Forum
I have been a holistic therapist for over 20 years and over that time i have worked in hospices and rehabilitation departments and various clinics and treated most conditions with various degree's of success .
One of the things i have learned in that time is,we cannot define medicine and we certainly cannot say where healing will come from .
I have treated young women who have not been able to get pregnant and through the medium of reflexology have become pregnant ,women who have been down the ivf route previously and have come because they had nothing to loose.
I am not sure if was down to the reflexology or simply the fact that i took away the stress and demand that each person put upon themselves.I do know that, to ease a person's desperation opens up healing and that the by-product of relaxation is the normal functioning of the bodies innate wisdom and balance is often restored.
I have seen and heard some amazing speakers who have given reams of information on the latest therapy that offers everything to everyone and yet often kindness is all that is needed and the quite reassurance that the continuity of regular support always brings to another in need.
I have never stopped learning from the person sitting before me,as they openly begin to tell me their story and often without hope for a future we begin to look at the possibility that it can change for them and by experimenting and exploring those things once avoided we can see that fear is conquerable by the application of steady action and affirmation on all levels of one's life.
Affirmation is the recognition that you matter and self love is often born from that recognition, as little by little, affirmations of self love often come in the form of feeding yourself good food ,forgiving oneself and others daily, taking the time you need,being with the people you choose to be with, nurturing one's spirit through meditation and prayer as these important components become a way of life as all of these are to become affirmations to oneself saying to yourself "I love myself "
i have never seen a quick fix last more than 3 months but i have seen 3 months of daily quick fixes become the beginning of a developing good habits that last a lifetime .
We would like to believe that we have the answers, but we don't, if we are really honest we don't and in a way that is liberating because once we admit , "we dont know why or how " it free's up up to just loving each other to the best of our ability.
I have never met anyone anyone who didn't respond to love eventually .
Our goal should start with the cultivation of self love and the recognition that as we do and teach another to do the same ,the following changes would occur ...
In your life and the lives of those you love, please answer in the form of a post, what would self love mean to you ?
Hi Stuart (remember me, life coach buddy! :D)
Welcome to Healthypages. It seems your account has been afflicted with the forum glitch of making you a guest rather than a member. I'll contact the site admin and see if they can sort it.
What would self love mean to me (and no I'm not going to give the pervy answer ;))...
Self love is to love everyone and everything, as the Self is all that there is.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Self love is to love everyone and everything, as the Self is all that there is.
Interesting that from completely different starting points (I don't think that self is all there is) we can get to the same place. Self love increases the balance in the universal web, just as love of another does. The more balance, the easier we find it to 'have' love - to give it and to recieve it.
Self love ,what do you think that would be like?
Hi B.H.
What does the self mean to you in relation to your question .
x daz x
Interesting that from completely different starting points (I don't think that self is all there is)
depends which Self you're referring to. If you are referring to the "self" that sees itself as seperate from other, then yes you are correct, it isn't all there is. If however, you see the Self as being One in a non-dualistic sense, then it is all there is.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
depends which Self you're referring to. If you are referring to the "self" that sees itself as seperate from other, then yes you are correct, it isn't all there is. If however, you see the Self as being One in a non-dualistic sense, then it is all there is.
Or possibly not. Can you define for me what you mean by 'One in a non-dualistic sense'? Then I can tell you if I agree with you or not.
Can you define for me what you mean by 'One in a non-dualistic sense'? Then I can tell you if I agree with you or not.
Hmmm, not sure it's easy to define in a single post, after all there are books and philosophies and ancient teachings all about it, but let's see what I can explain in summary...
For explanations sake I'll refer to "self" with a small "s" to mean a dualistic self, and "Self" with a capital "S" to refer to the non-dualistic self...
Most people go around considering themselves to be a self-contained person seperate from other people without any influence from 'others'. We even commonly talk in the dualistic sense of e.g. "us" and "them" or "my self" and "other people".
The Self on the other hand is not a disconnected seperate entity, hence why it is non-dualistic. There is no "other". By virtue of this lack of "other" it is naturally inclusive of everything that there is, and as such it is every thing, aka everything is One. Something that some philosophies or beliefs refer to as One Consciousness, or One Awareness or in some religious beliefs can be understood to be God (though many religions see God or Gods as seperate from themselves).
