WHO WE REALLY ARE

A resolution to love oneself.  What a good idea.  When people I know, or come to know,
no matter their age, step back from there public selves, the part that others easily see, often they silently reveal a need to love themselves, and are judgmental of who they think they are and what they have done.  No matter how much money they have, what they have done in life, whether famous or not, they carry a belief deep down that they are not good enough, no matter what. 

It's a cultural thing.  It's a religious thing.  It's a school thing, something we all learn: that no matter what we do, or who we are, we tend to believe we are never quite good enough.  Not true, but it is a common belief. 

As we come to remember who we are inside, the us that was born innocent and kind and connected to everyone, we exhale and remember the truth.  What happens when someone sees, really sees you, or I, inside, behind the personality and that public self we have learned to display, to be part of what some may refer to as consensus reality?
 
Instead of the term loving oneself, I suggest a different term, or words.  Instead of loving myself, I listen to myself.  I pay attention to familiar feelings and beliefs that separate me from others....feelings that only exist in the body, not the mind.  I can tune into that feeling sensation (for seconds or a minute) that remind me to show up now, be present, be aware of the familiar pattern that I have reacted to since a child. 

Loving myself is all about awareness.  Self awareness. Aware of all my body sensations, feelings and thoughts that accompany that feeling, then take a different action.   The actions include being silent instead of reacting.  Feeling a feeling without need to explain it or speak of it.

And, only speak when I can be heard.  Only then.  Notice when I am judging, making someone else wrong, blaming, and then simply and quietly let them be in my mind.   Maybe this is loving others, an action that I can take daily.  From this perspective, I don't need to love myself.  Not when I am loving others more often.  Loving them means letting them be in my thoughts.  Then I am not loving myself, I am simply being.  It's a practice.
A daily, hourly practice.