“Do I love myself?”
I asked this question, and here’s what came through…
You are starting to. But it is still limited. You love yourself because you feel good about yourself and your life.
Do you know that you are much more than your body, personality, and accomplishments? Do you know that even if you lose this life, this identity, this physical experience, you never cease to exist?
You are a beautiful, eternal, powerful soul. Do you remember who you are?
Can you love yourself, not only as who you are in this lifetime, but as the soul that has lived thousands of lifetimes and simultaneously exists in the ether?
Your soul is interwoven in the divine tapestry with all the souls in existence. You are united as one. You are spirit.
And so, “Do I love myself?” is another way of asking, “Do I love God?” Because you are God. Call it anything you want – God, spirit, the universe, or source. You are it.
You are much more than your name. This lifetime is a tiny facet of all that you are – which is love.
You are love in its purest form. It is your truest essence. It is the only part of you that continues eternally, the only part that stays with you when it is time to shed your body.
Then, loving yourself is not something to strive for outside of you. You don’t even need to love yourself first to BE love. Loving yourself is about returning to your core.
When you don’t love yourself, you deny who you truly are.
You think that you are small, unworthy, flawed, weak, alone. You think that you are unloveable.
This creates so much pain, because it is the opposite of what your soul knows you to be.
Look at the human race – racing to become more beautiful, more successful, more liked.
Billions of people struggle to love themselves because they cut themselves off from their true essence, from source.
To love yourself, stop trying to be something that you think you’re not already.
Because as souls, you are all:
- Beautiful individual expressions of love in human form, with the most radiant light you can imagine at its core
- Already successful simply by existing, by shedding your unique light onto the world in this life and across all your existences
- More loved than you will ever know – unconditionally loved by all the spirits you’ve danced with lifetime after lifetime
You were already this and so much more before the day you were born.
When your human personality doubts itself, when you feel lesser, alone, and unworthy… Remember who you really are.
This doesn’t mean shun the parts of yourself you don’t like. Look at them through the eyes of love, accept them, and embrace them as the peaks and valleys of your human experience.
Because what we label as “negative” or “dark” is also part of love, at the cosmic level.
You cannot remember that you are love through a concept or idea. It must be a tangible experience, a feeling, a knowing you can’t deny.
Loving yourself becomes a practice of bringing yourself closer to your core and to spirit.
People experience this great love through meditation, a soulful connection with a beloved, or while immersed in something beautiful like nature or art. Or a near death experience. And others, through psychedelics.
It’s an utter sense of transcendence, ecstasy, and boundlessness that cannot be described by words. It cannot be compared to what you thought was love your whole life.
Instantly, this blindingly great love blooms in your heart and expands to encompass everything.
Everything becomes love. You are love. The knowing comes without thought or question.
But is experiencing this a handful of times enough to integrate the knowing into your daily life?
It must become a practice. The more you clear the separation and ego within you, the more you can walk in the world as love.
And when you know you are love, you will not feel the need to chase it, protect it, withhold it, or control it.
Love can never be given to you, as much as it can never be taken away from you. This is because it is not separate from you, and it never was.
When you remember this, it becomes how you are being. You share and breathe love with every breath.
You’ll know that others are also love, even if they don’t see it in themselves. With new eyes, you’ll witness the purest love in their core that mirrors your own.
And only then, when you find the love within yourself, can you truly share it with others.
You begin to love others without wanting or needing anything from them.
This love has no distinction – no separation, no boundaries, no preference. It is the same everywhere. It flows from one being to another, connecting all beings in the multiverse, like rivers flowing into the ocean.
“Do I love myself?”
The actual answer is yes, and no. The human “you” may not be there yet, but You – the soul – loves you and has always loved you.
For many years, you’ve walked through life as a human without much awareness of your soul.
And now, you’re starting to realize that you were never alone. The love you were always chasing outside of you – through your parents’ approval, peers’ acceptance, and romantic love – is within you in a much purer form.
Wherever you are, whatever is going on around you, keep coming back to your center. Relax into the freedom of being yourself and knowing that you are whole.
From that place of peace, love will flow through you… life will dance with you… and the love of the universe will shine on everything you touch.
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Love,
Ashmi
