Spiritual Corner #9

On practicing self-love

From the W1555 Buurtkrant, April 2025 by Birds WG

Self-love is a fragile concept and even more fragile as a daily practice. Many times our attempts to be self-loving will be judged as selfishness. Many times in our attempt to be self-loving we lose our kindness towards others.

How do we know what self-love is? The enemies of self-love are judgement, fear, shame, and guilt.

"When we feel friendly towards ourselves,

we are calm and our hearts are more open."

In essence the practice of self love is the practice of transforming these enemies into a more friendly feeling in our stomachs. When we feel friendly towards ourselves, we are calm and our hearts are more open. Then we have the capacity for more kindness towards others too. There are many meditations out there and many practices for nourishing more self-love. I always encourage everyone to explore them.

This spring I want to practice writing my own rules for self-love. Those rules are an exploration into how I perceive the values with which I want to live a more self-loving life. I plan to write a hundred rules. I have only written nine so far and I want to share them with you in the hope that they will inspire you in your own practice of self-love…they might even encourage you to write your own self-love rules!

Rule #1 I follow my excitement to the best of my ability.

Rule #2 Laugh as much as you can.

Rule #3 There are no mistakes, only opportunities for self-love.

Rule #4 Calmness and sadness look alike.

Rule #5 Try to be a beginner in as many areas of life as possible.

Rule #6 If you are lying in bed, and you are enjoying lying in bed, continue lying in bed, for as long as you need.

Rule #7 When you feel fear, breathe deeply.

Rule #8 Never answer the phone when you do not want to answer the phone, unless it rings more than three times in a row.

Rule #9 There is always a way to be yourself.