I’m seeing something that’s so obvious and will sound so puerile and clichéd that I’m debating with myself whether I’ll say it or not.
I’m seeing what is for me the missing piece in all of this. And I’m getting it at deeper and deeper levels. It’s as if it’s sinking in. At last.
The primary malfunction that puts everything else out of step is our failure to love ourselves. That sounds so obvious but it’s so profound.
One can see the point viewed from many perspectives.
Like anything else, each of us is an energy system and, if the energy isn’t circulating in the system, the energy stops or dilutes. Love has to circulate in our systems first before we have the strength it takes to circulate it elsewhere.
Just from the mechanics of the situation, I hope you can see the necessity of loving ourselves.
But to take it a step further, I now see how I used to get frustrated and angry if I couldn’t squeeze another drop of love out of my poor partner. I was convinced that I was going to “get” love from her and, when it never happened, I was left frustrated.
I never saw the responsibility I had to love myself.
Making peace with ourselves is an indispensable step back to well-functioning. That stops the internal fighting. But actually falling in love with ourselves is what heals and repairs and catapults us forward.
There’s more than one way one can love oneself. One can imagine that there’s a Big Steve and a Little Steve and Big Steve is taking care of Little Steve, little buddy, our inner child.
You have to get the irony of using this imaginary ploy for one who was dissociated for around 50 years of his life. (1) It’s like voluntarily going back into dissociation. I must be making up for lost time to consider it.
We can imagine that we’re madly, passionately in love with our embodied twin. We can simply circulate love throughout all of our own being.
Hug yourself. Talk to yourself. Shout your love from the rooftops.
Whatever works to have you love yourself.
This for me is the starting point. I don’t think we get to go past “Go” and collect $200 until we’ve (1) succeeded in making peace with ourselves and (2) begun continuously to love ourselves.
Footnotes
(1) See “What Changes Can Be Seen?” July 5, 2015, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/?p=261362.