On Loving 'Me'

While in the last post I spoke about how there is no me, I'm going to somewhat contradict that in this post. I'm not talking about the selfish kind of me, but about loving myself. In an odd way, only by realizing that there is no self can we learn to love ourselves. And only by loving ourselves can we learn to love each other.

This past weekend was somewhat tough. I found myself falling back into anxiety and unhappiness. I wanted to get so much done, but somehow I kept finding excuses to push off work. Every time I would push off work the little voice in the back of my head would shame me for not doing work. I kept striving after that calm, loving feeling I had grown into with my new meditative practices. I would tell myself, "If I just go to yoga today, then everything will be better. I'll get work done after that." However, my yoga practice didn't go well and so again I strove for that calmness by taking a meditative walk. But each time I tried for that calm, happiness I was confounded.

Today, however, I left the lab 20 minutes early and took a slow walk towards my class. I left my responsibilities behind and enjoyed the sunshine, the smell of flowers, the strength of the cedar trees along the path. I remembered how beautiful the campus is and I tried to extend that love that I felt to everyone I saw (which is a lot of people now that school is back in session). This made me feel much better and I was able to get to back to work after class. I attributed this change to my extending love outward, but I now think that there was also a vital piece that I wasn't taking into account: loving myself.

By finally letting go of the shame I had for myself at not getting work done I was able to bring peace and calm to myself. I hadn't realized that the reason I didn't want to work was because I was afraid of failing. Ironically enough, I was afraid of not getting the work done. As soon as I was able to break the cycle of shaming myself, I was able to be productive.

I believe, for me personally, this is my biggest issue to overcome. I need to be able to accept me for who I am. I get distracted and that's fine, but shaming myself for it is only making the problem worse. I'm finally learning to realize when I'm becoming distracted and come back to the now, not berate myself for it. As many Buddhist and meditative teachers say, imagine those toughest to love as they were when they were children and you will learn to love them as you would a child. I need to remember that I was once a child and still am in many ways. No one is infallible and the sooner I see myself in the same way the sooner I will be able to truly love others (and get some work done :).