Self-Care within Self-Love

This article was kindly published in the Spring/Summer edition of Spirit of Change Magazine –

 http://www.spiritofchange.org/Spring-2019/Spring-Summer-2019-Magazine/

Self-Care is an aspect of Self-Love. It’s impossible to give oneself the care one needs if one doesn’t have some aspect of one’s own value.  Self-Care can be just as simple as saying no instead of always saying yes, speaking ones truth instead of hiding how they feel, or simply deciding to give oneself a hot bubble bath instead of going out to the party you really don’t want to go to.

However Self-Care can only be applied consistently and meaningfully if we are practicing the endeavor of Self-Love. If we don’t have Self-Love driving the Self-Care, then the act of Self-Care becomes a temporary band-aid.  Humans do struggle to love themselves; it is a universal affliction. All souls living this human life, struggle with remembering who they really are and where they come from and because of this they spend their lifetimes looking outside of themselves to fill their own well and more times than not they feel the deficit of love within themselves because of this.

In truth we all come from a one consciousness of Unconditional Love – that is what the Divine is.  Understanding this concept and giving ourselves this unconditional love, is our greatest challenge and yet is the most important precursor to offering unconditional love to another and receiving it back. We get caught up in the cycle of giving and receiving love with conditions, a love that is burdened and weighed down by needs and obligations and a love that leaves us feeling unaccepted and less than.

As mentioned before, both men and women, spend an inordinate amount of time reaching outside of themselves to fill their own hearts up.  We go in search of approval and validation from others in our family, our workplace and in our personal relationships. Sometimes we use our success or perceived lack of it, to measure our own worth. Filling ones own well with a sense of Self-Worth instead of needing others to fill it for you is the essence of Self-Love. Understanding that only you are responsible for what you need, that only you are able to truly give yourself what you feel is lacking within you. No amount of money, work success, material things, Instagram likes or relationships will give us the sense of love we all seek and the Self-Care we crave will always be affected and compromised by our endless search outside of ourselves.

In realizing that you are born of and from the Divine, that which is Unconditional Love, we wake up to the fact that we in truth have nothing lacking in ourselves. We are in our very essence Love. Our “lack” of love we feel for ourselves has been taught, directly or indirectly as we have grown up from a young age. When we shift our subconscious mind back towards remembering who we are, through a spiritual practice and discipline, we are then able to fill our own well with the love we have looked outside of ourselves for so long.

The quickest and easiest way to reach the vibration of Self-Love is to spend time practicing gratitude. In any given moment we can find things around us to be grateful for, from the smallest of things to the biggest.  Gratitude fills the heart. Gratitude is an aspect of love. When we take that time to seek out things to be grateful for, in every given moment, we create a daily gratitude practice and we feed our hearts with the fuel it needs ~ acceptance and appreciation.

When we spend our time in a quest to accept and appreciate everything and everyone around us, we then find it easier to accept and appreciate ourselves. This is Self –Love and is there is no greater action of Self-Care than this.

The full journey back towards Self-Love takes patience and compassion and a will to heal all that stands in the way of true acceptance of the self.  However, despite its challenges, the path back towards ourselves is the only true mission to take up if one wants to experience the joy, freedom and bliss that is our divine birthright.

© Jo Jayson , Intuitive Artist, Teacher and Author 2019