In my thirties I joke that I learned self love through a series of very unloving relationships. In one particularly difficult one, I dated a man who was deeply wounded from childhood. I never knew when he was going to explode, throw things, or cut me to shreds verbally. I was afraid it would escalate. When he finally left me because “I was too much work,” I felt very justified in my upset and anger.
I didn’t want to feel this way so I prayed, “Dear God help me forgive.” “Forgive yourself Ann,” the angels said. This bothered me. “Forgive myself for what? For being stupid. For dating him? For giving him money and help and assistance when all he did was slam me and steal from me? For being a pathetic little girl who always ran back to give more, hoping he’d learn to love?” I was so mad at myself, as I pondered this train of thoughts!
The ever-loving angels replied, “No, Ann. You weren’t stupid. Loving is never wrong. Sharing is never wrong. You simply forgot to love yourself. You allowed his behavior to show you where you felt unloved. You allows his behavior to show you where you forgot to love yourself.”
I knew they were right. I had forgotten to love myself when another didn’t. I had forgotten how to be loving as I allowed my own anger to surface.
He didn’t “make me” feel unloved. He showed me where I didn’t love myself. He didn’t “make me angry.” He showed me areas in which I didn’t love myself enough to do the right thing for myself, and thus, I became angry. He showed me unhealed areas from a childhood, in which my family had quite a lot of stress that exploded in my direction. I couldn’t even blame my parents for that. The illusions I carried in my soul from lifetimes caused me to incarnate into that situation. The soul is in charge, always.
He was simply showing me the unhealed and illusory areas in my own soul – the areas in which I’d harbored feelings of being unloved, unworthy, etc. As I learned to see it this way, the entire relationship started to feel like a gift, albeit one in a seriously unpleasant package.
It took time and effort to love myself more deeply. I started to be diligent about self care. I went to others who were able to nurture me – massage therapists, energy workers, and healers. I focused every day on the things I loved about myself. Finally, one day, deep in the forest on the side of a mountain, Mother Nature herself healed my heart.
I had hiked up beyond a trail on a mountain side, peppered with a forest of ancient juniper and cypress trees. Exhausted from the vigorous climb, I stopped to take a drink of water. There in front of me, the thick, gnarled branch of a grandmother juniper reached out like an arm welcoming to lay down in her kind embrace. I gingerly set my pack down and laid on the branch, balancing carefully on the cliffside. Immediately I was drawn into her loving energy. Warmth and love engulfed me. I burst into tears and cried my heart out, allowing the feelings of disappointment with my own choices melt into the forest floor.
I don’t know how long I lay there, but when I got up I felt loved. I felt loving. I knew that this other person was simply my teacher. I actually felt gratitude for the dance. I liked who I was. I saw my illusions that contributed towards our dance, and now I saw beyond them. I was loved. I was loving. Finally, I was free.
When someone else hurts you, it is the hardest thing in the world to take ownership of your own pain. Their actions aren’t OK. You don’t want to go back for more. You don’t have to like them. But you can say to yourself, “I just forgot I was lovable. I just forgot I was loved. I just forgot I was loving. Dear God, let the light of your love rise up within me once more and remind me who I really am.” As you feel that truth, the past really does slip away into one more adventure of the soul that strengthened you, and guided you more deeply into the truth of who you really are.
In the Presence of the Presence of God’s love, the pain of the world is quickly burnt away.
Here are a few tips to help reclaim that loving truth that lives within you…
1. Sit with Spirit to Feel the Love Within
My favorite prayer, from my heart when I am hurting is:
Dear God, let the light of your love rise up within me once more and remind me who I really am. Help me feel your Love within me, for me, and through me.”
Sit. Breathe slowly and deeply. Focus on your heart. Focus on any feeling of love for anything or anyone, and when you have found that, focus only on the feeling. This opens the door for Divine Love to pour in more deeply.
When you feel the slightest glimmer of love in your heart, keep breathing and amplify it with each breath. Imagine its fire is burning brighter.
2. Love yourself as you have not been loved
I call this taking an “antidote” for the poison. After reconnecting with Love within, you want to put that love in action in your life.
If someone has abused your mind or emotions with unkindness, tell yourself a hundred wonderful things. Write yourself a love letter from God or your angels, or yourself if you can. Write a list of every wonderful quality within.
If someone has left you, or betrayed you, don’t leave or abandon yourself. Use your will power to do things that make you happy, to sit with spirit, to watch inspirational videos or read books that remind you that you are perfect, precious, and pure.
If someone has abused your body, treat it with the utmost reverence and kindness. Tell it you love it, that it is pure, that you are sorry it was treated horribly. Give yourself massages with oil scented with something beautiful like rose or neroli. Treat your body like a temple to help it remember its perfection.
When you can truly give yourself the love another could not, you have reclaimed your greatest power of all – to simply be the real, loving, You!
2. Pray for those who hurt you
Pray, “Dear God, lift these hurting and hurtful souls into the light of your love. Remind them who they really are. Help them stop hurting others as a way to diffuse the pain within themselves.” Then imagine them encased in a bubble of light.
This is hard to do because we think praying for the hurtful ones is giving them a “free pass” to have it easy and to feel loved even when they’ve been abusive. In truth, praying like this and sending light helps to flush the darkness up and out, where they have to look at it, learn from it, and grow – if they are willing.
If they are not willing to grow, loving prayers like these can cause a vibration that reveals their darkness to others. I once prayed with friends for a very abusive neighbor of theirs. He chose not to grow. Instead the light we sent him, unbeknownst to us, catalyzed a foreclosure and he moved within months. In the meanwhile, however he ceased to harass my friends.
No matter how upset you are you’d truly rather be loving, than be unloving. Doing so will help you feel the power of the light within.
The last few newsletters have been pretty intense and deep conversations. Forgiveness of self and others isn’t easy work, but the freedom and joy that result are truly worth the effort! True, deep forgiveness is, after all, an ultimate act of self love.
Love you all!
Ann
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