"It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others."
-- Sydney J. Harris
"We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves the way we are, and why we don't accept others the way they are."
-- Don Miguel Ruiz
"There is no freedom like seeing myself as I am and not losing heart."
-- Elizabeth J. Canham
"If we could learn to like ourselves, even a little, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away."
-- John Steinbeck
higherawareness.com
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"Never argue with an idiot... They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience..."
Great post. This has been a long time coming in my own life. I never had a clue to who I was until I started working some steps. Only after this have I been able to come to terms with me, and I kinda like me today Thanks Wren!
This is one I have found that takes a lot of time and thought to achieve...self love. I'm not talking about the egotistic form, you know that. It's just the ability to see the person you are and like and love him/her. If we have faults, and we pretty much always will, we work to change them...or, if they are not hurtful to ourselves or others, just accept them as the little quirks that make us unique. It feels good to be this way...and we all deserve that. Thank you Wren!...Tim
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"We posess the eyes through which the universe gazes with wonder upon its own majesty."
I think, Tim, it is difficult for any human being to truly attain real self-love. We're flawed. So I tried this exercise, but let me tell you the story behind it.
I was working so hard on this quilt. I had the pattern, the picture, so I knew how it should turn out when the experts did it. I struggled with piecing it together, and struggled some more to get those perfect seams so that each piece would fit snugly against the other with no puckers. Have mercy, I was ready to scream. So, I kept at it. It did NOT turn out perfect. I substituted a bit of fabric where I'd messed up, compensated for this and that, etc. When at last I had it all finished, and I looked at it? I was so fricking proud of it. It was like looking at your child; it was perfect because the imperfections made it so. It made it different and unique from my first (self) expectations.
So, now when I look at myself, my flaws and character defects, I try and stand back, and ask myself this question " Is this how the Universe sees me, perfect in my imperfections because the Universe made me?". And it makes it easier to love myself that way. If my HP can lovingly accept me, who am I to question that? (remember what my sig used to be? "i found god in myself/and I loved her/i loved her fiercely--Ntozake Shange") hugs, chris
-- Edited by Wren at 01:50, 2007-09-29
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"Never argue with an idiot... They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience..."
