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How much love can you let yourself receive?

Do it for yourself — and do it for all of us

June 15, 2020

Don’t wait for anyone else to love you — love yourself now. Love yourself first, and learn to do it deeper with each passing moment.

It's OK if you never learned how. All it takes is a moment of willful intention, a moment of willingness to feel what happens inside, and the courage to keep going. Love is deeper within you than you could possibly forget. The seed is already planted. Eventually it will open, and then it will blossom.

Don't love yourself for me — love yourself for you. Love yourself because you can, and because without that, you won't be able to fully be loved by anyone else.

Love yourself enough to be your own authority. Trust yourself to know the the time for comforting love and and the time for tough love. Love is an art that we practice, and a part of our truest nature.

When you love yourself and see how it changes you, you’ll see how your love changes the world around you. When I love myself deeper, it means it’s easier for me to lend a hand, and that my hand is stronger when I offer it. We can’t support each other without supporting ourselves.

Consider: if you haven't loved your own pains, how authentically can love others who are in pain? Yes, we grieve and learn to love together, and as Fia sings, “we can only meet each other as deeply as we’ve met ourselves.”

And it’s true. Collective healing is a reflection of many individuals healing. The sooner each one of us can start — and the deeper, wider, and further we can go — the better off we will all be.

Love conquers all. Love yourself enough to forgive the unforgivable — not for their sake, but for yours. Love yourself so you have the freedom to respond with integrity to anything life throws your way. Love yourself so that you can be strong for this world.

Love is a bridge for us to remember that we are not so separate after all. Life’s magic shines through when the love we create internally is reflected to us here on Earth.

Love is in the details, so to love yourself means to know yourself well enough to heal the places inside that are hurting, and to re-orient those past versions of ourselves to the great love that pervades us all. You can love yourself in this moment, and you'll never have to stop deepening.

Rumi says:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”

The mystics of the ages have felt the unconditional love that pervades us all. It's here now. Will you look for it? Will you open to it? How much can you let yourself receive in this moment?