The Path to Self-Love — Regaining Perspective

In this complex, competitive society it’s easy to feel less good than others. We compare ourselves to others, often in harmful ways: for example, comparing our inner perception of our emotions to their outer shell of facial expression. We may notice sadness or anxiety as a result of this irrational, negative self-judgement. We may hesitate to make close friends because of a fear that they will see inside us.

In this meditation we think of developing self-love as a path that we travel every time we notice our imperfections during meditation and feel we are doing something wrong, and we move slowly towards self-love when we manage to accept this self-in-the-present right now. It’s not easy to develop this way, so we proceed with patience and self-forgiveness.

Thoughts are often the mental events that take us down into self-criticism.

My teacher once said, “Don’t worry about thoughts while you meditate, just let them go.”

Sounds easy, but a decade later I still found myself judging my meditations.

“Rats,” I’d say, “Today I had a lot of thoughts, couldn’t keep focused on my breath.”

The Path to Self-Love — A Meditation

This meditation is a way to move away from harsh judgement and towards love.

It’s a meditation on opening to love and re-gaining perspective.

Opening to self-love.

We do this by removing the obstacles of distraction. We simply accept them.

In this meditation there is nothing to “distract.” All experience is ok.

We become open to all that comes in along with the breath.

We remove the self-judgement. All that is left is the potential for love.

We open to self-love, to love itself.

Enjoy :)

(Audio recorded February 17, 2023 on Friday Mindfulness at Noon)