The Journey to Self-Love

Self-Love and Happiness are closely related.  People who love themselves have an easier time being happy and their happiness is not necessarily connected to something external; it is internal.  People who lack self-love usually correlate happiness to something external.  Happiness to non-self-loving humans is often associated with distraction.  They seek something that is apart from themselves.  They might be less introspective, but more introverted, but if they are extroverts they might feel insecure underneath their masks.   

Self-Love is more important than we think. It shapes and influences everything we do and experience.  Cultivating self-love from a place of non-self-love is very important.  It should be taught in schools, but who could teach such a subject?  Most of us do not live in societies that care about the inner life of an individual.  Our societies are greed driven and are concerned about what they can get from human beings.  It is harsh. Self-love is the opposite; it is warm and cozy.  How can we cultivate self-love in a world that values hiding emotions and feelings in order to be more efficient?

I believe that within each of us is a blue-print of a remedy for every type of negativity known.  There is a secret intelligence inside of our beating hearts that point us to salvation if we can listen to it.  However, there is a lot of noise in this world, a lot of chatter in our minds, and a lot of distractions to take us away from our centers.  Even if we know our own heart and what makes it beat, we might be swayed away from knowing ourselves.  Cultivating self-love involves the challenge to listen to our deep knowing of who we really are and what makes us feel centered and whole.   Knowing information and acting on inner guidance are two different things.  We might have a strong feeling of knowing who we are, but we might be very conditioned to not listen to our inner truth.  Society has done a good job at controlling us and diverting us away from our core, from our passions, from who we truly are.  It sometimes takes an esoteric battle to meet ourselves and pursue what is true.  Taking on that challenge is the biggest step towards self-love.  Being concerned with our ultimate happiness is a sign of self-love.  People must be ready to enter into the sometimes fierce challenge to be who they really are. 

It is easy to love oneself and be happy when we have parents and teachers who help guide us to our own deep, true selves.  But, most people don’t have that.  It is rare to be valued for who we really are; that is an inside job.  We learn from an early age that value is often defined by pleasing another, by fitting in, by conforming to a way of being that might be opposite from our inner guidance.  The challenge to break out of conformity, to break out of the mold of who we are supposed to be, and meet ourselves truthfully can be overwhelming.  Some cannot enter into this type of challenge.  Some go to battle and fail.  Some are exhausted before they even start. However, there are a few of us that are driven towards happiness and self-love.  If our desire is strong, we will be guided by a silent force that pushes us over and over again.   We may have glimpses of our true selves as if passing by a still pond and for a moment being able to see our own reflection.  We may lack patience and introspection to be able to embrace our truth and instead reach for a flat stone to skip on the surface of the water thus shattering the still mirror image that was trying to show us something.  Our own busy mind cannot often stand still enough to listen to divine guidance that seeks to show us our inner selves so that we may strive to be who we really are.  We might fail time and time again into what seems like eternity, until one lifetime makes the ingredients of determination strong enough.

Taking on the challenge to reach self-love and true, deep, inner happiness cannot be separated from this pursuit to be who we truly are.  We might have to defy society, defy who we thought we were, defy everything we have been taught about reality. It might be such a swift challenge that some might end up taking their own life.  Yet, there are a few who have faced the challenge and have won.  They evolve to be their authentic selves and serve as a way-shower for many.  It is these people who have something to give billions of people: hope.  Combine hope with perseverance.  Add determination to learn to know who we truly are.  Take inspired action to express this inner light.  Perhaps if enough of us do this, then the world will truly be an uplifted place to call home.  

Non-violent Communication Distilled #4

Chapter 4 of the third edition of Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life by the late Marshall Rosenberg, has to do with understanding feelings.  In reading this portion, we realize just how vague feelings are in our language and culture.  We are taught to be in our head, not in our heart.  We are taught to think about situations and living beings, to evaluate them, to form an opinion about them.  Seldom do we connect with our own feelings or the feelings of others unless we have had some formal training on the importance of listening to and feeling our feelings.  Most of us don't have a language of feeling, instead we have a language of thinking.

Rosenberg seeks to change this paradigm completely with his teachings of NVC (non-violent communication).  The second step in NVC is expressing our feelings.  (The first step is observing without evaluating)  It is important to be vulnerable and to let the other know just how we feel in response to a certain circumstance.  This is something we are not used to doing.  If we feel fearful about something, we are taught not to express that feeling for fear of appearing weak.  We are taught to fear being vulnerable and to pretend to be strong and callous even if we don't feel that way inside.

However, being vulnerable is the only way we can be real.  Only if we are real can we have heart-felt experiences with others that satisfy our need for connection.  Otherwise, we have shallow encounters void of real feelings and emotional intimacy.  Since we can live our entire lives behind a mask of thoughts, far away from our essential feelings, we might not at first understand the depth of importance of NVC.  We may not see it as the gift to humankind that it is.  It enables people to communicate with a language of feelings in order to cultivate compassion and deep understanding.

Without a language of feelings, we remain in a world that is hostile, aggressive and cold.  The more we are in touch with how we feel, the more we care about others' feelings.  The more we care about others, the more we change to become a more compassionate group of people.   The more compassionate people there are in the world, the less violence we have.  Eventually, people will be able to fully love one another, animals and plants and treat them all with tender respect.  NVC is a path to get to this peace.  It becomes a spiritual practice, in a way, because it leads to a world of Love and Compassion. 

It is important not to confuse opinions, evaluations, and other thoughts for feelings.  For example, one might say that they feel ignored.  This is not a feeling.  This is an interpretation of the actions of others.  One might feel hurt when they thought they were being ignored because they wanted to be involved.  In another example, someone said they feel unimportant to co-workers.  The word "unimportant" describes how they think others are evaluating them.  Actually, they might be feeling sad or discouraged. 

On pages 44 - 45 of this third edition of the book, there are lists of words that convey how we are feeling when we are getting our needs met and how we are feeling when we are not.  These lists might help us when we feel that we don't have an internal language of feelings.  Most of us don't think about feelings and needs and we are not able to observe without evaluating or make requests without sounding demanding.  NVC is clearly a new way to communicate with compassion that ushers in a new world of peace.