When I first conceived of doing Conscious Symbiosis, I wanted to first lay the foundation for exploring relationships that can change the planet, in the best ways. The very first relationship then to explore is our relationship with ourselves. Your relationship with yourself. What better way to start a new year?
Can you imagine a world of peace, love, caring and cooperation filled with individuals who do not love themselves? How would such individuals create such a world? They couldn't. So, again, it all begins within each of us and the quality of love we give to ourselves, first and foremost.
Think of someone, something you truly feel love for. It can be a person, a child, an animal companion, a place of beauty that is special to you. What does that love feel like? Can you locate it in your body? When I'm with a special someone that I love in my life, and I'm focused on feeling that love, I feel all the cells in my body softening. I feel an expansive energy around my heart that seems to fill and enlarge my chest.
Now can you take that feeling and give it to yourself? Can you transfer whatever that loving energy's qualities are to yourself? With all the ways you know you aren't perfect? With all the failures you think you've had or created in your past? Can you accept all of that and let it be okay? Can you love yourself, not in spite of those failures, or your shadow aspects, but even because you have them? Because even those qualities help us by standing in contrast to the best standards we aspire to. They show us where we still need to apply our love and attention.
No part of us wants to be reviled or excised, but loved into the integration of our whole being. We have lived in a world of duality for so long and it's been very useful, showing us everything in relation to its opposite. War, peace, love, hate, light, dark. But if you are one of the spiritually awakening people on this planet reading this, then you are also sensing the underlying unity of all things. To create the world of peace and love that we want to live in, to create a world where healing is possible, from the individual to the planetary ecosystem, we must now focus on what unites us, on that underlying unity. There are so many names for it. God, the quantum field, the zero point field, the underlying ground of being, fundamental consciousness... that in which we are all held and which we in fact create ourselves and our reality from. More on that in a later blog.
For now, just begin to learn to love yourself. Don't expect to do it perfectly. Our love for ourselves fluctuates every day. Some days it's strong and others it's hardly there at all. What we can do is learn to notice the quality of love we have for ourselves on a daily basis. If it's strong, we can celebrate that in some way that is fun or meaningful for us, even if it's just noticing how good it feels and how much stronger we feel for it. If it seems to be barely there, we can ask ourselves what loving thing can we do for ourselves in that moment, on that day, that will restore our connection with ourselves, that will restore the flow of loving energy we give to ourselves? It can be a walk, journaling, creative self-expression, or even taking time to breathe more deeply for a few minutes.
When you've learned to identify what love feels like in your body, give it to every part of yourself, including the intangibles, like your feelings and emotions. I developed a love practice that can be done each morning or evening that is deeply relaxing and healing. Because as Gregg Braden has pointed out in his teachings, when we are in the vibration of love or joy, more of our DNA is turned on because the wavelength of the frequency of love and joy touches more of our DNA strands in each cell.
One of the most beautiful realizations I ever had was to realize that I was beloved of the Creator just by virtue of my existence. As an artist, everything I create I create with love. I can't not! Part of me goes into every work of art I create. When I create, I'm in energetic alignment with the Creator, so I know that the Creator ~ Himself/Herself/Itself ~ imbues each part of Creation with Love. My realization taught me that I could sit like a bump on a log and never do another worthwhile thing in my entire life and I would still be beloved of the Creator. Can I, or any of us, do any less than to learn to love ourselves?
Developing that flow of love in ourselves, with and for ourselves is the first step to creating the relationships that will change this planet into a world of love and peace. It ripples out from each individual heart that is transformed by its own self-love.
Many Blessings,
Niara
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
