As you love yourself

Love your neighbor as yourself. Love the stranger as you love yourself. There seems to be a common theme running through these various texts. A common command to love others as you love yourself. Seems simple enough, right? Looking around at the state of the world, it would appear it isn’t so simple to follow in practice. It is my opinion that loving each other as we love ourselves is not just a command we are to live by, but a condition that is part of being human. What I mean is we are unable to follow this command if we do not first know how to love ourselves. So, how does one go about learning to truly love oneself so that they may better love their neighbor. I don’t think I have a perfect answer to this. But try this, go find a mirror. Look at the person in it. Tell them you love them out loud. Probably felt silly, right? That’s fine. It is a bit silly to talk to a mirror. Did it feel like a lie though? Did you believe yourself when you said those words? If the answer to that is no, then how are you supposed to love others as you love yourself if you don’t even believe you love yourself. Now do it again. Do it every day. Prove to the person in the mirror that you actually do love them. When they are sad, comfort them. When they stumble, be there to help brace their fall. When they accomplish something, congratulate them! Support the person in the mirror, show them that you mean it. When there isn’t a doubt in your mind that those words are true, go out into the world and love others the same way you now know that you love yourself.

Someone once asked me if it's still possible to love ourselves even if we feel guilt for past mistakes and feel unworthy of Love? This was my reply. Not just possible, but absolutely necessary. There is nothing we can do to change anything about our past. The only thing we can do is learn from it and do our best to be a better version of ourselves than we were yesterday. And tomorrow strive to be even a tiny bit better than the person we are today. We cannot do that if we cannot accept what we’ve done, forgive ourselves the best we can, and love ourselves regardless. It’s not at all easy, especially at first. The pain, shame, and guilt are very real and painful. Do not run from that pain. Allow yourself to feel it. Allow yourself to examine it. Allow yourself to actually learn from it. Do not wallow in it though. This is as much of a trap as ignoring it. Learn what you can from your past and accept that it is the past. Not your future. Do not forget your past mistakes, rather use them to guide you towards a better future. Writing and reading these words is easy. Actually doing so is very difficult. You deserve the love though. That’s what this whole “thing” is about, learning to truly love ourselves and each other despite how human we can be.