Be Generous With Your Love

I’m talking about two types of generosity here:  The first type is generosity toward yourself; the second is generosity toward others.

The most common, perhaps only, root of the “problems” that clients present to me is a lack of self-love.  Technically, it’s a forgetting of the self-love that we all have.  Before we made the choice to come here, we knew who we were.  The big cosmic joke is that when we get here we have forgotten who we are:  radiant beings with the power of the Universe within us.  Our lives, hopefully, become the process of remembering who we are, and expanding our souls as we do.

Clients often ask me how they can learn to love themselves.  My two best pieces of advice are these:  know yourself, and act like you love yourself.

Many people have no idea who they are.  They have spent so much of their lives being outwardly focused and avoiding being alone at all costs, that they don’t even know themselves.  How can you love yourself if your don’t know yourself?  Know who you are, what you like, what you dislike, and what you desire.  Give yourself space and time to get to know yourself.  Keep a journal in which your record all your discoveries.  Spend time by yourself, so the quietness of your soul will be able to emerge.  Meditate.  Walk or sit in nature.  Breathe.  Wonder.  Be with yourself.  Allow yourself the freedom to be who you are in this moment, knowing that you may have a different thought or desire in the next, and that’s okay too.

One caveat here:  the reason many people don’t know themselves is that they fear they will not like the person they discover.  You will inevitably find parts of yourself that you don’t like: that’s called your shadow.  And the greatest of life’s gifts lie there.  If you need help with getting through this part, and it can be tough, I recommend enlisting the services of a therapist or coach.  I promise you that there is no part of yourself that is unlovable.  And if you have the courage to go there, you will not regret it.

Now for the second part- act loving toward yourself.  Don’t wait until you feel like doing something loving for yourself.  Just do it.  Otherwise, you may find yourself sitting on your couch waiting for a bolt of self-love lightening to strike…forever.  Doing loving things for yourself helps you remember how much you already love yourself.

Treat yourself the way you would treat someone that you loved.  If you loved someone, would  you force them to stay up late and do more and more work, even when they were really tired?  Would you feed them things that would lower their energy level and harm their overall health?  Would you want them to allow others to treat them badly?  To keep quiet about how they feel and what they want in their relationships?  Think about all the nice things you would do for a lover or friend that you really loved, and then do those things for yourself.

Recently, I’ve been called a tease, several times, due to my having multiple-part blogs.  Since ya’ll already think I’m a tease, I have nothing to lose.  I’m gonna do it again!  I am going to write about being generous with your love toward others in my next blog.  (Honestly, though, I bet it won’t bother you since this blog is not about sex ;)!)