Self Love and Loving Kindness | Sister Dang Nghiem

Self love and loving kindness.

If you're finding it hard to feel love for yourself,

try the following short embodiment practices.

Even if you don't have difficulties with self-love,

it never hurts to take a moment to
practice loving-kindness towards yourself.

You can do this any time.

At your workplace,

in the car about to go somewhere,

or as part of your
daily mindfulness practice.

Put one hand on your throat and breathe.

Put another hand on your heart
or on your belly,

and embrace yourself.

Breathe gently.

Feeling the touch of your warm hand

on the skin of your throat
for several inbreaths,

and outbreaths.

If you feel safe,
try gently closing your eyes.

Tell yourself.

Just breathe.

It's okay.

I love you.

Repeat as many times as you like.

If it is difficult,

or uncomfortable to say,
I love you to yourself,

at first you can say, help me to love you.

Help me to take better care of you.

Move your hands to your opposite elbows,

and give yourself a hug.

Feel the touch of your palms on your elbows.

Hug yourself a little tighter and then release.

Do you feel the warmth and the life force in your own body?

That is love right there.

How often do we acknowledge that,

despite all the suffering that we might have gone through,

and put others through?

Life is still a feast to be enjoyed.

There's a lot of love within us and all around us

as the energy of life.

Try going outside for a walk,

somewhere with trees and growing plants around you.

Go with a friend or go by yourself.

Focus on soaking up the oxygen,

breathe out by the plants around you.

Allow yourself to relax and touch love in the air,

in the steps that you make,

in the communal energy of living things.

Do you feel love in the sunlight?

Love is there.

If only you could give yourself permission

to taste it bit by bit.

There's a lot of love in our body.

Our body is so faithful, so forgiving.

We may have starved our body,

or stuffed it with food and relentless experiences.

We may have deprived our body of sleep, of rest, of care,

but our body continues to be there for us.

It tries to heal again and again.

Realizing my body's patience and resiliency,

I have learned to come back to the breath,

to the body throughout the day,

and to send a lot of love and gratitude to this body.

Sometimes we think negatively of our body.

You are ugly.

You're not as beautiful as you should be.

You're not as good as somebody else is.

Or we send a message to our body like,

I just want to die.

Why aren't you dead?

Can you imagine what kind of energy that is?

It is harsh, it's cruel,

and is powerful to send that sort of energy to ourselves.

I have done that so many times in my life.

And it becomes a habit.

You just think of it.

And many times you do not mean it.

The self-hating thought rises up automatically,

but it has the same effect,

whether you mean it or not.

Your body still cringes.

A dose of adrenaline is still released in your bloodstream.

A sadness still sweeps through your body.

I have sent many harsh messages to my body.

Year after year.

Eventually my body got tired,

and then insight came to me.

It was like a boxer in a long match.

You punch him, he falls, he gets up,

you punch him again, he falls again,

then he gets up.

But if you keep punching him,

at some point, he's not going to be able to get back up.

It's the same for ourselves.

We are punishing ourselves

if we keep sending ourselves unkind, unloving, cruel messages.

You're stupid, you're worthless.

You're nobody.

Go away.

Just disappear.

With the awareness we gain by practicing mindfulness,

and leading a spiritual life,

we learn to recognize these messages,

which I think of as death wishes.

Death wishes and self-loathing

stemmed from unresolved traumas in our life.

Reflecting and feeding on one another.

Therefore, we set an intention to protect ourselves, first and foremost,

from our own injurious thoughts, speech and behaviors,

embracing ourselves and saying.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I don't mean that.

Please help me to take better care of you.

We can say to ourselves.

I'm sorry that I never thought I was worthy of love.