I have been blessed, as I imagine many of you who are reading this right now also have been, to have had many wonderful friends in my life. While it may not ever be clear why the people that come into our lives do, I imagine it’s ultimately because of a self love practice our pre-physical self was engaged in before we manifested in our current form and we simply get to enjoy those that come to us as a reflection of our own love.
Close your eyes after you read these instructions and feel into the love you have for a close friend for a few minutes. The cycle of exchanged love that we have for ourselves and for our friend is continuous and strengthens the more we focus on it and celebrate it so it makes sense to me that when we love on our friends we’re also loving on our selves by extension.
I was having a conversation with one of my children recently about their love for their friends and they mentioned that it was easier for them to love their friends than it was to love themselves and it got me curious, so I asked how that was even possible since it’s always felt to me that if I didn’t love myself I couldn’t love others. But they reminded me about the conditioning that exists around self interest and how our culture has so much conflict with loving the self and that too much (who decides what is too much love for one’s self??) of that results in a person being selfish but how loving others is self-less and that’s a better way to be.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any particular desire to be less of my self or love my self less than others so I can somehow love others more….or *whatever* the people or entities who’ve postulated such limiting ideas are trying to express and that now have many in a self sabotaging/dysphoric state.
Close your eyes again and imagine your life without the same close friend from before (because it’s certainly possible that they will go from your life before you go from theirs) and feel into what arises with this imagining. All the love you have for them will likely always exist and comes from the same place that loving your self comes from, it’s just directed outwardly rather than inwardly.
We can and need to love our selves at least as much as we love our friends, and while our friends provide much for us, we can find ourselves spending more time doing and giving to our friends while disregarding our own needs for love and time with ourselves. Recognizing this and balancing time spent with others can be challenging so take a few more minutes now to transmute some of the love that surrounds you and your close friend and let it bathe your spirit until you feel content. ❤️
TimeSpaceOne 