 The very first step toward loving yourself and living your Spirit is recognizing who you really are. So many of us have grown up believing that we’re unacceptable, sinful – even contemptible – beings. We’ve often been told that we’re somehow tainted, broken, and consequently, basically unlovable.
Whatever cultural, religious, or psychological reasons are behind this message, our acceptance of the notion that we’re unworthy comes from our tendency to seek love from the outside. We’ve been led to believe that we’re only our ego or personality, and the one we have is just not good enough. Along the way, we’ve also been told – what feels like a billion times, from a billion different people – that unless we do what others want us to do, we don’t deserve to be loved... and won’t be.
In relentless ways, we’ve been indoctrinated to have low self-esteem and to measure our worth and lovability by our capacity to win approval. If we’re good at winning it, we feel loved and lovable. If we aren’t so good at doing so, we feel unloved and unlovable. The trouble is, no one can possibly earn enough approval to feel securely loved for their entire life. Approval is much too fickle for that.
Value yourself from within
Seeking love through our egos, from the outside in, is a doomed prospect. Because our egos – which aren’t our true selves – can never be loved enough to feel satisfied, and because we can never control what’s outside of us consistently, we’ll never succeed if we seek to love ourselves in this way. Furthermore, having worked so intimately with people for so many years, I venture to suggest that on an intuitive, organic level, we know this system won’t work. Deep down, most of us realise that we can’t find adequate self-love through gaining approval from others. We can only find it by appreciating and valuing ourselves from within, from a place that goes deeper than ego or personality.
The key is in recognizing that we’re all Divine Spirit – as beautiful, unique creations of God. The Holy Mother/Father God breathed life into us all and delights in our existence in every way. It is up to us to do the same.
We are Spirit
Self-love starts with knowing that we are Spirit. We have bodies. We have personalities. We have histories, stories, and experiences. But we are not those things – we are Spirit. Our bodies, egos, intellects, and personalities are tools that our Spirit uses to express itself in our physical embodiment. They’re useful. They colour and influence our experience. They affect our outlook, behaviour, responses, and choices. They make life interesting – but they’re nevertheless only implements for our Spirit to use. They aren’t who we are.
I say ‘our Spirit’ because just as there’s only one fire, there’s only one Spirit. Just as the flames in a fireplace, a lighter, a furnace, a barbeque, and a forest fire are all expressions of one element, we, too, are all unique expressions of a single Spirit.
If that’s true, and the One Divine Holy Spirit gives all of us life, then it leads us to conclude that there are no ‘others’, no outsiders whose approval we must seek. There’s just us. In other words, there’s no other Spirit, separate from us, judging us. We’re made of the same stuff, evolving and learning at different paces and in different ways, of course, but still the same.
If you look at yourself and at life through the lens of your ego, you’ll feel isolated, ganged up on, alone, different, and not part of the crowd. If you look through the lens of Spirit, knowing we’re all one, you’ll always feel safe, secure, and loved.
Although you may have a less-than-stellar personality, a less-than-sharp intellect, and a less-than-‘Hollywood’ figure, you’re nevertheless a gorgeous, beautiful, wondrous, miraculous manifestation of Spirit... for it is nothing short of a miracle when the Holy Spirit descends into your being with your first breath. The body is formed, but without that breath of life, that spark of Divine consciousness, there’s no you.
You’re Divine. You’re made of light, love, and grace. You’re holy, and your body and personality are the caretakers of this sacred presence. To house this Divinity in your being, in your physical self, is a gift and should be a pleasure. To accept your true nature is a huge, undeniable stop toward self-love.
Follow your heart
Once you decide to recognize your Spirit, the next step is to live it. To do so is to honour and respect your most authentic Divine self, remembering who you really are and expressing it in the world. To live your Spirit is to rise above the pain and confusion of the human ego and travel through life as the Divine Being you’re designed to be. It’s your true identity – this is your purpose... this is the Divine plan. This is the only way.
Einstein said it best: ‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind its faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.’
This is why we fail to find success through the ego. This is why life, for many, is an endless drama and struggle – because we follow our inferior guide, the one that’s defensive, unclear, poorly informed, confused, easily intimidated, self-absorbed, and fearful.
Furthermore, no matter how we cater to the ego (which it loves, by the way), it will never be other than what it is: a posturing, confused, defensive, insecure, needy, demanding dictator who basically holds us hostage and robs us of joy and peace.
To live your Spirit is simple: all you must do is detach from your ego and follow your heart. By adopting certain daily practices that are simple but honest expressions of you – such as listening to your inner voice, being flexible and changing direction if it’s called for, keeping your heart open, and laughing throughout the day – you’ll naturally raise the energetic frequency of your Spirit above that of the ego. The more you resonate with the frequency or vibration of Spirit, the stronger the connection becomes. And the stronger it becomes, the clearer the direction your Spirit offers in your life.
From The Answer is Simple...Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit © 2008 by Sonia Choquette, published by Hay House.
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