Loving Ourselves

by Jennifer Geaga

One of the greatest needs on the Earth today is for women around the world to wake up and reclaim their true power. Yet, as can be seen from the lesson of the Amazonians, and the feminists as well, this power must be built on a foundation of love—unconditional love for ourselves and others. As women, one of our key strengths is our ability to love. And yet, how many among us can say that they truly love themselves? Why is it that we give nurturing love to our children, help them to overcome obstacles without judgment, and always help them see their own value, yet often we cannot do the same for ourselves? Well, it is because we have been programmed by the world to see our flaws and our sins above all else, rather than seeing and honoring the truth of who we are within. And if we do not recognize and love ourselves as our true beings—God’s daughters on this Earth—we cannot truly gain the power to claim our rightful place on this planet, which will allow us to change the planet itself. Thus, the greatest challenge present in the world today is for God’s daughters to love themselves unconditionally, embracing their true beings—flaws and all—with the knowledge that those flaws are only temporary and can be overcome. Jesus said to love thy neighbor as thyself. But if we do not love ourselves, can we truly love our neighbor?

I have dealt with the issue of loving myself since I was a young girl, when my notions of self-worth came from comparing myself to others around me. I noticed that it was always the prettiest girls who were liked most by others. Those same girls seemed to be the “coolest"—something I was not. And so I learned pretty early on that because I was not as pretty and cool as other girls, I was not worth as much. I felt that this was the reason I was not loved by others and was not popular amongst my peers. Even as an adult I felt that if only I was prettier and had a better body, people would like me more. The truth was that I did not love myself, because I decided that the world had to love me before I could do so. In reality, I needed to love myself first, because then it would not matter what the world thought of me.

I learned to love myself much later, and the real key to doing this was finally coming to a realization of who I truly AM. I had to finally see myself as a daughter of God, an individualization of God’s energy that he sent out into this world. He created me out of love, He loves me dearly, and I am his very own child. Given this knowledge, how on Earth could I not love myself? I had to forgive myself for not being perfect, and I realized that my past mistakes and current psychological “issues” were due to temporary illusions in my consciousness. I knew that who I AM as a daughter of God could never be tarnished by anything that occurred here in the world, and I learned that any mistake or flaw can be turned into a positive by making it a stepping stone for personal growth.

Thus, one of the greatest problems that women face is judgment, both from society, and more importantly, from within. We judge ourselves based on society’s standards of what a woman should be. A woman must be quiet and subservient to a man. She must be a sex object, ready to fill her man’s desires in order to deserve his love. She must be a super-woman, balancing work and raising children with ease. She is expected to be attractive and slim, her outer beauty a measure of her worth to society. And because most women do not live up to all of these standards, we feel that we are not deserving of love. We may try to find love by trying to appear perfect on the outside, yet all the while loathing ourselves for every little mistake and perceived flaw. Yet when we really look at these standards, we see that they are not only unrealistic, but they are completely lacking in love for who we truly are. As women, we are all different—we have different talents and strengths, and we come in many different shapes and sizes. It is time for us to give up comparing ourselves to an impossible standard, and love what God gave us! Only when we embrace our true selves, rather than trying to be something we are not, can we regain the power to make a difference in our own worlds.

We think we know how to love, but do we? What truly is love? With human love, we give our love based on what we will receive in return. It is conditional, and thus can change at any time. Likewise, we give or withhold love from ourselves based on our accomplishments or ability to meet standards in this world. This “love” seeks to control, by forcing an image upon ourselves of what we should be, rather than honoring who we truly are. Divine love, unconditional love, is something completely different. This love can be experienced in the pure love for a child, that unconditional love that could not be broken no matter what that child does. It is the love we have for any innocent and pure part of God’s beautiful creation. Yet have you ever considered that that there is a part of you that is innocent and pure? On the outer, it may not seem so, but inside of each one of us is the seed that God planted when he created us, pure and unspoiled in the garden of our hearts, waiting to sprout into something magnificent. Can we not love this part of ourselves and others?

The nature of love is a difficult one to comprehend with our minds, as it can only be known through direct experience. It can be felt as a burning or fullness in one’s heart, or as a pure connection between one’s heart and another’s. It can be felt as a mother’s love—the nurturing, accepting, caring love that knows no bounds or limitations and cannot be changed by anything the child does. It can also be felt as a father's love—strong and steadfast, stern when needed, always pushing a child to become more. And so we give this kind of love to our children, as much as we can. But, can we and do we give this love to ourselves? If we see ourselves as God’s children, indeed we can, and we must. For God cannot give his love to our hearts fully, if we have decided that we don’t deserve it.

It is an atrocious lie programmed into us by the church that we are all sinners, for it gives us a reason for the self-loathing we often feel. And this lie has kept us from truly rising above our self-hate because we think it is our true nature. Although some may believe that this “original sin” is based on the decision of two people in the Garden of Eden long, long ago, the Holy Spirit has shown us that the Garden of Eden is actually a metaphor for a decision we all made at one point in our souls’ journey on this Earth. We made the decision to turn away from our teacher’s loving guidance and instead experience the hard knocks of life. God, in his supreme love for us, allowed us to make this decision by our own free will, all the while hoping that we would come back to Him. And this is the key—we can come back to Him at any time. When we realize that it was our own decision to turn away from God, we can instantly reverse this decision and thus be instantly forgiven. We also see that we are not sinners by nature. Simply by returning unto God’s Will, we can be reborn in the purity in which we were created.

This is not always an easy path, because most of us have guilt for the mistakes we have made. However, God does not hold our mistakes against us, so why should we? Many of us hold the unconscious belief that our mistakes and sins have made us unlovable. However, would you stop loving your child if he or she makes a mistake? No, you would not, because you would realize that they made that mistake based on limited knowledge and understanding. You might have even warned them about the action and its consequences. And yet, even still the child might have made the mistake. And after contemplating the situation, you would realize that sometimes a child has to experience the outcome in order to learn. God has this same knowledge and so he loves us unconditionally no matter what we do, just as you would forgive your child for any mistake made. The key here is to see ourselves as the child, knowing that any mistake we have made was based on lack of understanding within ourselves, or perhaps the need to experience a certain consequence in order to learn. And once we have learned and grown from an incident, can we really say that it is a mistake?

By reconnecting to the childlike innocence within, we can free ourselves from guilt and begin to love ourselves once again. This love comes from the place of purity within that is connected to, and part of, God. You may not believe you have this place, but you do. No matter what you have done in this lifetime, or any other, there is still the part of you that was created as an innocent child out of the unconditional love of God. Go there, and love that part of yourself. Forgive yourself for making mistakes, just as you would forgive a young child first learning how to interact with the world. Forgive yourself for not being perfect—God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, he expects us to experiment in the world and learn form our choices, growing closer to him through each experience!

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© Jennifer Geaga, Love Is