Talk And Q&A: How To Practice Self-Love?

By explaining what the Self and Love actually mean, this talk helps you slow down, tune into your intuition and notice the signals that your body and mind are giving you. The talk is followed by a Q&A session.

Transcript

Hi everybody and thank you so much for joining this event on how to practice self-love.

So often in our days we are just continuously going.

We don't pay much attention to the thoughts and the feelings that underlie our actions.

And actually it's interesting because those actions are fueled by those thoughts and feelings.

And what we experience as thoughts and feelings become manifest in and through our actions.

So it is important,

Especially when we don't like something,

When we don't like an outcome or meeting with someone to feel what is happening within us.

To understand what is it that we don't like and to make a change if necessary after we have fully embraced and fully accepted those thoughts and feelings within us.

And that is one way to practice self-love.

But of course it's easier said than done.

So in this talk I will give a bit more information or food for thought about what is the self and what is love.

So let's begin with what is the self.

Because we can't practice self-love without knowing who we really are.

And who we really are is not just the thoughts and the feelings and the body.

It is more than that.

It is the observer,

The awareness with which we know these thoughts.

Without the awareness,

The being that knows our experience,

We actually wouldn't know any experience.

So our self is this pure awareness and you can get a feel for it right now.

It's not just a word or something that cannot be touched.

It is actually here now.

If you try and think of qualities of awareness,

For example,

You can notice that it is effortlessly accepting all thoughts that arise within.

Awareness does not fight with or go against any thought or feeling that arises.

So it is all embracing.

Another quality that it has is that it doesn't really have a limit.

It is limitless.

Again,

There is no thought or feeling or thing or object of experience that arises outside of awareness.

Everything that we ever experience arises within.

And the body and the mind are a limitation because I cannot know what's happening in France right now,

For example.

But that does not mean that awareness itself is limited.

So our self is also always here,

Is ever present with everything that arises.

Even if there is a thought about the past or the future,

This thought is known here now,

Is experienced in this moment.

So this is some of the qualities of our self.

And then love.

What is love?

We know love as a particular butterfly sensation in the stomach that we feel towards a particular person.

But actually love is much more than that.

That sensation itself is experienced because we are aware of it.

So love is actually our self.

Love is this awareness that just embraces all thoughts and all feelings within it.

It just allows everything to be exactly as it is.

And in fact,

This is a bit of a deeper statement,

But it knows everything as itself.

It doesn't see separation.

It does not know duality.

So how to practice self-love.

It is really just being here now.

It is embracing everything that happens.

It is knowing it as our self.

And here you can say that there's two parts.

One part is to say,

I am not this,

I am not this,

I am not this,

I am not this thought,

I am not this feeling.

And coming back to awareness,

Coming back to the being that knows our experience.

And then the part of embodiment is saying,

I am this,

I am this thought,

I am this feeling,

I am this experience.

I am all that there is.

Everything happens within me.

And self-love is going back to the knowing that we are not separate from anything or anyone else.

And in our day-to-day lives,

One way to practice this is to stay as close as possible to being the observer.

Observing the thoughts,

The feelings,

The movements that are happening as we speak,

As we are,

As we eat,

As we shower,

Whatever it is that we do.

And not getting lost in those thoughts and those feelings.

Not identifying with something that is temporary,

Finite and limited like a thought,

Like a sensation.

And if we do,

Which inevitably happens,

If we do become a bit more focused,

If we do follow our thoughts and create something that we don't want or we don't like or have an experience that we label negative,

Then we can always come back to this presence,

This awareness that is our self,

That embraces everything as it is.

So that is how to practice self-love.

And one more thing that I want to say is that it is accepted in our society that self-love is also doing what you like,

Taking care of the body,

Going to a massage,

Going for a run,

Exercising,

Having a proper diet.

All of these things are definitely valid and it's very important to take care of the body.

Let me know if this makes sense,

If you have any questions.

I'm very happy to answer them.

Angie says,

Coming back to the self is difficult when emotional.

Yes,

It is.

And at times there is so much emotion and so much feeling coming up that we even can't come back to this peace,

This love that I'm talking about.

Even when we deeply know ourself to be that love.

And in those cases,

The most loving thing to do is rather than trying to resist the emotion that is arising and to change our experience by going to that peace,

It is actually the opposite.

It is to fully embrace it,

Fully allow it.

And because our understanding is becoming deeper and deeper,

We know that thoughts and feelings are inevitably temporary.

So we are then able to dive more deeply into the emotions that arise and know that sooner or later,

Inevitably they will fade.

And once again,

We feel this openness,

This presence,

This stillness that we are.

