The importance of self love, its benefits and how to cultivate it are exalted by self-help gurus, social media influencers and coaches alike. And the argument seems legitimate: If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love another. If your bottle is empty, you cannot pour from it. And then come in a bunch of things to do for increasing your self love – several techniques and exercises that are all very appealing for the average mind.

What if that’s not the most helpful approach to take? What it we are missing the point? What if there’s nothing you need to do to love yourself?

Let us put all that we know about this concept called self-love aside for a moment and slow down to take a fresh look at it – a deeper look, and see what we find out.

The most fundamental question that arises when someone says “You have to love your self” is this: 

“Who is this ‘You‘ that has to love your self? Is this ‘You‘ different from the self?” To love is an action. Such an action requires two entities – The one who is loving and the one who is receiving this love. If there are such two entities, then it makes sense to perform an action – to love. It makes sense to do certain practices to fill your self with love when there is someone filling, and someone else getting filled. The one filling has love, and the one getting filled does not have love. 

But if you are the one filling, and the one being filled, if they aren’t separate, then who is the doer of actions and who is the experiencer of results? If you already have the love, and are giving it to yourself, then there is no actual act of giving or receiving happening there. And hence there can be no exercise to facilitate this giving. You already are the giver of love to yourself, and therefore you already have all the love you want.

Yet, we often feel like we lack self love because we see ourselves as separate from our self. Because we have created a false ego-persona that we call as ourselves, as separate from our real self. Once this illusory self-identity is seen through, self love transforms from loving yourself to just being in love and being as love. Love ceases to be a transactional action to perform. It transforms into a state of being. You realise that you don’t need to love yourself because this being is you. You are love. Already and always. 

As a transformative coach, my work revolves around helping people wake up to this state of being and master their understanding of themselves and their life. To explore more about what it feels like to live in this state of being, send me a direct message on LinkedIn. We’ll have a quick chat and see what’s most helpful for you.

Love,

Rishi