Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Love Yourself First and Foremost!

"Focus on what you love doing, not what you fear the most."  Something I read today on using creativity and our imagination to do something that we truly want.  Simple statement yet so difficult to practice. How much of our thoughts are fear based rather than love based? Our thoughts dictate our reality. Our fears dictate our reality. So what we project is what we feel.  If we project fear onto ourselves imagine how our actions play out? Our sense of reality, our perception, our desires is fully based on this one feeling and emotion - which is fear.  What other emotions feed off fear?  Envy, Anger, greed, resentment , anxiety, and deep deep sadness-and the list goes on. Imagine our mind consumed with those feelings -subconsciously or consciously and what that does to the human body? We begin to manifest those symptoms in some way or the other and our body parts begin to break down. We have created our own deficiencies by sending those emotions to our entire body. We begin to feel depleted and need something to fill us up. And we turn towards addictions that begin to feed the void or feed the emptiness that we feel. Addictions can be of all kinds - some of them extreme, some of them manageable or in control. Something as simple as "i need chocolate right now" to going on a shopping escapade when we know that we may not need any of the things that we just bought. That void has to be filled in some way or the other because our negative feelings are depleting us. We need to find a way to fill it.  

But what if, just what if, we begin to make a conscious effort to shift our feelings from fear to love? Imagine being in love and what that does to you - that fluttering feeling, that happy warm fuzzy feeling, that feeling of just completeness, that feeling that all is enough and is well. Our feelings of love create our day to day reality. Love expands. Love does not shrink. The more we love, the more we want to love. Love is giving. We give of ourselves unconditionally without thinking what's in it for us. Imagine the things you love to do -and the feelings that come to your mind when you engage in those activities. How do you feel? Energized, strong, happy, that's because you engaged in something who's roots were based in love-the activity was a positive one and it sent positive feelings to your whole body. Observe it in your energy. Love is action, Fear is outcome. When we focus on an action because we love to do it, we don't think of the outcome as much because the energy is in the process. When we focus too much on the outcome of something and whether it will be right or wrong, whether it will be appreciated or not, whether it will be successful or not, we lose the fun of it, we become fear based and get stuck in the emotions of it all. That's what fear does to us.

As we approach a holiday revolving around love, I can't help but stress how we need to send loving energy to ourselves. We fear ourselves the most and in doing that we reject love, joy, success, positivism into our lives. Yes life is painful and yes we can be broken repeatedly by life's experiences, but those are circumstances that need to be felt through, that need to be worked through so that we can embrace what we deserve to have which is love. Numbing the emotions only cuts us off from love. We are love, we need to realize that. We need to be more loving of ourselves and less hard on ourselves. We need to stop expecting perfection from ourselves and learn to just love us how a child loves unconditionally.  Love ourselves first and foremost. It comes of as selfishness sometimes, but if we don't give it us, who will? So on this day, practice loving kindness to yourself. Everytime you find yourself being harsh, being critical, being resentful, take a deep breath and exhale. Everytime you find yourself lonely, deeply broken because of lost loved one, deeply sad take a deep breathe and exhale.  Every time you examine your life and you feel like you have not amounted to anything, your dreams are not coming to fruition, you have no idea where you are headed in life, and you are fearful of not being able to make ends meet, take a deep breath and exhale.  This may need to be done throughout the day because it is so deeply embedded in the core of who we are.

As you exhale, Create an affirmation that you can say to yourself that will center you.  Ask yourself what is it that you truly want? My answer to that is I want to stop wanting. I want to be at peace with whatever is and will be.  And once I have answered that question, I create an affirmation that will reflect my intention.   
Example: My affirmation is  "I am exactly where I need to be right now. Everything is in divine order." That's what I say to myself Every time I find myself going in a direction that is fear based. And it takes time, it takes practice and in time it becomes a core of you.  

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Journaling!