Love Is Energy

 

When I was a psychology student in college, a professor told me you can only love someone else as much as you love yourself. I thought he was crazy, and I recall being angry at him. How could that be? He explained how people spend so much time waiting for someone to love them that they forget to love themselves. It started to make sense to me, and I realized that in order to love, you need to know how to give love to yourself before you can share it with someone else. He explained that we share what we are. If we are negative or have low self-esteem, loving another person will not give us good self-esteem. Love will distract us, but it will not make us love ourselves.

I strongly disagreed with him at the time and was very vocal that we can love others more than we love ourselves. He was a jerk, and I wanted to drop out of his class. What did he know? Of course, years later, I discovered my reaction was so strong because he was right. I was young and did not love myself unconditionally. Years later, after my own process, I discovered what he meant: if we did not love ourselves, we would get in unhealthy relationships with others who do not love themselves. I learned that self-loving and self-loathing were not the same!

Today I say those same words to my clients, and with many of them, I watch the same reaction I had. With some they grow and flourish into wonderful self-loving people. That year in college I learned that love was the greatest antidepressant because many depressed people either do not love themselves or do not feel loved by others. That is why love can propel you into power. That was my introduction to learning the art of self-love.

Our self-love is a validation that we are lovable and we look forward to accepting the love which is offered to us. It propels us into a power where we begin to value our own opinion and not put so much value in what people think of us and the conditions they place on us in order to be loved. Don’t allow your worth to be measured by someone else’s feelings. 

When we harness the ability to love ourselves, we gain a better understanding that we can love ourselves even if others might not love us, and that is powerful! When we love ourselves enough and feel secured in the Belly of the Buddha, we are able to see that self-love increases our ability to love other people. Self-love increases the amount of love that we receive. Love is energy and energy is contagious, therefore, we enhance our ability to receive love.