Circle Of Self-love And Compassion

Self-love is the regard for one's own well-being and happiness. Only if we keep ourselves in the highest regard, we can take care of our well-being and happiness.

Self-love is definitely different from being a narcissist, as they primarily love their outer appearance instead of their inside. And when we talk about self-love, what is inside truly matters, how capable we are of love and loving totally depends upon what kind of approach we have in life. Now, which approach to choose in life entirely depends upon ourselves. 

Self-love according to me has a bit different meaning including all that has been said above. As a meditation practitioner for over three years now, I have discovered something more about self-love. Of course, not everybody has the same point of view, and they are totally free to feel what they feel. Nobody in this world is right or wrong, we are just born with different brains inside our heads and that's the beauty of the world, diversity!

Here are the 2 elements of self-love:

1 . If you love yourself so much, how can you hurt someone else?

When you give yourself so much regard and treat yourself and your feelings tenderly, why would you want to go through the pain of hurting someone? Because you have to go through the whole cycle of pain before passing it on to others. If you get angry, bitter, resentful towards someone, you have to feel those emotions too intensely, and that only affects your mental and physical health poorly. 

2. If you love yourself so much, how can you get hurt by someone else?

When you know that the feelings of rage will impact you negatively, why will you want to get hurt by someone, why can't you simply ignore all the negative comments and actions? Easier said than done! Totally agree.

You have to train yourself to be resilient and practice the art of letting go. This will give you another level of freedom wherein, nobody, but you yourself have control over your own feelings and emotions, and trust me, it's a great place to be! 

When we are in control of our feelings, our strongest self emerges who is much more aware, creative, focused, and of course, loving, caring, kind, and empathetic. 

Now let's talk about the next level of self-love, Compassion!

Dalai Lama says, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Compassion is when we feel the suffering of others and ourselves and want to eliminate it. 

During the last year, everybody has gone through something which in turn must have shaped them in some way or the other. So we were sort of witnessing a radical change going on in the world. But honestly, witnessing people being compassionate globally reduced the pain of loss to a very large extent. 

To be compassionate we do not have to wait for an event to occur I believe. Everyday compassion can be a source of utter joy and happiness. For example, giving food, warm clothes to needy people, being kind and polite to cashiers in the shop, spending time with the old members of family or society, or sometimes simply listening to someone in pain would help lessen their suffering. 

As we know children are our future, try to include them when donating something, teach and encourage them to be kind to their classmates, spend time with them and tell them about something good that has happened in the world, maybe some good news that you read, make a "quote of the day" and try to practice it as a family. These might seem simple but when practiced regularly might have incredible results.

The good thing about self-love and compassion is that they have a ripple effect. It would only keep on growing with consistent practice. Being a witness of this ripple effect, I would like to share an example, whenever I enter my house, I say aloud "thank you" for my warm and cozy house. My son has learned it too so he has this habit of saying "thank you" for everything now. The other day he broke one of his toys and was crying and saying, "thank you" dear toy for I was able to play with you for that many days! I felt amazed at that time for a five-year-old knows the meaning of compassion. He was grateful and compassionate both towards that toy that he honored even after it broke.

Self-love and compassion only empower, it helps us accept ourselves and others the way we are, with all the flaws, without being judgemental. Self-love and compassion make us strong and extremely positive and more loving and lovable towards others and of course, ourselves. 

And for myself, I would say, practicing meditation for the past three years has taught me a lot about myself. I believe each one of us has been created in this world for a special purpose and just thinking about our problems and worries kind of shrink us. If we want to truly live a life of purpose and alleviate our pain and suffering, we need to alleviate other's pain and suffering. We need to give meaning to other's life as well.

Creating a hopeful world every day is the only way to move forward in life as there should be something in everybody's life to look forward to.  Let's start brightening up the world a little bit every day, let's try to make one person smile every day, let's give someone a chance to feel a little bit better about themselves every day.  Let's try to become a little bit better every day. Let's try to practice self-love every day. Let's expand the circle of compassion a little bit bigger every day. Let's be expansive and create the ripple effect every day!