How do you love yourself so much?

A friend asked me recently, how do you love yourself so much? And truly, I don’t know how I got to be what I am today. It was a process and I don’t know when it began, or if deep down I was always like this. It took its own sweet time and effort I believe. But when she asked me that question, I realized that yeah, I do love myself a lot, that I enjoy every minute of being myself. 

Although I cannot think of when it all started, but I can definitely tell few things which played major role consciously or sub consciously. 

One of them, is accepting my flaws. Knowing that no body is perfect, not even so called Gods. So don’t be too hard on your self. Mistakes are part of your personality. It’s not the mistakes that define your personality but how you react to them and what you make of them. Forgive yourself for the past. Nobody else needs your forgiveness more than yourself. Stop hating the hated for your own good. Stop blaming the world for events of your life. 

I told her my goal in life is to die guilt free. And that won’t happen overnight on a death bed. It’s a continuous process. Sooner we begin, the better. 

Don’t get me wrong; when I say self loving I don’t mean be pompous. There’s a huge difference between these two kinds. One feeds off of arrogance and the other off of humbleness. 

Self loving needs a lot of humility. It doesn’t mean closing your eyes to your flaws. It’s not blind love. It means to accept them, work on them if it makes you a better person, a person you want to see yourself as. Again, not because world wants you to be something, but because you want to be that. I always keep my eyes open and am always introspective.

So I am consciously trying to be less angry, to be less judgmental, to hold less grudges; and to be more happy, to be more forgiving, to be more forgetful, to be more loving. I am constantly evolving and me as I am today is so happily different than who I was 10 years back. And I love every bit of me. And I can promise, if I die this moment, I will die guilt free. I have absolutely no guilt, no qualms about past. 

Again, it's not going to be easy. Especially when you are the strongest critic of yourself, to go beyond your own expectations is going to be quite a task.

Buddha says(**see notes at the end of this blog for this strikeout) Someone said - “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. " 

Think about it. Who stays with you till the end? With whom do you spend every second of your day? It’s not your parents, it’s not your children, it’s not your spouse or lover or friend or enemy. It’s YOU! 

And it hurts to see the world searching for love, for approval, for affection, for respect from outside and not within. How will the world love or respect you if you don’t love yourself madly? 

So yeah, start learning about yourself, start knowing and loving yourself if you haven’t already; and enjoy life as it happens to you! 

(A shot clicked on Toronto islands last weekend; even she was trying to find herself in nature; lost in her thoughts) 

(**Edited on 29th Dec 2019 - My friend Sherlock commented below, that forced me to review the truth behind the quote I used. I have a diary of quotes, which had labelled this as Buddha says; and when I googled, it does return a bunch of images with Buddha's name on it, so I used it as such. But my friend is right. Buddha apparently dint say it. the links he has in the comment and this one - https://tricycle.org/magazine/you-deserve-your-love-and-affection/ clears this out. It seems most likely as Sharon Salzberg's quote, but looks like originated from Udana, however, to be safe, I am using the quote as anonymous :). Thanks Sherlock Holmes)