe is a place of love even though the world can sometimes seem to be a place of pain, and I am grateful for my pain which keeps me awake to the process of living and becoming. I also feel sadness for the places in me that are still unloved and not healed, but I know that I will get to them in time. As much as I would like to snap my fingers and be instantly filled with self-love, it is a journey, a process that will probably never be completed. I will hear that inner critic all my life, but I know that in learning to love myself I will hear what my inner critic says in a different way and I will allow it touch and inform my soul differently. The inner critic doesn't need to be shut down, it needs to be understood and heard and I can learn to do that with love.
