During 25 years of practice as a healer and therapist, the most common "problem" I encounter- indeed it is virtually universal- is a profound lack of Self love. Whatever the presenting issue, be it physical, emotional or mental, as we journey together through the subconscious mind and cellular make-up we eventually bump up against the familiar refrain:- "I don't / can't love myself", "I'm bad", "I'm not good enough", "I don't deserve love". This core belief, tho' just a few short words long, has the destructive impact of a nuclear bomb, wiping out in one fell swoop any hope or expectation of real happiness, health, joy, fulfillment and success. It is the toxic foundation for all forms of co-dependancy in relationship- a grim spectrum which runs from self-denial & "giving to get (love)" all the way to serious forms of abuse either by self or others.

Loving yourSelf (note the intentional use of the capital S) is the (only) way to rebuild a solid inner core, right down to the cellular level, from which to manifest a life of security, happiness, health, creativity, fulfillment, generosity, success, and the capacity to genuinely love others. So, if its benefits are so profound, and the common sense of loving yourSelf is so patently obvious, why then does it seem so hard to do? Why do so many of us find it easier to love and give to others, but not ourSelf? Why the feeling of discomfort, or even shame, when we contemplate loving ourSelf?

There are a number of levels involved in the answer. Firstly there is the socio-religious. Although organised religion is, in our day and age, losing its grip on our spiritual development, some of its tenets have been thoroughly absorbed into secular western culture and are still deeply imprinted in our psyche. Whether Catholic, Protestant or unbeliever the message that has been drummed in over hundreds of years has been the same: Self love is bad / wrong / sinful; it leads to vanity, self indulgence, avarice, debauchery and worse. I recently came across the following quotation from Calvin, one of the founding fathers of puritanical protestantism: "If the individual finds something in himself „on the strength of which he finds pleasure in himself,“ he betrays this sinful self-love. This fondness for himself will make him sit in judgment over others and despise them. Therefore, to be fond of oneself, to like anything about oneself is one of the greatest imaginable sins. It excludes love for others and is identical with selfishness." Behind such an assertion of course lurks the still deeper and utterly erroneous belief that the Self- a human being, you , me, a new born baby- is intrinsically bad, evil, selfish, and a danger to others. This utterly misanthropic view of humanity reveals itself in another distortion-- the way in which the whole concept of sin has been twisted into the opposite of its original meaning. The word sin comes from the latin expression sin amor which translates as without love. In the early Christian community, before it was hijacked by the Roman empire, the single moral instruction was simply to Love: to think and act from Love. To do otherwise, to think or act "sin amor" was just seen as an error, a faulty or mistaken thought process which calls for correction and a return to natural, love-sourced thinking. It really is quite extraordinary to realise that what began as an absence (sin, without) of the essential quality necessary for truly human conduct was turned into a long and frightening list of sins: proscribed behaviours- a spiritual penal code designed to scare and coerce its subjects into compliance. Not surprisingly, this fixation on negative qualities has, throughout history, produced abundant acting out of the very behaviours it was designed to suppress- whatever you resist persists! On the contrary, in A Course in Miracles we are told :" its not necessary to tell a person what to do, simply show them who they are (a divine being)". In other words, once we recognise the innocent, divine nature of our Self we are incapable of treating others in anything less than a loving, respectful way.

Then there is the family level. Few of us were fortunate enough to be reared by parents who realised the importance of instilling a profound sense of loveableness and self worth in their children, nor how to do so. Unintentionally, but inexorably, the dysfunctional message was passed down through the generations that our nature is innately wayward and will lead to antisocial and immoral activity if not checked and controlled. One of the commonest instruments of such control has been to crush the child's spirit, to instil a sense of fear and wrongness about shining, standing out, showing initiative and thinking for itself by "putting them in their place", "cutting them down to size", "not letting them get big ideas" etc etc. Disapproval, criticism, punishment, often meted out "for our own good" or to spur us on to higher achievement, corrode our natural sense of Self worth and condition us to expect more of the same in our adult life. We become emotional slaves recreating the childhood family dynamics in co-dependant adult relationships.

Finally there is the spiritual level, and the commonly held belief that it is somehow worthier / holier to love others before ourSelves, as if in some form of spiritual service to others. Nothing could be further from the truth. In actual fact, such a belief is nothing more than a sophisticated cover up for a deeply seated lack of Self love, a subtle variation on the "giving to get" theme. No less a teacher than Jesus instructed us to "Love your neighbour as yourSelf". If we don't love ourSelf in the first instance, what kind of love can we offer our neighbour? At best an imitation. To give the real thing we first need to have it in ourSelves. Then we can share it; naturally, generously, effortlessly, form a place of fullness. We are all teachers, and are always teaching: not so much by our words as by our actions. To genuinely give or teach love, we first need to embody it.
Love is the natural state of our Self. It is not something we have to contrive or force. Making the choice to love ourSelf is really the decision to take on the task of removing the blocks that have been put in the way of that inherent feeling of Love & Rightness that is our divine birthright so that it can flow freely through our being once more.

So how do we learn to love ourSelves? First step of course is to recognise the need to do so as an absolute imperative, the top priority in our daily life. The next step is to realise that Self love is unconditional, and IS A CHOICE! We can always find plenty of "reasons" why we don't deserve to be loved- our subconscious mind is full of them! Loving yourSelf means recognizing this inherited & ingrained attitude as something which, although very familiar is utterly baseless and untrue and that we are free at any moment to choose unconditional love for ourSelf in its place. Putting off the choice doesn't make it any easier.There is no more suitable or appropriate time to begin than RIGHT NOW. Not after you have lost weight, cured the skin condition, left the dysfunctional relationship or whatever else your mind may throw up as a reason to defer, but RIGHT NOW. In point of fact, it is only the decision to love yourSelf unconditionally and follow through on it which will give you the necessary strength and support to change what is not working in your life.

Then PRACTICE! Loving onesSelf is much more than a nice idea: is a practical, applied skill. Can you remember how much determination and effort it took to learn to walk; or to talk? Can you recall how many times you had to- literally- pick yourself up off the floor and try again until, step by step, word by word, before you found your feet, your voice? Learning to love yourSelf is no less an undertaking, and demands no less applicapplication and determination to succeed. Only this time the encouragement to go on has to come from yourSelf. Anything less and you will give up at the first real challenge and fall back into the familiar zone of worthlessness or reach for one of the many substitutes for love which modern society surrounds us with: a new relationship, a new car, a new hairstyle, a new fashion statement, a new job, a new drug, a new life-style, a new philosophy, a new religion, a new teacher........ There is nothing new under the Sun- just the feeling of novelty, a temporary distraction from our self inflicted unhappiness. There has only ever been one path to real and lasting happiness: Loving yourSelf! Practice makes perfect. And it does get easier!