So that's the way to deal with a lot of emotions coming up.

And Mark is also right in saying it takes a lot of practice because not resisting is difficult because our body mind is designed in a way,

It is programmed to want the nicer experiences.

So the practice is to learn that both nice experiences and more difficult experiences are part of life.

Once again,

It is to know that both,

Both actually will inevitably dissolve and that ourself,

The observer of all experience is always there in the background.

Nicolas says there is an intermediary step between self-hatred and coming back to the self.

Is there such a step?

Yes.

And I think that step is the feeling,

The allowing of that self-hatred of those emotions to be,

To come out because they are waiting to be released,

They're waiting to be felt.

And it's also very interesting to see what happens after they have been felt.

It's not only a return to peace and stillness and love.

It's actually a deepening of our understanding.

It's almost like another veil has been lifted from our body and mind.

And we understand reality,

We understand what's true on a deeper level.

So there's this process of deepening and deepening and revealing as many of you have probably heard the layers of the onion,

Removing,

Peeling away the layers and understanding and seeing more clearly and also being able to feel more difficult emotions and also more peace.

Liz says it's hard for me to consistently stay with self-love.

And yeah,

I hear that.

And it's also not necessary.

As I said,

It's effortless.

And I do know that this is quite an annoying thing to say at times because it feels like it takes a lot of effort and a lot of practice.

What I really mean by it's effortless is that that's the constant.

The constant of life is the awareness of each moment unfolding.

So knowing that it's constant,

Knowing that our self,

Our true self is always present,

Always all embracing,

Always all accepting,

Means that we can also forget that more.

We can allow ourselves to feel the so-called illusory layers of separation,

That which is not self-love.

And to let that be experienced more and more until once again there is this deepening of understanding that our self is love.

So Angie says what about when emotionally you're fed up of the emotional state and want it to change but trying isn't changing anything?

Yeah,

It's a tricky one because it is the desire to change it itself comes from not accepting it as it is.

So full acceptance includes acceptance of this desire to change it.

It's like you accept both the emotion and all the resistance to the emotion that it brings with it and you allow all the thoughts to unfold and all the emotions to unfold and you rest with that.

And that will inevitably shift it but it will shift it when there is no longer a desire to shift it.

I don't know if that makes sense.

I know that sometimes these emotions can go on for very long periods of time but even so they are here to teach us something,

There is a lesson.

And even if the emotion can seem like it's the same and it's constant,

It's actually slightly different every time.

I'm sure you have experienced this that when you feel it there is an opening and a releasing that comes with it.

And even if there is another emotion that comes after that,

It is part of the process and it's just having that faith in this case that knowing that it's not random,

That it's here for a reason and of the underlying reality of your innate peace.

Yes Liz,

And once again fighting those negative feelings is what we have been conditioned to do and it's not just hundreds of years,

It's thousands of years of evolution that have led us to wanting the things that feel good.

But the path of spiritual growth is accepting everything,

Even those negative feelings and even the resistance to the negative feelings.

And there is also a strong part of us that holds on to these feelings really as though our life depends on it because we think that without this feeling the personality,

The being that we are will dissolve.

But it is not true,

We are not these thoughts and these feelings,

They are temporary expressions of who we really are.

And who we really are is the changeless background of all experience.

So by accepting and feeling those feelings we come back to this realization over and over again.

This knowing that we are safe,

That nothing can actually hurt us.

Yes exactly,

Learning to accept what is and knowing who we really are because who we really are already fully accepts what is.

Yeah Angie I totally agree that the spiritual journey needs to be taught in education and it's kind of taught through philosophy and ethics.

But that's so far from what's true,

What real love is,

What real acceptance is and these are more like philosophical ideas and beliefs.

And what I like to do is look at our direct experience to know that right here there are thoughts,

There are feelings,

There is a circumstance,

There is also this observer,

This awareness of all that is happening.

And when we turn to this awareness,

We know that it is changeless and ever present.

And that is ourself and that is the true healing of all negative patterns of the mind and the body.

So I hope that the school system will change soon.

Well it's been very lovely to be with everyone.

Thank you so much for coming.

And actually I have three more events scheduled.

Some of them are meditations,

Where all that I'm talking about here,

The more,

Maybe more theoretical side of things is brought back to our experience.

So please have a look at those.

And otherwise,

Please also follow me on the platform,

Because the more my following grows the more things I can offer like mentoring like one to one sessions.

So please do that and spread the word.

I would be very grateful to you.

And yes,

We can live in hope.

Thank you,

Everyone,

And see you again very soon.

Lots of love.

Bye bye.

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