Sometimes it is going to look selfish to others.  We live in a culture where part of the unconscious status quo is to not love ourselves more than others are capable of loving themselves.  It’s a funny thing, at least here in America.  On “paper” we are a culture obsessed with finding happiness.  But finding ourselves at the bottom of the bucket IS where we find ultimate happiness…and that is not where they are going to want you to look…because most likely they can’t follow you there.  It isn’t a journey you can take on purpose.  But when you get taken there, you won’t be able to be palatable, nor understandable to those around you.  And that is a tricky place to be.

Loving yourself beyond belief can be a tricky business.  Loving yourself through and through is something you bump into during the night.  It is the corner of a feast table that you have never known existed and there is only one chair, one plate.  You will come to see that there is one candle burning there just for you.  It’s all just for you and there isn’t any way that anyone can join you.  And that is the tricky part.  Only someone who has run into their own sharp corner in the middle of the night will understand why you no longer require their understanding, to experience deep solace.

I’d say that is the biggest thing that shifts.  The need for another to understand and the connection with your well being.  I find that I still do want others to understand.  Good lord wouldn’t that be lovely?  But what shifted was that my happiness is not dependent upon them understanding any longer.  I have become someone I love beyond what any other can love.  I sit at the table going “It hurts if you can’t see what is here…but it’s okay friend…I don’t need you to.  I can be me and you can be you.”  I won’t claim it is easy.  But I’d say this is the simplest way to express what remains for me after awakening…this way that there is a banquet that never ends.

People will become angry with you when you do not play or fight for their affection.  They will feel hurt when you do not demand nor fight for them to be near you.  They will see you let go but not realize that you are required to do so…that you have no choice.  They will feel let go of in a way that confuses them.  They will not see that it is you, accepting the gift of loving yourself.  They will usually feel pushed away and rejected. They may not understand why you seem untouchable.  It is a different language to be sure.  And the idioms, accent and vernacular are distinct, yet sound like rejection to others.

Loving yourself in a wild way will look to friends and acquaintances like you do not love them any longer.  What it really is though is a new paradigm of self care, that the world will be moving in to.  If people do not move into the night, and sit alone at their table…if they do not know how to cultivate this inner art of the self, this feast of love…the world will never know peace as long as people are here.  Presume that peace is found inside first then blossoms out of you.  Presume that this feast I refer to strengthens us for peaceful ways of living in the world.  And presume that looking for others to feed us is the old way and look into the world and tell me if that is working.  Getting others to love us allows us to walk in daylight with the throng and crush of humanity.  We have so much company there.  But this table for one, when we retire from the act of trying to wrest love from others, this is where we dine.  And you cannot be there without wanting others to love themselves, instead of loving you.  And when you get up to try to make another love you, just watch what happens.  See how quickly you get hungry.

It is only a lonely experience because of timing.  Because there are not that many doing it yet.  Eventually you will find more and more people with that look in their eye.  The one that no one can take away.  The one that says “I found the endless feast, I love myself even when you can’t.”

Sincerely,

Charlie

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