Why can’t I love myself?

I’m sure you’ve heard it before. “You just need to love yourself…” Maybe you had a friend who even said it to you when you were going through a rough patch. We hear it all the time, but most of us really don’t know how to do it. And then, even if we succeed at demonstrating an inkling of self-love towards ourselves, we have difficulty sustaining it. We may even sabotage it. It’s like a vicious cycle. 

Most people have never had any real example in their lives that demonstrated how to truly love themselves. Loving yourself doesn’t mean that things won’t happen. It’s not a recipe for an eternally painless existence, and besides what would be the fun in that? We all love a little drama or challenge sometimes. Let’s face it, even the most disciplined spiritual seeker has trouble with this, at times. 

Now, I’m not just harping on this subject to give a little rant. I want to share real ways to practice communicating love to yourself. To understand how your brain knows that you are loving you instinctually let’s talk babies. They are wired for attention and affection, which their brains translate as love. Just because you have a bigger body now, doesn’t mean this instinctual part of the brain has dissipated, Its just more balanced by other needs as the brain develops into adulthood. So, if you want to love yourself you have to be willing to turn your attention to YOU. This sounds easy, but we live in a culture of distraction. We use other people, drugs, activities, vacations, whatever so we don’t actually have to deal with ourselves. Even meditation can be used in this way, when we are distracted by fantasy or thoughts as we meditate. So a prerequisite to loving yourself is to CHOOSE YOU. Don’t worry about what’s going on with other people. What is going on with you? This is how the love begins, with your attention. You have to give yourself some attention every day. Think about it, what would happen to the baby if you didn’t give them your undivided attention every single day? 

Giving yourself attention can look like many things. But, JOY should be involved. Whatever you are doing to give yourself attention should make you feel good. Remember the babies? They don’t want attention from their caregivers that makes them feel bad. They want you to make them feel good and validated! Sometimes we become disconnected from our sense of play, so we don’t know what makes us feel good anymore. If you’re like this, this is going to take a little investigation and exploration, just like children do, to find out what truly gives you joy. This process is connected to the Second Chakra, and the Second Chakra is the most important chakra to the function of your intuition. Remember, your intuition only wants to make you happy! 

So CHOOSE YOU and PLAY, and that’s loving you. The reason consolation feels like love, is because it makes us feel good. Compassion feels good. Letting go feels go. Freedom feels good! 

Remember, if you don’t give yourself attention you will instinctually try to get it from others, and that is inevitably a dark path of twisting yourself up to fit into others’ expectations. 

So, the next time you think you just need a little self-love you’ll know what to do.