I vedic teachings, the Self is referred to using the sanskrit word Aham, and when that Self experiences/creates an awareness of duality, this is the creation of Ego (ignore the negative connurtations of ego that people typically use the word for). In vedic teachings, the Ego is referred to as the sanskrit Ahankara, where Ahan is the Self (m becomes n when it is joined in the sankrit translation) and Kara is... more difficult to describe, but when I was taught about this, the phrase used was "anything in creation", which isn't just physical things, but any thing, including thoughts, movement, or any 'thing' you can imagine. The Ego therefore is when the Self becomes attached to any 'thing', because it then treats that 'thing' as belonging to the self and thus seperate from 'other' things. This attachment/ego is the creation of conflict for the same reasons that Buddhist philosophy teaches of the need to let go of attachments, because it is the creation of conflict within the Self, where the conflict is created by the Self but seen as being caused by 'other'.
So when I talk of Self (uppercase S) I'm referring to the Self that is inclusive of all that there is, not the self that sees itself as seperate from 'other'.
Hope that clarifies a little. Not easy to explain several years worth of philosophical teachings and learnt knowledge in just a few paragraphs, and language is not the best way to express some of these concepts whereas putting it into personal practice and experiencing it, can give more insight.
An interesting set of practices in a similar vein, can be found on the Headless Way website...
[url]The Headless Way[/url]
I've done this as a days workshop myself and, aside from being fun, there was some good insight to be had from some of these experiments... some people got it... and some people struggled, but that's just the way we learn I guess. 
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Okay. I do agree that we are all connected and all part of the web of the universe. But you (and I appreciate that terms like ‘I’ and ‘you’ are part of duality) used the term and I asked what you meant by it. By saying,
Hmmm, not sure it's easy to define in a single post, after all there are books and philosophies and ancient teachings all about it, but let's see what I can explain in summary...
You are answering as if I had asked what the generally accepted definition is.
Nevertheless, I don’t think that ‘the self is all there is’ although my ‘self’ could well be part of ‘all there is’. The way I understand it from my Spirit Teachers, we are here – separate – because there is stuff to learn, about being connected, from being disconnected. Until we have learned that through lifetimes it is only words. And no one is going to get rid of ego in this cycle of lifetimes, nor in the next cycle (I can’t say beyond that). Ego makes us what we are and allows us to learn.
Okay. I do agree that we are all connected and all part of the web of the universe. But you (and I appreciate that terms like ‘I’ and ‘you’ are part of duality) used the term and I asked what you meant by it. By saying,You are answering as if I had asked what the generally accepted definition is.
Not necessarily, as I understand it using terminology from various of those philosophies..., but let me think about it and I'll see if I can answer you more.
Nevertheless, I don’t think that ‘the self is all there is’ although my ‘self’ could well be part of ‘all there is’. The way I understand it from my Spirit Teachers, we are here – separate – because there is stuff to learn, about being connected, from being disconnected. Until we have learned that through lifetimes it is only words. And no one is going to get rid of ego in this cycle of lifetimes, nor in the next cycle (I can’t say beyond that). Ego makes us what we are and allows us to learn.
That's fair enough, that's your understanding. I think there is a crossover in how we understand things, and we just need to find the familiar ground of terminology... (and I need to find a way to explain myself in a way you'll understand what I mean).
Just a quick question from what you said though... what is the purpose of the learning? i.e. what are we learning it for? from your understanding/teachings.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Just a quick question from what you said though... what is the purpose of the learning? i.e. what are we learning it for? from your understanding/teachings.
This is where I think our understandings come close. I think that – eventually – after many cycles of lifetimes, we gain enough understanding (of life, the universe and everything) to be able to be truly connect. Maybe at that stage ‘self’ will have no meaning.
I used the word ‘think’ because I have pieced this together from what my Spirit Teachers and those of my friends have said. On the whole, they want us to concentrate on the life we are living at the moment. Also, they may not know the details themselves. They are on the next cycle further on. We all have things to learn.
But in the meantime, we are separate humans learning the lessons that we can learn through being such. If we were totally connected and knew that we were, how would we learn the lessons that disconnection has to teach us? All the caring, all the compassion, all the wonderful things that humans (eventually) learn?
