We see it everywhere. It’s on every social media platform, plastered all over billboards, it’s in doctor’s offices, it’s advertised on the side of buses. Self-Love, Self-Care. But what are they?
Self-Love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness.
Self-Care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. And I would add Spiritual Health!
But how do we apply self-care and self-love to our busy, chaotic, stressful lives? I think before we can apply it, we have to know what we want the results to be. In other words, what demonstration do we want revealed? What outcome are we desiring? Where to start, where to start? Do we begin with the mind? The body? The Soul? Call me a risk taker, but today, I’m choosing the simultaneous application of working on everything all at once? I am not dipping my little toe in. I’m diving into love.
Ernest Holmes says: If we make ourselves receptive to the idea of love, we become lovable; to the degree that we embody love, we are love. This is why people who love are loved.
Simple, right?
If it works for love, I’m certain the same will work for care in every degree from mental, emotional and even spiritual areas of our lives?
You may be thinking…. hmm…really!?!!! I say yes!
Once I release the mental struggle to receive, to accept, I get to experience more love. In my last blog, I shared about receiving is part of giving. How is your practice going with that? Are you remaining open to receiving?
Getting back to love. Holmes goes onto say, “It should not be by a huge mental struggle or soul-strain that we arrive at the goal of self-love and self-care, but through a quiet expectation, a joyful anticipation, the calm recognition that all the peace there is and all the power there is and all the good there is, is Love”, and it lives in each of us as Spirit in Action.
If are wondering where to start, it’s simply “LOVE”! Start with thinking loving thoughts.
The Science of Mind Text indicates:
Love is the grandest healing and drawing power on earth. It is the very reason for our being. Love is the sole impulse for creation, the whole Universe is based upon it.
There is but one ultimate impulsion in the universe. This impulsion is love. It is the pure essence of Divine Givingness. So I ask again, are you receiving this “givingness” to yourself? That’s Self-Love and Self-Care.
We must always recognize spiritual mind practice is a combination of love and law -- love as impulsion, law as propulsion. It is through love that we arrive at a sense of connection. Love shows the way and the Law makes it happen!
The book This Thing Called You indicates that we are all made perfect in the Law when we enter into conscious communion with the love. Love is the fulfillment of the Law; that is, it is only through love that the law can fulfill itself in our experience, because love harmonizes everything and love flows through everything and everyone!
Once we recognize and acknowledge this as our Truth, that love -- which equals Self-Love and Self-Care –once we realize this, love is the basic reality of your life and mine, now the answer to “how” becomes very, very simple. If we want to receive, we must give. If we are going to share, be, have, receive and demonstrate love, we have to also accept love. It’s part of the balance.
It is only through Love that we find the Presence in Its greatness and can use the Power in Its fullness.
Remember, love is a feeling. Faith is the key to use this feeling. Love is a language which is universal, interpreted through every living soul and understood by all. Love will find the solution to every problem, will answer every question. Love is unity, understanding, harmony. It is as necessary to the well-being of the soul as food is for the strength of the body. A life which is starved of love, which knows no affection, is unnatural. Love lives within every person, flows through and permeates our entire being. We truly live in its atmosphere when we meet people through whom love radiates, a unity is formed, harmony is created, and we desire to be in their presence.
In closing, self-Love, self-care is love. And love is a synonym for God; and God is love, the universal outpouring of the Spirit through law, wisdom, life, and action. God knows us in love: we know God only through love. When we love humanity, we are loving God, in and through others.
Be loving, kind, gentle and understanding with yourself this week as you share self-love and self-care with yourself.
I adore and treasure all of you,
Abundant blessings,
Rev. Barb