How is it that…..
I constantly come back to this same curiosity…..
”Why wouldn’t we love ourselves every moment of the day?”
Why not love authentically and unconditionally and how could this question ever get old or redundant?
When we love ourselves and live this inner experience of unconditioned Love it seems that what follows is that this love generates more love and ripples out to other people and situations.
It is quite simple and yet so complex. It becomes even more complicated when it seems we get confused about what is truly unconditioned Love. I have experienced people describing the ‘unconditioned Love’ they are enacting and yet there are so many subtle cues that perhaps it is not quite without conditions.
My way of cross checking myself is noticing if there is any ‘but’ or caveat attached to the love. For me, any ‘condition’ even remotely attached means there is still some refinement left for me to do.
I generally then ask myself what the ‘but’ or condition means to me.
I also ask what possible reason I might have for not loving myself or another person without judgement?
Why isn’t the status quo more about meeting each person without judgement and reducing the habit of creating lesser than/greater than comparisons between us? Why do we write so many ‘stories’ that seek to limit people?
(When I say ‘stories’ I am talking about what we mentally ‘write’ about ourselves or others that somehow defines us or them. These definitions can then come to limit or ‘box-in’ ourselves or the other person. At times these stories can also incorporate a sense of us or them being ‘better’ than the other. What would happen if we saw everyone beyond the limitations of story? Can we do that?)
There are many factors for how we have gotten so entrenched in judgement, comparisons and a lack of self love….so many ways we have been conditioned to think these are healthy and normal human behavior.
In this mix is our general relationship with words and concepts.
Language can get fairly sticky when it comes to our ideas and stories about ourselves, others and the world.
A perfect word example would be the topic of this initial question: ‘Love’.
You could ask 100 people what it means and probably get 100 different answers or emotional responses.
Try sitting with the concept of ‘Love’ for a few minutes and see all the different ideas, definitions and feelings that come to you.
Now imagine that it is different for every person you might encounter in 1 day. And than multiply this times the diversity of each culture around the planet.
Where and how do we all meet on this fundamental word and concept? How can we use such a diverse and individualized expression in sweeping generalized ways?
We can apply this same exploration to other potent words/concepts:
Happiness - Success - Good - Purpose
These and so many more are subject to the influences of the past and societal standards towards what is perceived as ‘normal’ and desirable. Each has a ‘should’ attached to it in relation to our lives. And each one wields a heavy effect on our personalities, perceptions and the world we create.
How is it that we haven’t figured out that ‘normal’ is an illusion we buy into? How is it we are so readily accepting of criticism, judgement and competitive systems of coexistence as the standard?
When did this become the ‘norm’….and did it happen all at once or as a slow and quiet movement……
4 COMMENTS
Hi there and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I believe everything is a process as opposed to all or nothing…..we have ‘gotten to where we are’ simply by choice after choice. I don’t know if there is something I would call ‘good reasons’…..simply reasons. Shifts happen in many different ways and when it comes to humans….it is amazingly complex.
Each of us taking the time to practice self awareness and reflection…..to actually question without judgement……(and the particular here is the bit ‘without judgement’)…….we might discover many different perspectives. Perhaps not unlike the area next to the back door where you go to volunteer…how can we open up to many perspectives (ways of seeing) without judging one as ‘better’ than another.
And truly…..why not love yourself every moment? Why subscribe to anything that makes you less than another or vice versa?
And as the focus of my last writing (‘How is it that….’ post) I don’t believe that sacrificing self love is a ‘necessary price of us living together’. But that is simply my opinion and lived experience…..
In all my travels and teaching …..I have yet to see a downside to self love.
Thanks again and take care.
Thinking, unless there is a purpose, ends like a dog chasing its own tail: you get dizzy, fall over, then forget what you were thinking about.
Hi Alex,
I laughed at what you shared …thanks.
But also… what I was writing about is more along the lines of our conditioning….thoughts left unquestioned (uninterrupted). My explorations are in the realm of how we create such struggle in ourselves, the world and towards others based on labels and judgements. I didn’t reference this context because I write of it so often…..
We are thinking machines so to speak….it is happening every moment unless we choose otherwise. We do it without ‘purpose’ all the time but don’t typically fall down dizzy. For humans it seems that our daily practice is to just hold on even tighter to the thought to prop ourselves up….
And again…I am speaking about thoughts as the means for how we construct our ‘reality’. The ways we see the world and the opinions we are so attached to….the limitations we are comfortable having because we want definition.
I loved what you wrote because I love dogs and the sense of authentic expression. Yes, the chasing of the tail and the wagging so hard that they fall down…..
‘Joyful joyful as only dogs know how to be’
Thanks again for writing and hope this reply finds you well.
🙂