20 Empowering Spiritual Reasons to Start Loving Yourself
Self-love gets confused at times with narcissism. Loving yourself doesn’t mean you’re self-centered or only thinking about yourself. It doesn’t mean railroading other people in order to get what you want. It’s about taking care of yourself in the best way possible. It means owning your own power and acting from a place of kindness towards yourself. This way, you are ready to love others, having revitalized your own spirit.
This is what happens when we love ourselves:
- Renewing our spirits: we let go of negative forces in our lives, like blame, shame, and anger. We place the space with positive influences, such as ownership, creation, and power.
- Empowering ourselves: instead of miring ourselves in self-doubt, we feel, hear, and believe in our power. The opinions of others don’t count for anything; what matters is how we feel about ourselves.
- Giving ourselves peace: our spirits are still and calm. We accept ourselves — including our strengths and weaknesses — unconditionally.
- Owning our lives: responsibility for our own actions is a key part of any spiritually mature person’s life. We recognize that we are the source of all happiness. We are the source of the power to change our futures, careers, relationships, passion, compassion, empathy and authenticity. We have the power to change our own lives.
- Connecting with the world around us: we let go of loneliness and embrace a deeper connection and sense of oneness with the world, people included.
- Living to our potential: we allow ourselves to show up in the world and live our purpose. We aren’t afraid to pursue what fulfills us.
- Overflow of our love to others: the more we look at ourselves with love, the more we practice love and acceptance toward those around us. We let go of thoughts that negate our reality (ideas of what people should be or how they ought to react), and we become lovers of what is, accepting it and people.
- Embracing our humanity: we understand that we aren’t perfect and we allow ourselves to be human. We accept the mistakes and failures we have, and we invite vulnerability into our lives.
- Being enough for ourselves: proving ourselves in the eyes of others is not worth our time. We understand that we don’t need to impress anyone. We know that we are enough.
- Living courageously: we are no longer ruled by fear, because we know that love is the strongest power of all. When we choose love over fear, we become stress-free beings and improve the overall quality of our lives.
- Living freely: we let go of competition and comparing ourselves to others. Therefore, we’ll always be enough.
- Living creatively: when we love ourselves, we give birth to creativity, inspiration and openness. We inspire our hearts again to follow what our spirits celebrate.
- Accepting our lives: we understand reality instead of blaming and fighting it, because we know that love is in every corner. We hold on to our lives with a loose, loving grip.
- Bringing harmony to others: We attract accord, peace, spaciousness, and significance in our relationships. The self knows how to love better, and spreads it to other people.
- Accepting failure: we find courage to accept failure because we know that it is one step closer to growth, and our significance isn’t dependent on what we produce.
- Letting ourselves grow: we let go of keeping ourselves small in this world and allow growth instead, just like the tree that grows to provide shade and food for an infinite number of people. The more we grow, the more we spread love and joy.
- Handling stress: when we love ourselves, we become aware of our stressful thoughts and how we react when think them. We question their truthfulness and we choose to turn them around and invite stillness instead into our lives.
- Securing ourselves: We feel safe because we know that we will always be right here for ourselves.
- Dazzling naturally: we shine without working for it or fighting to get it.
- Living abundantly: we move from scarcity to abundance in every area of life without the need to fight or push to get it.
About the Author
How Does an HSP Cope With All the Suffering in the World?
If you’re not familiar with the term HSP, please see the definition for “Highly Sensitive Person” from Dr. Elaine Aron.
With no simple answer, I’m afraid. I’ve pondered my own answer to this question for several years. The following Meditation of Hope and Love came to me during one of my own meditations a few years ago. I use it often…and lately, that means almost daily!
A Meditation of Hope and Love
Find a meditation time – at least 30 minutes, or longer, if possible. You know the criteria – quiet, uninterrupted time and space, preferably your own special place that may have candles or a special feeling of comfort and security for you.
Sit or lie down in a very comfortable position. (I prefer lying, with something light and soft to cover me.)
- Begin slow, deep breathing, focusing on blowing all your breath out – as if blowing out a candle.
- Breathe in deeply, through your nose, to a count of 8 or 10. Hold for a count of four.
- Breathe out, again as if blowing out a candle, to a count of ten.
You want to create a very deep cleansing breath. Notice: You might begin yawning, or drifting off to sleep. Go with whatever feels best for you. There is no ‘doing it wrong’ here. Just keep practicing until eventually you can complete the whole meditation. Now here comes the harder, yet important part.
Begin to allow your mind to go ahead and focus on all the things you have been concerned or worrying about. Like many of you, I have been close to tears each day as I hear about all the suffering in the world.
Lovingly ask each individual concern to patiently wait in line — assuring them they will all have a chance to be heard. In your relaxed state, begin to see each entity forming a line, waiting patiently. As they come up to be heard, assign them a name like Robin Williams, Gaza/Palenstine conflict, Nigerian girls or maybe for you it might be lost job, finances, or whatever else evolves as an appropriate and loving way to remember and honor your concerns.
As an HSP, these kinds of images tend to burrow deep into my inner world and I can begin to feel burdened, lethargic, and sometimes hopeless. Cognitively, I know there is really nothing I can (concretely) do about these tragedies, yet my yearnings for a better world keep my mind occupied.
Now comes the next step in your meditation.
