Transforming Dislike Into Radical Self-Love

The other night I was feeling tired,

Bored,

And lonely.

You know,

Feelings that aren't particularly pleasant.

And I noticed that I also felt disgusted by myself,

Particularly by my loneliness.

Now I'm no stranger to unpleasant feelings.

I know anxiety and sadness well,

And I am thankfully,

After many years of practice,

Pretty well versed in being compassionate to myself when such feelings arise.

I don't have a high level of disgust for my sadness or anxiety,

But I do have a lot of disgust for myself when I'm feeling lonely.

Probably because it hits a core wound for me that I haven't yet healed.

It's the wound that says I'm not good enough,

And something is wrong with me if I'm alone.

Maybe you're familiar.

So that came up,

And I decided to journal.

And I wrote,

Maybe it's okay.

And then I crossed out maybe.

In that moment,

I found compassion for myself,

Telling myself,

Yes,

It's okay to feel lonely,

Reminding myself that I'm here to love this too.

So I see this opportunity we have of shifting our perspectives regarding not liking a part of ourselves.

Instead of getting caught up in the dislike or disgust,

To instead give ourselves space to see and honor that there's an opportunity to love more.

And when I say love more,

I mean love ourselves more.

For me,

In this instance,

It meant loving my loneliness,

And loving my disgust of my loneliness,

And loving my process of learning how to love myself more deeply.

Loving myself is the root of all of my love.

And the more I love myself and my wound,

The more love I have for others and their wounds.

The more love I have for earth,

Animals,

And all beings.

And so when we notice that we don't like a part of ourselves,

Instead of closing off our hearts,

Instead of us thinking that something is wrong with us and needs to be fixed,

There's an opportunity to connect with and open our hearts.

There's an opportunity to love what's here without it needing to be different.

There's an opportunity to love more completely and more deeply.

And that is an incredible gift to give ourselves.

And it's also a magnificent gift to give to the world.