Most people make a bizarre face expression when they hear the terms self-love and self-acceptance. Everyone knows that it is important to take care of oneself, to love and appreciate oneself and the body given. To accept all there is – even characteristics we might describe as “flaws” ourselves. But what does self-love mean? How do you mystically develop such a “skill” and where to start?
It took me until recently to finally experience what books and inspirational quotes tried to tell and teach me, but failed because how do you feel something never known before and how even recognise it?
As always, experience is worth more than simple theory and that’s why I want to try – at least – to share with you my story on how I discovered the ultimate self-acceptance and love for my being…
After a very strenuous time I sat down onto my meditation cushion and closed my eyes. The sound of my heartbeat was somehow thumping so loudly on that day and I tuned into it. I heard the steady rhythm and by that I started to even hear the flow of my blood. It was like a nice and warm stream, a pulsation like ocean waves and I completely lost myself in it feeling every single cell of my body. Every single cell giving its best, working, repairing, growing and dying. I felt my gut digesting, my lungs taking in air and catalysing the process of gas exchange. I felt my spleen producing cells and the liver producing blood components. It was the greatest miracle ever felt – life at its best display. And then the most simple but at the same time most precious realisation hit me:
No matter what I did during the day, what I said, how I spent my time, no matter how I felt, this body was always doing its work. This body was always there and working for my higher good. It was not only my heart, every single organ in my body was always working for my benefit.
My heart was continuously beating, my lungs taking in air, my gut digesting, my kidneys and liver cleansing my body and my brain coordinating all of that, so that I did not even take notice of it. In that moment I realised how self-love must feel because every single cell in this body was working for my benefit and giving its best, no matter what the f*ck I was doing.
It never stopped and never just defied it tasks…
…even if I didn’t fit into my favourite pants anymore…
…even if I ate food, which harmed me…
…even though I was ignoring it, when it was tired…
..even if I did not really do a lot and had a lazy day…
Do you think, that, if your organs and muscles could speak, they would start judging you because you did not meet their expectations and tell you that that presentation you gave was crappy? Do you think they would normally just stop their functions just because you had a bad mood or behaved not correctly?
Even when you get a health issue and one of your body’s organs starts to take your attention because it wants to show you how to get back on track, it will never hold a grudge against you or simply say: “You know what, I’m so angry at you for what you did 11 years ago, I will just simply sabotage you or stop working. Nope, leave me alone.”
Not one of your cells would say: “Just look at you – No way, that I would work for a person like you!” or “I will only continue working for you, IF you will have a lot of money, etc…”
No. Your body loves you so dearly and unconditionally. And if we simply make ourselves aware of these things, tune into one part of our body with full awareness to not only see, but feel its function, there is no way that we will not start to appreciate it and ourselves. Because our body loves us all the time – no matter what – teaching us the highest and purest state of love: the universal and unconditional kind.
And that’s what all wise masters and gurus and whoever out there means with self-love. Being completely non-judgemental and pure. Holding no grudge against yourself.
After having felt this kind of love not only for another being but for myself now, I finally understand why it is so immensely important for everyone to learn that: If each single person would feel what I have felt, and experience this huge wave of gratitude, warmth and love, everyone would finally appreciate himself and his surrounding. There would be no demands to be made, no tasks to be fulfilled in order to “earn” love and no feelings of resentments anymore. ❤
And as I said in the beginning of this post: there is no chance to read it and understand what my humble words try to explain. The only way is experiencing it yourself and then spreading it into the world… 🙂
M
Inari Yoga 
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