Self-love is difficult for many of us, why? Because we cherry-pick the parts of ourselves we want to accept and condemn the rest. Only with total acceptance true self-love will arise. There are two major concerns here-
- Are we truly capable of knowing ourselves in totality?
- Do we understand what is love?
“Self” remains the most alluring topic for psychologists, philosophers, and spiritual seekers. We exist in a dualistic world. Each one of us has two selves, The Real Self(Capital S), which is the essence of Pure Universal Consciousness, and the limited Ego-self(small s), which we all identify as our Mind. The first step to Self-knowledge is knowing our minds because it is the operating interface between the Real Self and the world around us. Self-love comes from self-knowledge.
- The mind is a functional bioenergy system made up of many layers of consciousness. This mind consciousness works upon the physical brain to give rise to all cognitive functions like learning, analyzing, memory, language, etc.
- Sigmund Freud gave the popular Iceberg Model to understand the mind consciousness and divided it into different states namely-Conscious(complete awareness, constituting nearly 4 to 5%), and Sub-Conscious or Unconscious (95%). That is to say, at any given point, we are absolutely unaware of 95% of our mind’s contents.
- Mind-body system works together, so imagine an existence wherein we do not know 95% of ourselves. This is the reason Self-Love is nearly impossible for us. How do we love, what we do not know?
- One may ask, is it necessary to know the unconscious, won’t it be too overwhelming? Maybe there are reasons it remains in darkness.
- The unconscious has no concept of space-time. Time exists only in our conscious awareness. That is why, the pains and the traumas of the distant past get manifested as illnesses and anxieties, depression, low self-esteem, self-doubt, worthlessness, and whatnot. For the unconscious mind, it all is happening right here and right now.
- The moment the unconscious material comes into our conscious awareness, it releases its pent-up energy, and miraculous healing begins.
- Some ways towards the journey of self-love are:
- Mindfulness; a state of awareness, being firmly rooted in the here and now. Meditation is a way to enhance mindfulness.
- Mindfulness-based therapies like Hypnotherapy uses guided visualizations to enhance the state of awareness and bring the repressed material of the unconscious to conscious awareness.
- When unconscious blockages dissolve, tremendous pent-up energy is released, resulting in self-acceptance and greater willpower.
We owe this to ourselves to love and accept ourselves completely before we ask others to love and accept us.