Hi,

I too struggle with the concept of self-love and self-acceptance. I am almost 50 (one more week!), and I've never really found the answer.

I have, however, found many good mentors and and gurus over the years, and I always get a lift from them. The latest, a guy named Karim Hajee, insists on written exercises, so I decided to start a blog as a way to state my intentions publicly, and with luck, find an audience. My hope is to track my own goal-setting progress as a way to inspire others.

Maybe you can relate to my struggles - check out my blog at http://createpowersuccess.com


Thanks, and peace.

I think that you are trying to find a way to view yourself in a way that you can be proud of. It seems that you already know it cannot be fake, because that won't help you.

Self honesty is not easy, we are tempted to take shortcuts.

Be yourself, and be proud that you are being yourself instead of creating an image of yourself. This will be enduring and I am sure you will find that everyone else appreciates your genuine persona.

It is not so obvious what it means to "be yourself" though, is it? That is something that we discover as we go through life, and it can change too. Mostly, we discover what "being ourself" means by stripping away all the fake stuff, including the persona that other people put on you based on what you show them.

So stop trying to find an image. Be yourself! Some people use the meditation practise of emptying the mind of all thoughts [not an easy thing for humans to do!] and then while sitting there doing nothing but breathing, you have found "yourself".




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PS - "another definition of self love" -
I knew someone who believed in self love... he masturbated 10 or 15 times a day. Thats not healthy, at least I don't think so. His bizarre sexuality came about as a result of being raped by a male teacher [and the guy was not even gay], so his true self was stuffed away and hid because he was so full of shame and guilt. He believed that masturbation was reaffirming self love, but really it was sort of escapism or a symptom of his mental illness.
I do not think that masturbation is self love at all.

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Below is a link from Helfinger's forum posted by High On Water. Powerful stuff and definitely worth your time to watch the videos. I even put it in my favorites and passed it along to several cyber friends.

Corey

//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1364967#i

Hi,

I hope you are doing well with your mission of self acceptance. That's the first step to emotional freedom and life joy! I was thinking of an image of hugging yourself in love and acceptance - or you could just go ahead and actually hug yourself! It is a tough one to get an image for... ;-)

There's a free course on acceptance at http://lifeadvicesite.com/Self.php
which you might be interested in.