Hi Stuart,
To me Self Love is a combination of the balanced place where I can not only accept me through all the layers of forgiveness, acceptance and love & honor me for who I am..but also being able to be at peace with who ME is at all forms..
Something my clients (in eating disorder world) struggles to be at peace with ..and the journey of self discovery..as self esteem and body image is hindered in their perception of self .
And you are right .. all those ladies who benefit from your unconditional therapeutic hands are experiencing the effect of deeper level of calmness , despite all their anxiety over not being able to conceive .. Lucky them.. and good for you Stuart for bringing hope in to their equation!
with warm wishes
Vathani
Hi all,
It has been a long while since I have been on this site, and while looking through the posts was drawn to this one. Hence the reason for posting a reply. So apologies first of all but I could not resist as I have found this post striking a cord with me, and felt the urge to write.
For a long while I have been struggling to find my 'self '. I have found myself unsure, lost and confused. I felt at odds as I was not sure of my 'self '. However, recently I feel that things are all coming together and for the first time in a long time believe I know my 'self '.
I like my 'self ' and after many years am comfortable with who I am. I accept my 'self' warts n all ( well, actually I don't really have any!) but I hope you get what I am saying.
So, to me self love is very similar to what Vathani wrote. It is about forgiving oneself and accepting oneself for who you are, admitting mistakes and not persecuting yourself for them. It's about forgiving yourself and being comfortable with ones own skin.
i believe that when we are able to do that, we self love and, then our warmth and whatever it is we give off when we have reached that stage comes through subconsciously to those around us and they can feel it, sense it and become aware then they believe that we really understand them. Enhancing our abilities to be with them and support them through their times of need, or whatever we have been summoned to do.
I hope this makes sense?
and thank you for taking the time to read this.
lots of positive energy and prayers to you all,xx
Hi Stuart
Have you ever felt tender and protective towards a child? Not tormenting him/her, not dragging them down, not criticising- but comforting them, giving them hope, soothing them with words and actions, understanding or trying to understand, guidiong them in the direction of comfort, staying open to them so that they feel safe- that is love.
The same towards yourself is self love.
what self love means to me
Hi Stuart and everyone, I think that everyone has touched on aspects of self love. To me it means acceptance. Being able to accept yourself even if you are making mistakes, imperfect and human.
To get to that place many of us have to undo years of conditioning and learn to work with the critical voice and beliefs that have been programmed into us. I also feel that it is critical to deal with the emotional response that we have linked with our ideas.
The only reason that our conditioning is so powerful is because of the emotional response that is automatically set off when we have certain ideas or beliefs. Without emotion our beliefs are nuetral and cause us no problems.
I guess that what I am trying to say is that it can be difficult to find acceptance and love for ourselves when our conditioning creates so much noise.
To me who we are beyond that conditioned response is the truth. When we are not bothered by the noise that our stuff creates then we don't have to try hard or work at accepting ourselves, we can just be.
I hope that helps
Sharon
Self love.
Perhaps to say that the 'Self' (capital S) is the unconditioned 'you' would be nearer the mark. Buddhists talk of the 'self' (small 's') as being a bundle of conditioned reflexes; a programming that is learned as we go through life but actually begins at birth. I believe we are born with a clean slate and from that moment have ideas and beliefs imposed upon us by others who have their beliefs imposed on them by previous contacts with parents, siblings etc. The 'self' is, in fact, an illusion. How can we love an illusion. To be free of ideas and concepts; to see others as they are and not have 'images' of them; preconceived ideas about them; opens up a new world. But the 'self' is not seeing this new world because there is no 'self' to see it. As soon as you say 'I see' then you have introduced this illusion of an 'I' existing which 'sees'. It would be more appropriate to say 'there is seeing'. Very few of us act. We re-act to a given situation from our conditioning, what we believe to be appropriate from what we have been led to believe is the truth. Real 'action' is unconditional. It is done spontaneously, without thought. Just as Love should be unconditional, without the intervention of the 'self' and it's wants. All very difficult to explain. Are you, the observer, different to the one who is observing? Why do we say I must love myself. Who is the 'I' and what is the self? But then who is explaining.
jonathan.