Self -Love is not narcissism
It is the most profound thing you will experience in your life.
Narcissists don’t even like themselves, they actually despise the person they are.
They feel dead inside and spread death and negativity around themselves. They are like a small kid having temper tantrums daily, but they do not want you to know about it. They try to cover it up with fake confidence, charm and charisma that crumble by the smallest ‘insult’. And for them, nearly everything is an insult.
All they do is protecting their huge ego from feeling small by comparing themselves to everyone and constantly analyzing every flipping situation, thinking, how do I look in light of this or that. If that guy is funny and has all the attention, I have to belittle him and turn the spotlight on Me, Me Me! Mind-boggling the darkness and hate, envy, anger they have in their mind. All the negative emotions, but love.
But you, you know what love is. At least I hope you do. Love opens you up, love is the feeling that makes you feel that you are a waste being encompassing everything. It makes you feel on top of the world. Love gives you real confidence, charm and magnetic charisma without faking it.
So what is self-love really? It is the total and complete acceptance and appreciation of oneself, NO MATTER WHAT! Absolutely no matter what. If you are lucky, you had a mother or father, who loved you like that. Most people did not, unfortunately. But even if you had, she or he will not be around forever and once they are gone, then what. That is when the real proof of the pudding comes. Can you function without their love, who loves you without conditions in this world?
Nobody, but you! You love and accept yourself under every circumstance.
This is what a narcissist cannot do, but you can and I tell you how. By observing yourself like you were the object of some kind of an experiment where the participants have to eliminate, let go of all unloving, criticizing, should have done this, should have done that, thoughts and feelings; all being hard on yourself up, literally ALL non-loving, unkind, distressing feeling and thought you are having. Just dump them into the trash, as you do with the files on your computer when you clean things up. Select them carefully and pull them over to the bin. If the computer — your mind — asks you, ARE YOU SURE, YOU DELETE THEM FOREVER, you just say yes, I am sure.
Once you delete a non-loving feeling, replace it with a loving one immediately. Shower yourself with love. Obviously, if you hurt someone, do not pat yourself on the back, do not hate yourself either. Just say, I was unconscious, I did something unloving, I love myself anyway, love the person involved and move on.
This could be a full-time job! But once you master this, your whole life is different. You feel like you are floating on air and everything is easy. The things you were angry about with yourself, do not happen any longer.
At this stage, there is another step further. Do not stop here. Loving yourself is just the beginning. Now love everyone in your family. If you have no family love your neighbors and everyone you know and ever knew. See what happens.
It may seem hard, but I am not talking about the kind of love you feel towards your lover or child. I am talking about a general loving feeling towards every living being, basically everything, just because they are. They are actually from the same substance as you are.
It can be hard, hard to feel love towards the people, who hurt us or treated us unfairly. Even though, we know that people who behave in such a way are deeply unconscious and well, there are several reasons for why they did what they did, this subtle loving feeling can be present all day long. Like a soft breeze with a fresh scent enveloping us in every moment. A touch of sunshine.
This is what changes the game.
Not stopping your thoughts, which is pretty much impossible. In deep meditation or not being involved with the world, yes, one can experience it. But constantly, as some spiritual teachers say, just stop your mind and you are free! Well, show me all the people, who did that, I want to meet them.
This teaching actually can backfire easily. You try to stop your thinking and try it harder and harder, but you cannot do it and what happens, you beat yourself up because you are not able to do what a so-called spiritual master could. And so what?
Love however is always there. You do not have to reach a certain state, you do not have to be a master, if you believe that someone other than you can be your own master. To love yourself and everyone and everything is much easier to do. It still takes practice, because we were conditioned to hate certain things and judge others, like and dislike, instead of just acknowledge the things as they are. We can still point out if someone shouts at us or steps on our toes, lies; but the subtle feeling of love can also be there parallel. Not just the silent observer of things but the silent lover of all things.
Try it. See and feel what happens.
The best thing is that you are able to do it. Narcissists are not, well most of them unable to have a different point of view, a different attitude, because that would mean that the way they think and see the world is less than perfect and they cannot be less than perfect. Tragic, really. They suffered great trauma when they were little and now they are locked in their own, self-made prison and for most of them is a life sentence.
This is why it is precious and paramount for those of us, who CAN love, TO LOVE. Use this ‘muscle’ and be glad you have it.
