We are told time and time again:
“You must love yourself”.
And yet when we are feeling less loving towards others, it feels like an impossible thing to do.
Instead why not…
Love Yourself For NOT Loving
Can you love yourself for not loving someone or not liking someone?
It seems to go against the grain of so many spiritual teachings. We are taught to be compassionate and to accept both ourselves and others, but isn’t it tough to love yourself when you are not liking someone else?
How can we love who we are when we are having mean thoughts about others?
This is where acceptance comes in.
Accepting that a part of who we are does not feel love or even like for another.
And it is in this moment we need to love or accept our shadow self.
There is no ‘should’ in the word love.
This isn’t an easy idea to accept. I find it hard to accept my ‘inner mean girl’ because I know I have such a large capacity to love. So when I feel disgust, discomfort or extreme dislike of another human-being, a little war takes place inside me.
The ‘should love!’ comes a-calling.
I feel this desire to love or even simply to accept that person, but instead I feel unable to. For whatever reflection or button is being pushed by that ‘other’ person, it’s a challenge to accept them for who they are.
The desire to ‘will myself’ to accept them becomes so strong. And this is where mindfulness comes in.
Time to accept, and when ready, love me for ‘NOT loving’ or ‘NOT liking’.
Can you love and accept yourself when you feel repulsion, dislike or un-loving towards someone else?
When we begin to accept that we feel dislike, hate, rage or even repulsion towards another person, and allow these feelings because they are ‘What Is’ at this present moment, and bring these feelings into our hearts, we feel such a freedom. This freedom allows an inner transformation to take place.
A tool that is excellent for helping us to embrace our inner meanie is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). If you go to YouTube you will find countless free videos on how to do EFT, or check out this excellent guide on EFT The Tapping Solution by Nick Ortner.
What I have started doing is, when the ‘mean girl’ comes a-calling, I look or think about the person I am feeling dislike of and I tap all the mean thoughts I am having. I tap on the meridian points until the energy blockage has shifted and then, and only then, I bring in a more positive statement.
I say to myself ‘I love myself even though I do not like you right now!’ or something similar. And it really works.
Photo Credits:
Photo 1: Lara Cores via photopin cc
Photo 2: Vanessa Pike-Russell via photopin cc
Like this:
Like Loading...
Kelly Martin
Kelly Martin is the author of ‘When Everyone Shines But You’ , a passionate writer and blogger questioning life’s illusions. After what seemed like a decade of intense anxiety, feelings of failure and grief from the loss of her father she chose to take a mindfulness path and has not looked back since. Kelly encourages people to find the treasures that lie within the pain and suffering and to learn to see themselves as ‘enough’ exactly as they are, right now through her writing and You Tube channel .
Find me on: Web | Facebook
Great insights here. Hadn't thought of it like this. All part of the journey of being human.
Yes, something I had not considered before, if we cannot love ourselves when we are raging we are being conditional in that love.