Be Kind to Yourself, Part 2

"Your weaknesses are perfect parts of you that balance you out and make you into a complete, whole Being."

How you view the world is a direct reflection of your internal state, the way you view yourself, your beliefs, what you consider your advantages and shortcomings.  It is so easy to lose sight of this.  Our perception of reality is so inherently biased that it cannot even really be called "reality" by another person.  It is when we perceive our "reality" as the one true reality that big problems begin to arise, but that is the topic for another time.  We should always be mindful that we subjectively view people, situations and things in our life through a distorted lens.  People and things are not bad or good, but only when we label them as such.

There is not a single person who views their actions as not being motivated by "good" yet we may label them otherwise.  Who is right?  In truth, there is no right as seeking such an answer is to say there is a wrong way to live in this world.  We are all on a path and are in different states of spiritual evolution.  Each state is not better than the other yet it is just different and we are to love and respect all in the way in which they live their life.

You can use how you view others as a tool to go deeper into yourself.  If someone is late to meet you and then explains to you a genuine story why and profusely apologizes, you will accept their apology.  If someone wrongs you in some way, yet genuinely apologizes, you will forgive them.  Yet, when it comes to ourselves, we have such a different standard.  If you are late, you beat yourself up the entire time for why you are running late and feel guilty about it.  If you wrong someone, you endlessly relive the moment and try to change the past in your mind.  Treat yourself with as much love and kindness as you treat others.  You are to see yourself as God sees you, which is perfect.

Just as you are to look at the world with a lens of Love, you are to look at yourself with that same Everlasting Love.  You are a Loving, Eternal Being, full of compassion and goodness.  What does it mean to look at yourself through a lens of Love?  You are literally only able to see light, your good qualities and attributes.  It is not to say that you are blinded to anything negative but that that negative becomes a positive when looking at it in this way.  When looking at a weakness, you give yourself the benefit of the doubt as to why you have it, and you are so enamored with love for yourself that you literally see it as a strength.  Maybe there is a corresponding strength that gives rise to the weakness.  Maybe this weakness has brought situations into your life for the good.  Yet, the more that we focus on this weakness through the eyes of Love, we see it as perfected.  Your weaknesses are perfect parts of you that balance you out and make you into a complete, whole Being.  Pour love into your weaknesses.

I think it is important to note that, when looking at yourself, do not see the past or the future.  Feeling good or bad about past events is taking you away from yourself.  It is true that the past can give you clues as to your tendencies, and that is fine.  However, do not focus on specific things that happened.  They are over and done with.

For example, I have a tendency to be late to things.  This, in itself, is not a weakness, just an observation.  Being late is certainly rooted in a point in time and is focused on the past or future.  A better way to interpret this is that I tend to optimistically view things as taking less time than they actually take.  At the same time, I tend to focus more on myself, what I need to do, then how I make others feel when they are waiting for me.  So, the root is ego-based as most weaknesses are.  My associated strengths are that I am very optimistic and am more people or event-driven than time-driven.  I give myself the benefit of the doubt in that I am so focused on what is before me, I lose sight that I am disrespecting others in being late.  I see this weakness as perfected in that it is a necessary part of me that makes me who I am.  I love this weakness, accept myself just the way that I am because of it, and do not wish to change it.

The general principle is to see yourself as a whole person and have utmost compassion for yourself.  As you long to be in a relationship with a lover that loves you passionately and unconditionally, you must too love yourself.  Be in love with yourself.  It is only when you truly love yourself that you can love another.  As your internal view of yourself begins to shift, you will see that your outward perspective will shift as well.  You will have more compassion for others and will be a light that others will see and gravitate towards.

Be Kind to Yourself, Part 1

"Radiate love from the depth of your being and allow that love to transform your mind, eventually spilling out and radiating love to others through your actions."

If you do not have control of your mind, then you are like a ship at sea, tossed by waves and storms.  Life is a seeming chaotic place to live, as you are at the whim of what happens to you.  This is because our minds are reactive to our environment; they blow things out of proportion and focus on the minutia rather than the important things.  The fact that your mind, body and emotions are not You is an important teaching.  Once you learn to love and observe your mind, then the knot begins to unravel.  The power of the mind is when we consider the mind as us.  That is the illusion and is the lie we have bought.

The worst poison in this life, which may even be the hell that we have heard about, is when we are a slave to our mind.  Worse still is when our minds play back tapes of failures in our life, how worthless we are, or how we cannot do this or that.  If we are to believe in sins, this is one of the worst sins of all.  This can truly destroy us.  The danger about being a slave to your mind and that your mind is replaying negative thoughts is that this causes your emotions to spiral downward, with no way of escape.  Even the thought "why am I being so hard on myself" results in a negative emotional spike.

We should have compassion for people who are cold or indifferent to others.  These people may have the worst attitudes, are critical or judgmental of others and are simply unpleasant to be around.  These same people are even harder on themselves.  This is part of the karma of acting on negative emotions or thoughts.  As humans, we are unable to treat others differently from the way we treat ourselves.

Where is the way out?  The way out of this state is to realize that you are not your mind, your body or your emotions.  This is the first step.  This creates a buffer around your life, so you are not instantly reacting to things.  You begin to think "this is interesting; I ran out of money" instead of instantly trying to come up with a hundred plans to manipulate life to give you more money.  You give space to life and allow things to happen to you.  The second step is learning to be an observer of your thoughts.  You do not interject commentaries into your thought stream but just observe it, thinking "this is interesting."

What begins to happen is you will begin to have lapses of thought where you almost get the feeling of radiant light breaking through, a light filled with peace and love.  This is when there is a break in the mind stream.  The third step is learning to love your mind.  You are to love your mind as a child, as a friend, as a very necessary part of you that is your ally.  If you treat your mind as something foreign or "bad", it will react in this way to you.  The fourth and final step to break free of this bondage is to begin to fill your mind with positive, uplifting things.  Meditate on the many blessings in your life, express gratitude for everything that has been given to you, be joyful.

These steps do not have to be taken in order.  Each one is in fact not independent of each other.  They all can be summed up in the following statements.  Love yourself with as much love as you love others.  Give as much grace to yourself as you give to others.  Give yourself the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe you are doing the best that you can considering the circumstances.  Learn what you can, at the time, when you could have done something better, then let it go.  In short, radiate love from the depth of your being and allow that love to transform your mind, eventually spilling out and radiating love to others through your actions.

In the next part, I will write about ways that you can be kinder to yourself, in general.