Movement, change, action, motion….everything is always changing. Some patterns repeat themselves, but never exactly the same way. Nothing ever freezes, nothing stops. There is always something new, different, next.
The times we feel most unhappy are because we want something to change. It’s like we believe “this will not change” or “this must change or I can’t stand it” and logically if you follow along, whatever is happening IS going to change. Things NEVER stay the same.
But arrrgh! So unhappy! I want more money! I need a better relationship with my child! My father should have lived a longer life! My mother shouldn’t have been such a perfectionist! Life shouldn’t be so full of uncertainty, pain, death and failure!
I love Byron Katie’s description of her huge shift of consciousness when she awakened to a different reality than the extremely painful suicidal one she had been living. She says that what happened is she loved herself more than anything, she fell in love with the being she saw in the mirror.
Katie wasn’t trying to love herself. In fact she writes in the book 1000 Names For Joy that it was as if something else had woken up, “it” opened its eyes, “it” was looking through Katie’s eyes. Love without condition.
The Buddha wrote “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”.
Benjamin Franklin said “he that falls in love with himself will have no rivals”.
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely”~Carl Jung
This self-love thing is not easy, it appears. And actually may even be disconcerting, even terrifying to do.
How could this be? We all want this unconditional self-acceptance! What’s the problem?
In the beautiful book The Guru Next Door by Wendy Dolber (which I just started reading) the hero and teacher Bruce di Marsico studied unhappiness and discovered for himself that it was based on believing painful thoughts. There are so many beliefs about our inadequacies, and believing that we need to suffer in order to get anywhere.
Doh! Where have I heard THAT before!?!
These painful thoughts about ourselves are the most painful of all. That we are actually ‘bad’ for ourselves, the way eating rotten food might be bad for us, or smoking cigarettes might be bad for us, or procrastinating, getting angry, wanting things too much, wanting the “wrong” things, needing stuff, not perceiving our own best interests, making mistakes.
How amazing to think that the way you are, oh you who are not successful enough, giving enough, honest enough, kind enough, self-realized enough, enlightened enough, mature enough, pretty enough, rich enough.. ARE ACTUALLY COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY ENOUGH.
Could this be as true or truer than the belief that you need to fix something about yourself? Write down what you think you need to fix! Investigate it!
The way I am walking the road of unconditional self-love is through inquiry. Anyone can do it, even if it feels frightening to give up the ancient beliefs that improvement is necessary for happiness.
Maybe life will have action, motion, change, movement without me “trying” to love myself or make things happen, and the movement will be beautiful. Maybe being here is not an effort. Maybe there are no rivals, anywhere, nothing to be against, when I love myself.
Eventually there is no fear. You come to feel total acceptance: I am this, for now. And it’s all okay…..Ultimately, mind becomes its own friend.” ~Byron Katie
With love,
Grace