One Minute Mindfulness: What Is Self Love?

In this teaching, Geoff Bell-Devaney talks about the importance of turning towards all of our emotions and making peace with them. He explains how we can do this by being accepting of our painful emotions and being gentle with ourselves when we experience them.

Transcript

What is self-love?

To me,

Self-love is allowing whatever emotion arises within me,

Allowing it,

Not resisting it,

And meeting it with gentleness and compassion.

It's in that way that not only do we begin accepting all these emotions,

But we begin accepting life.

It's in these ways that we start growing in our capacity to meet what's arising from a place of courage and compassion and gentleness.

It's in this way that we can start to grow in self-love for these parts that arise,

These uncomfortable emotions and whatnot.

We tend to want to run from them.

Yet when we do that,

We're running from reality,

From life,

And it's in meeting them,

Holding them gently,

Creating space for them,

And focusing on our capacity to do that that helps these emotions integrate and helps us live much more deeply and peacefully in the present moment.