Mary O’Malley – Love is the truth of your being. And yet, if you are like most of us, you are not aware of this. Caught in your mind that loves to struggle with life, you are like a fish in the ocean searching for water! One of the main reasons we are cut off from the truth of Love is that the way we have been trained to regard ourselves is the exact opposite of Love. We are unmerciful with ourselves!
If you talked to your friends like you talk to yourself, you wouldn’t have any friends! But when you begin to open to your true nature, you see that Love is accepting and honoring. It is allowing and understanding. It sees what is here without any need to change it, and its power to heal is phenomenal. Rather than dividing, it unites, bringing things together in harmony, including the parts of yourself you have shunned.
In your childhood, you were taught to read and write, ride a bicycle and do your chores, but you were probably not taught how to be okay with yourself exactly as you are. So you became an ongoing project, focusing on what needs to be different about you rather than accepting yourself as a unique expression of life.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve aspects of yourself. But for most of us, it becomes our primary mode of existence, causing us to miss the enoughness that we are right now! Without knowing how to meet yourself with understanding and mercy, you wound yourself over and over again, and this weaves a layer of scar tissue around your heart.
Your mind says, “If there were more sunny days or if I had a better car, more education, a slimmer body, a more beautiful mate, a fancier job, etc., then everything would be okay.” The more you expect yourself and your life to be different than what they are, the easier it is to judge how you are doing. And the more you judge, the thicker the scar tissue becomes around your heart. As self-judgment runs rampant through your mind and heart, it can solidify into shame. Self-judgment says “I did it wrong.” Shame says, “I am wrong.” To live a shame-based life is a rejection of yourself by yourself. To be filled with shame is to wake up every morning to a person you don’t like, and that person is you!
It is possible to heal your shame by learning how to meet yourself in understanding and mercy. The key is kindness and compassion. These qualities of your heart know that the most unacceptable parts of yourself are the most wounded. It also reveals that there is not one part of you that is not deserving of being met in a compassionate and loving way. When you finally realize that the most healing thing you can do for yourself, your family and even the world is to meet yourself in your own heart, then you can then take the most important step you have ever taken in your life – to accept yourself exactly as you are.
Acceptance is so powerful that it can heal bodies (including scar tissue), heal relationships, and even heal nations. So I invite you to take a moment and gently place your hand over your heart. Now think of a part of you (including mental and emotional states) that you find unacceptable. Now imagine this part as a small, wounded child and allow it to be woven back into your heart. Do this over and over with every part of yourself that you feel is unacceptable, and you will be amazed at the healing power this unlocks in your life.
SF Source Mary O’Malley Nov 2018