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Relationships: The Foundation

These articles are written basically in order. Before you can build your foundation for sharing, you have to know what love is (so start with the Know Thyself article). Once you get a grip on where love really exists (within), then you can start to lay a foundation for expressing it with others.

I wrote in the Know Thyself article that love exists within. Unfortunately, most of us do not know this so we have no awareness of the foundation of love (ourselves). You are the foundation of love because you are love. Before we can express our inner love for others, we have to consciously love ourselves, which is the true foundation for a successful relationship with others. One might say it's easy to love yourself if you are love, but it is not. Our core self is universal love, but the perceptions, blocks, and ego that stand in the way are impressive.

When we don't love ourselves we become bitter and pessimistic about the world, which is really just an indictment of ourselves. We project our unhappiness, despair and lack of self-acceptance onto those around us. Whenever someone treats me with hatred, I know it is they that they hate, and not I. I send them as much love and light as I can and hope they can see this one day. People who hate themselves generally use every person other then themselves to blame it on. The world screwed them, God hates them, their mate is bad, or whatever. Ịt is easy to blame the world for this lack of self-love, but it is never accurate.

The turning point in loving ourselves is when we start to become honest. To take responsibility for how we feel about ourselves. To address the ego state and notice the steady flow of judgments we pass onto others and subsequently ourselves. To know we all have suppressed guilt (for a myriad of reasons), and that as long as we are lying to ourselves about our perceived imperfections that we are not present in the truest sense in this life experience. When we start to accept ourselves, we can then begin to experience wholeness of our life, not just the parts that we're comfortable with. And when we do this, our original innocents is born again. There is no good or bad with our feelings towards self, just an opportunity to experience profound learning.

An example of this dishonesty with self is when someone says to me (or even when I say this to myself), "They made me get angry." The fact is, we chose to get angry. They did nothing but expose something that already existed in us. No one makes us do anything emotionally. The other side of this coin is when we say, "They make me feel love." Again, you still chose what to feel or suppress. Start taking responsibility at the highest level and you'll be self-empowered, another sign of self-love.

So when you attack someone, think about what they did that set you off. What sore spot did they expose? What part of your ego got in the way? For it matters not what is ever said to us, but how we react. Our reaction to what people say and do says something about ourselves, and where we still need to heal within (Can you imagine the Christ or Buddha yelling back at someone and saying They made me do it!?) This does not mean beat yourself up for having "failed" for there is no failure involved here, but instead, look carefully at where you still need to grow. In a way, we should thank the person who has just upset us, for it's a small gift that allows us to see where we still need to heal. A bit of light was just shed for us and for this we should be thankful.

Love yourself, accept yourself during your journey, and know this process is miraculous. In essence, stop judging! Stop judging how you unfold, or how you perceive. Just come from a place of love, and there you will find yourself.

This is a life long process. But you will find that you will grow to love yourself through these concepts and perceptions. The effort towards loving yourself becomes less and less of an "effort" and more and more of a natural state. And when you stumble, you pick yourself back up, observe what just happened (but not judge) and proceed to walk on your path towards self-realization. And eventually, you will be a being who is living the true foundation for a loving relationship with another. For until you learn to love yourself, you will be incapable of loving another in a way that reflects your true essence.

The journey continues...