Be Who You Love
Be who you love – and your life will reflect that.
Self-love is often misunderstood and viewed as selfish, arrogant, egotistical, and many other negative connotations.
But the truth of self-love is that the person you spend the most time with is you. In fact, you cannot leave yourself, abandon yourself, or set yourself aside.
Of course, astral projection, distractions, drugs, alcohol, and other things can separate you from yourself temporarily. But no matter where you go – there you are. There is no getting away from yourself.
Hence why self-love is so damned important. If you cannot figure out how to love the person you spend ALL your time with – how can you expand that outwards to share with other people?
This presents a lot of variable thoughts, feelings, and other complex notions. Being social creatures to one degree or another, there are fears of alienating people and being subsequently rejected. In the interest of making impressions, we sometimes deny self-love because we think it makes us better to be “selfless” rather than self-loving.
But this is not healthy when all is said and done.
A great many mental-health issues are either tied into or exacerbated by a lack of love for the self. Depression and anxiety can both readily connect to matters of self-esteem, self-worth, and similar matters tied to love for the self. Or lack thereof.
When you are actively being who you love, it is easier to bridge connections both within and without.
Internal and external influences
Everyone has the same 3 states of mind.
- Unconsciousness is that which you do purely automatically. Overall breathing, swallowing, digesting, and similar things your mind and central nervous system do unaided.
- Subconsciousness is where your habits, beliefs, values, and overall sense of self exist. It is subconscious because you CAN access it — but largely don’t. Subconscious is passive, doing things by rote and routine.
- Consciousness is here and now. It’s your inner being, specifically your mindset/headspace/psyche sense of self. Consciousness is active, choosing and deciding things in the moment.
For the most part, the unconscious mind is on autopilot and not controlled by you. But the conscious and the subconscious are what make you, you.
The subconscious and conscious are constructed based on what you learn, discover, experience, create, find, and generally encounter over your lifetime. This can be via direct and indirect people, places, things, philosophies, and whatnot.
Because beliefs, habits, and values are in your subconscious – they are not at the forefront. They exist and inform you about how you perceive reality. Hence, they are your internal influencers.
The conscious mind is how you perceive reality at this moment. This is via a combination of your six senses and thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. Active practice to recognize and be consciously aware of your mindset/headspace/psyche inner-being self – via these mechanisms – is mindfulness.
The conscious mind is the bridge between internal and external influences. It can filter what it gets from outside before it plants a seed in your subconscious.
If, however, you aren’t engaging your conscious mind and practicing mindfulness – outside influences can plant seeds in your subconscious that will impact your beliefs, values, and habits.
Empowerment comes when you be who you love
When you be who you love, you empower yourself to be mindful and control the impact of outside influences. You can choose to be informed but not inundated, step away from toxic people, and make other choices about where, what, why, how, and when you are.
If you are in a bad relationship – when you be who you love you can more readily recognize how it’s bad. Do they make you feel small? Is the other person making you unhappy rather than happy?
Self-love is the mechanism of recognition when it comes to the outside influences and being empowered for handling them.
Also – you gain control to alter/change/replace/create new inside influences – i.e. habits, beliefs, and values. When you be who you love you more readily practice mindfulness.
In being mindful, you allow your inner being – your mindset/headspace/psyche self – to look deeper into your subconscious being. Thus, you open yourself to being capable of recognizing what your beliefs, habits, and values are. If they don’t serve you – now you are empowered to change them.
Love is an open concept. It is a reflection of the abundance of the Universe on every level. It’s not just the romantic rom-com notion of love – it’s a much broader, all-encompassing concept. Love is the sun and rain helping plants to grow; connectivity between people, places, and things; and whether you believe in God or some other higher power or not – love is the infinite Universe and its untold wonders.
When you be who you love, you are open to potential and possibility. But not being who you love and avoiding self-love closes you off and creates artificial lack, scarcity, insufficiency – and worse.
Why you should be who you love
I know that a lot of people have felt they’ve been burned by certain interpretations of this concept. The often-used “you can’t love someone else before you love yourself” is a trigger. Being capable of giving love outside of yourself is not tied to loving yourself in precisely this way.
As I stated at the start of this – you are with yourself ALL THE TIME. The one person on the whole planet you are ALWAYs with is YOU.
What if, like in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, we had an external manifestation of an aspect of our inner selves? A “dæmon” that was always at our side – a constant, ever-present companion? How do you think it would go if you could never be separated – and didn’t love one another?
We don’t have these outside manifestations of our inner selves – but the concept of being incapable of loving such is the same. Sure, you can do things to distract yourself from your inner self – smoking, drinking, drugs, etcetera – but in the end, you’re always there.
Some people find this frightening. They fear going into themselves will reveal things they dislike, despise, and want no part of.
Truth is – they aren’t wrong. If you have become disconnected from your inner being, you might not like what you find.
However – once inside, it CAN be changed.
The only thing you have true and total control over is yourself. Inside or out, you are empowered to control thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, beliefs, values, habits, and all else. Conscious or subconscious – you can be nearly anything you can conceive of.
When you be who you love, you ultimately empower that control. Being who you love is the equivalent of taking the wheel, starting, and driving the car.
You are not alone
Reaching within can feel super lonely to many people. Let’s face it – nobody but you is inside of you, ever. And that can feel really lonely.
When you dislike or even hate yourself – that amplifies that feeling. Even if it doesn’t go that far, and you mostly question your worth and value – that engenders feeling lonely.
When all is said and done, you deserve to be loved. Whether by yourself or others around you – love is your right. It’s abundant, and you are worthy and deserving of it. When you be who you love you are open to give and receive abundance.
In a world bombarded by artificial lack, scarcity, insufficiency – where compassion and kindness are often falsely seen as weakness – when you be who you love, you provide a counter to these deceptions. You become a beacon in the dark and can help not only yourself – but those around you.
Like the instructions during a flight regarding oxygen masks – put your own on before you assist others. When you be who you love, that’s the equivalent of putting on your oxygen mask first, so that you can breathe freely while helping anyone else.
Self-love is not selfish because love is not selfish. Love is abundant, belongs to all – and you are worthy and deserving of love – both receiving and giving.
Can you see why you should be who you love?
This is the four-hundred and ninety-sixth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.
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