{"id":35621,"date":"2025-01-18T23:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T23:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alternative-medicine\/what-does-self-love-actually-look-like\/"},"modified":"2025-01-18T23:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T23:04:13","slug":"what-does-self-love-actually-look-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=35621","title":{"rendered":"What Does Self Love Actually Look Like?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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\"self<\/p>\n
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What Does Self Love Look Like?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I know. The idea of self-love doesn\u2019t sit so well with our Western sensibilities.<\/p>\n

But it hits on a topic that I\u2019m eager to explore with you.<\/p>\n

Recently, I had an experience around self-compassion and self-love that was kind of a revelation for me.<\/p>\n

As a Mindfulness Meditation teacher, a lot of what I teach and share with people has to do with developing and nurturing self-compassion and loving-kindness. The Buddhist term for this is Maitri.<\/p>\n

There are different ways that I feather Maitri into the teaching I do.<\/p>\n

Self-Compassion Takes Work<\/h2>\n

But self-compassion is not a one-and-done type of thing. In my experience, you don\u2019t just \u201cget it\u201d and then you\u2019re good to go.<\/p>\n

Self-compassion\u2014or self friendliness as Pema Chodron likes to call it\u2014takes work.<\/p>\n

As with all good things, it takes time to realize the fruits.<\/p>\n

And just like all our important relationships, it requires an investment. That\u2019s even more true in our relationship with ourselves. Because that relationship is primary. It fundamentally influences all our other friendships.<\/p>\n

This came into sharp relief for me recently.<\/p>\n

Losing Touch With My Heart<\/h2>\n

The other day, I had a challenging interaction with a dear friend. Afterwards, I was beset with the whole range of emotions. I felt paranoid. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was at a loss.<\/p>\n

But I could see that most of the feelings and inner narratives arising were directed outwards.<\/p>\n

And I knew that I needed to stay with all of it because I felt disconnected from my heart and my deeper experience. That sweet spot that was going to help me metabolize the whole thing.<\/p>\n

When Self-Compassion Is Absent<\/h2>\n

And then, as I was exercising, the penny dropped.<\/p>\n

I saw the whole carousel of troubled feelings and narratives going round and round, and it suddenly occurred to me.<\/p>\n

This is what it feels like when self-compassion is missing.<\/p>\n

All my attention had been magnetized towards trying to fix something about what I was feeling. And rehashing the exchange in my head.<\/p>\n

But then I just said to myself, \u201cI love you. It\u2019s OK, everything is OK. I love you and everything you\u2019re feeling is fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can We Get A Little Love Over Here?<\/h2>\n

These words came straight from my heart. Instantly there were tears.<\/p>\n

But these were tears of insight, release, and relief.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The insight being \u201cOh, I don\u2019t need to fix or solve a goddamn thing, I just need to give myself a little love here, a little compassion. Everything else is a distraction. Everything else is secondary or not even real. You\u2019re trying to solve something that doesn\u2019t actually exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole structure of outward projection suddenly became an object, and it was transparent to me. I was seeing it instead of being it.<\/p>\n

What do I mean when I say it was an outward projection? I mean that when things like this happen, it can be hard to really stay with our own experience. The hurt, the pain, the vulnerability.<\/p>\n

These are the wounds that, when untended and not attuned to, give rise to those familiar narratives of self-recrimination and blame.<\/p>\n

As a result, we often look to our minds for an explanation or a rationale to help us make sense of it all. But more often than not, that means we\u2019re stepping outside of and away from our moment to moment felt experience.<\/p>\n

The place where the hurt and confusion actually live inside us\u2026in our bodies and hearts.<\/p>\n

The Logic of the Heart<\/h2>\n

As I\u2019m learning over and over again, we can\u2019t start healing until we start feeling.<\/p>\n

So in that moment of self compassion everything became plain and simple in the comprehensive logic of the heart.<\/p>\n

I saw it all as a structure. A cultural structure, a familial structure, a personal structure of self recrimination, self criticism, and the predictable result of an achievement-oriented culture focused on perfection and presentation.<\/p>\n

What a relief to see through it. To return home to myself.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but I can say for myself that these patterns and narratives that obscure self compassion and self-love run deep. We learned them a long long time ago.<\/p>\n

Self-Love Takes Work<\/h2>\n

And we have to really work at loving ourselves.<\/p>\n

I appreciate that to our Western sensibilities, that sounds self-involved, self-indulgent, and narcissistic. But I\u2019m starting to see how that\u2019s a gross misinterpretation of what we\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m talking about is insight and integrity of self and soul.<\/p>\n

It means that we\u2019re not divided against ourselves. That our energy, our spirits, our hearts, and our minds are not divided and dis-integrated as we move through the world.<\/p>\n

For me, this is opening up a fresh and deeper understanding of self compassion, and I\u2019m grateful for it.<\/p>\n

Engaging Heaven\u00a0And<\/em>\u00a0Earth<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve been meditating for 29 years and a lot of that was spent in the singular pursuit of transcendent experiences. I had a lot of those, and they were amazing.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s clear to me that no amount of sitting in the blissful lap of God will help us deal with the reality of our earthly selves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In my experience, those experiences don\u2019t actually help us compost our deeply ingrained cultural patterns of perfectionism and all the untended wounds we shelter within the shadows of our soul.<\/p>\n

And they won\u2019t help us bring a tender touch to our own hearts and help us attune to what we really need in any given moment.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, we are engaging both Heaven AND Earth in our meditation practice. Why? Because we\u2019re made from a bit of both.<\/p>\n

As I understand it, one key function of our daily practice is that it serves as an engine and a container to help us metabolize pain, heartbreak, and frustration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the process, we not only get to know ourselves more deeply. We also make deep healing contact with our own wounded hearts.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not all.<\/p>\n

Meditation is also the place where we can finally let go of everything\u2014all our desires, worries, cares, concerns, neuroses, and obsessions\u2014and discover that we can fly.<\/p>\n

And by the way, yes, I did resolve things with my dear friend. I just had to resolve things with myself first.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Does Self Love Look Like? I know. The idea of self-love doesn\u2019t sit so well with our Western sensibilities. But it hits on a topic that I\u2019m eager to explore with you. Recently, I had an experience around self-compassion and self-love that was kind of a revelation for me. As a Mindfulness Meditation teacher, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11764],"tags":[465],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-35621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alternative-medicine","tag-love"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Does Self Love Actually Look Like? - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=35621\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Does Self Love Actually Look Like? - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What Does Self Love Look Like? I know. The idea of self-love doesn\u2019t sit so well with our Western sensibilities. But it hits on a topic that I\u2019m eager to explore with you. Recently, I had an experience around self-compassion and self-love that was kind of a revelation for me. 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