Meditation has brought many changes to my life. But the changes cannot be directly pinpointed: they aren’t strikingly obvious. The changes that meditation has brought into my life have happened slowly, with subtleness, but have culminated into grand outcomes over this past year.
Self-care was my topic last month. I mentioned in my post that self-care is a stepping stone to self-love. Let’s not dance around the topic of self-love anymore. Self-love is what it’s all about.
My work with clients is centered on guiding them to see what is good for them. I mean “good” in terms of food, activity, hobbies, relationships, supplements, liver health, surrounding environment, etc. So, in the vein of self-care, we need to make good choices for ourselves: like choosing the best stepping stones on your path. I also believe that the key to physical and emotional healing, and well-being in general, is to open up your heart to unconditional love. The universe is waiting to help us, and to heal us. We just need to feel love and radiate love.
Easy-peasy, right?
Not at all! Being and feeling love is a challenge! For me, Spring Forest Qigong (SFQ) has helped me to get better at feeling unconditional love. With SFQ, I can feel my heart opening, and even expanding. When I practice SFQ regularly, I feel more joy every day. I feel other changes too, like more contentment and compassion. I see more good in others, and I have more patience in trying situations. Not to mention the increasing depth and clarity that I get during my healing sessions with clients. My intuition is much stronger now, and I am able to connect with my clients on a much deeper level: one that that many of them are not yet even aware of! I seem to know the words to say to get them moving in the direction of healing and making deep personal changes. This is beautiful, fulfilling, and rewarding. . . and I feel that it is my duty. On a personal level, I am generally happier: happier with my life as it is now. And, guess what? That rubs off on those around me.
While I have felt big changes in my daily feelings of love and joy, I am now starting to understand that this is only the beginning. By feeling and giving love to the universe and to others every day, shouldn’t I also be capable of accepting love? When this thought first crossed my mind I couldn’t really think of anyone’s love I was not accepting. I let others love me: I think I’m okay with that. But then I thought about the entire realm of love.
And then it hit me (yes—even after I had written the self-care post), that to really be, feel, do, and have love, I also need to accept love from the most important person I know: myself. When I listened to my inner dialogue (which is tricky, by the way), I noticed that I was a tad harsh at times. What the heck? This upset me; I thought I had come so far (okay there it is again). I HAVE come so far! But there will always be more to learn and grow into. I think this will be a big lesson for me. There is no target to reach, no end point to self-love. To look closely at self-love, to really break it down, is like opening Pandora’s Box. I would have to let go of my ego. I would have to stop comparing myself to others. I would have to love my size, shape, wrinkles, and crooked nose. And that’s just the physical stuff. Could I accept that it’s okay to let others see who I really am?
I am emerging more and more each day. Those who I need in my life will love me more because of it. Others will be distanced from me, and I am okay with that. I know that I will need to accept not only my love, but also love from the universe, in order to grow on this journey. That is where meditation comes in, and for me it comes in the form of Spring Forest Qigong. I know if I keep up my practice, I will be able to feel the love from the universe for support, and eventually, I will feel the love from me.
As you can see, I clearly have only scratched the surface on what accepting love from myself entails. But guess what? I love that about me! I will figure it out. I will share the journey with you. As I have mentioned, I am happy with the stepping stones I have chosen so far. I am excited to see where this path will take me.
Want to join me? I would love to help you on your journey.
Love and light
-Sue
xo
Great post! Loving yourself seems like it would be a snap but it’s so easy to be critical and let those thoughts run wild. It takes practice and discipline to stop the madness.
Thank you for your comment Trinidad! You are right, self-love IS difficult, but a great start is being aware of our thoughts!
lovely, sue. i especially like this line: “I would have to stop comparing myself to others.” so important and yet sometimes so difficult. i also appreciated that you said “I am emerging more and more each day.” we are always works in progress – how nice to spend that time improving.
You wrote, “Self-love is what it’s all about.” I so totally agree. I believe that we have to love ourselves first and then we can love others (and the earth). There are ripple effects within ourselves that also flow out into all we do. When we don’t love ourselves, those ripple effects create nastiness. When we do love ourselves, those ripple effects create wholeness.
So true Leanne!
This was just the inspiration I needed. I have been avoiding meditation like the plague, but have also known that its something I really need to do. Did it for the first time in a while this morning and it was awesome, and I happened to run into this post as well. Funny how it all works out like that. Thanks for giving me exactly what I needed when I needed it.
You are welcome Akshay! Sometimes we need to tune in a listen to those inner voices that are nudging us to do something! I have a short guided and grounding meditation on my site you may find useful!
Lovely post. Such a lovely tribute to the life long journey of learning and growing!
Thank you Lorna!
Always a very tough topic for me. I believe that everything happens for a reason and reading this post was very much needed reminder to get back to being consistent with my own meditation practice. Thanks Susan!
You are welcome Deb! Thanks for reading and for your comment.
We can never have enough insight on self-love and acceptance… I believe this is the main reason we are really even here having this existence. Thank you for sharing your experience so others can learn by example.
Thank you for your comment Cindy. It is a journey worth sharing!
Sue,
Thank you for the reminder about how important it is to love ourselves. In fact I think we can track back most of societies woes to the fact that many people lack a sense of self-worth. As a result they seek out destructive behavior.
I’ll admit I’ve never delved into meditation much but thinking I may have to start. Thanks for the inspiration.
Thanks for the comment Ryan. I agree with you, it starts with ourselves. If you want to give meditation a try I have a short video to get you started! It can change your life in so many ways!
Thank you for this introduction to Spring Forest Qigong. I practice and teach yoga and meditation but have not tried Qigong. There is a huge training here in Florida this month and I have been invited by a friend to attend and after reading this, I really want to go.
Self-care is a pillar of my life and work and I appreciate everything you said about it. So many of us can feel that self-care is selfish. I’ve come to believe there is nothing more selfish than refusing to love myself and expecting other people’s love to fill that hole. Thank you for sharing your authentic self. Sending my love & amp; appreciation!