Love Yourself

Below is an article that I picked up from Maggie's blog and I've requested her permission to post it here to share with everyone.

It's about - Loving Yourself.

Relationships are how we relate to others. We have a relationship with everyone that we know and who is close to us. This is not reserved for our family or someone who we are involved with. Every interaction we have with another is the act of relating.

If we have a problem relating to others, this affects our ability to have supportive relationships. We have to ask ourselves if our relationships are supportive and if they are not, then ask ourselves why they are not. Everyone wants the perfect romance or marriage, but not everyone looks at the mechanics of how to have one. If we fail to have supportive relationships in our life, how can we have the perfect relationship?

Lets look at what is a supportive relationship. The word support is very important. It means that our interaction supports another. This means more than supporting another in their decisions or actions, rather through the act of supporting, we honour and validate who the other person is. In turn, this validates who we are. Both are supported, no one loses, no ego’s involved, and in so doing, we honour the relationship. This is what it means to have a supportive relationship. This is the desired goal. Now, how do we accomplish it?

There are several reasons why we may have problems relating to others. One primary reason is our behavioural patterns. These patterns are developed over a course of our lives. It starts when we are children, through to our adolescence, and by the time we are adults, we have established our behavioural patterns for our relationships. We can have both positive and negative behavioural patterns.

What causes negative behavioural patterns? If we look at a person’s life, we can readily see which is negative or positive behaviour. But we may not easily see the cause of the negative.

The cause usually resides in the past in which a trauma or an event occurred that effects how we behave in the future. If that event occurs again, or if something happens currently to cause us to experience that trauma again, that is when we respond to it. Situations can act as triggers, which may cause us to react to the person that is involved in the situation. This causes a negative behavioural pattern. Until we can identify the problem, we are powerless to do anything about it.

Whatever the situation was to trigger a reactionary response, the cause must be discovered in order to heal the original fracture. In Shamanism terms this is called a Soul Fracture. A fracture of the Self. Each self is part of the whole which comprises the soul. Soul Fractures occur for a variety of reasons and may or may not relate to this current lifetime. Traumas have occurred in past lifetimes that may or may not have been addressed. The Soul holds the body of these life experiences. Furthermore, the life process itself can be very painful for some. Past experiences that have dishonoured, or invalidated who we are, cause us to close ourselves off even more. These experiences build up over a matter of time and unless a clearing occurs, emotional or physical problems may develop.

If a problem has been identified, what can we do about it? One can try to clear it themselves, or one can go to a practioner who is adept at doing clearings. In order to clear, one must identify the original cause that created a behavioural pattern. Then, move through the experience of that situation, and experience the emotions that we have associated with it. Then, we must have closure or completion. This means completing it anyway that we are able. As long as, we feel that we have a sense of completion for the experience.

So, after we have identified the cause and received closure or completion, then we let it go. This does not mean to forgive or forget, that is not what it is to release. The act of releasing is our readiness to heal. Only after the experience has cleared can healing occur.

The healing process is a time when we must be very loving to ourselves. If we beat up ourselves about the experience that had caused us harm or our past reaction to it, then we cannot heal. In being loving to ourselves, we validate what we had experienced at that time and our emotions for it. Our emotions are always valid. So it’s important for us to do this self validation in order to heal.

Love is the energy that helps us to heal, whether we give this love to ourselves, or we receive it from another. When we look at having supportive, loving relationships in our life, why not start with ourselves? Because that is where love comes from. This is what transforms our relationships and our lives. We must love the self first. And we cannot do that until we have healed and become whole.

There are plenty more wonderful articles that Maggie has written. Check it out HERE and enjoy.