” If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? ” /RuPaul/
Today is Valentine’s Day, so let’s talk about love… It’s not that I’m such an expert on the subject, mind you…
Since I remember, I haven’t cared too much about Valentine’s Day- it’s not really a day rooted deeply in my culture, but rather something that arrived in my country with end of Communism, with globalisation, openness and eagerness to experience something new and exciting. And capitalism- let’s not forget about capitalism!
As a teenager, I remember receiving some Valentine’s cards- mostly made as an ongoing joke with some of my friends at school. I remember getting cards from one person only, who actually meant what he had written there. I kept those.
A couple of years ago, just like pretty much every morning for some time now, I received a picture and a quote from Beijing Mindfulness Centre (BMC) I was going to when I was in China, wishing people to ‘..be the Reason Someone Feels in LOVE’ . It was a beautiful thing to wish anyone. But it sparked few questions and thoughts about singles. Being single is just something I’ve done for a long while and perhaps I could claim I’m pretty much an expert in it. But that day this little line brought a question of how I can be that ‘reason’ for ‘someone’ and ‘who for’ if I’m single…? My automatic response to that was that I need to put myself in the centre of metta, or loving-kindness, meditation and perhaps I should generate those loving and positive emotions towards myself and I should be that person who loves me. This aligned beautifully with today’s message sent you me by BMC, which I quoted at the beginning of my post.
Metta meditation doesn’t seem to come easy to a lot of people. From what I’ve learnt so far when attended courses, listened to talks, lectures and so on, I understand that especially for people from Western countries, loving kindness towards themselves comes with a struggle. I don’t think I’m an exception. I started looking at myself and my relationship with metta meditation more in depth…
Two years on and I still find that practising metta, especially towards myself, isn’t always easy, but I feel like I’ve made a tremendous progress. Just few weeks ago I attended, hands down, the best day retreat to date on The Power of Loving Kindness . And I truly felt that power. It may still be a challenge for me to practise and feel loving kindness all the time and on daily basis, however I’m not going to give up. And today I started my day with one of my favourite loving kindness meditations without actually realising what day it was- I just had this feeling to go for it, so I did. I also believe that I must have made some progress as during my meditation I had an unexpected vision of…the UK PM and all I did was I went and embraced her and held her long against my heart wishing her nothing but peace and happiness- honestly, from the depths of my soul.
So ok, you may say, that’s all fine, but what about love in every day, mundane life? Something has changed for me too. Since I’ve decided that I am enough , I’ve witnessed major shift in my life too. At a risk of repeating myself, I’m going to say that arriving to the conclusion that I am enough and with all that power of loving kindness meditation behind me, I believe I’ve started shedding layers of (unnecessary) protection and exposing the Real Self. I’ve been feeling vulnerable, yet strong and much more connected with the Authentic Self. I’ve not been feeling as scared as I used to and I’ve been open to taking more risks and I have actively started searching for my Conscious Partner. I don’t think I would’ve done all of that had I not arrived to the point in my life where I actually accepted myself and embraced my perfect imperfections. I feel proud of myself and I recognise all the work that I’ve put in all those years has started paying off. And I’m not talking about a ‘pay off’ as achieving some kind of tangible result in a shape of (any kind of) man, but a ‘pay off’ as in connecting deeper with my Authentic Self and through that being able to connect with another person on a level that really matters to me. And, hopefully, to him too. I’m so much more open and braver to ask difficult questions, seek clarifications, feeling more comfortable to make an arse of myself or having laughing fits in , perhaps, least appropriate moments 😉 But it all feels good, authentic and aligned with my soul. Am I still scared? Sure I am. But I believe that the power of loving kindness has been helping me push though it and helped me reach for something that I used to consider unreachable.
Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m not planning to give up on Love and I hope you aren’t either 🙂
******************************************************************************
Links worth checking out if you’re into meditation and mindfulness: But in between all of them Generic generic cialis 100mg Tadalafil may be the suitable and favorable option for the men to prove one’s masculinity. As a result of this, men are able to achieve a online cialis sale strong erection whenever they want with no side effect. It is due to such medication sildenafil pills that effectively treats the sexual condition is Super P Force tablets. That is the reason, all of us while captivating as well sildenafil prices as entertaining all of us at the same time in a very cathartic knowledge.
Introductory Dhamma Talk: “The Heart of the Noble Path”
Meditation 1: “In the Loving Gaze of Metta”
Talk 2: “How Metta Develops Stillness and Insight”
Meditation 2: “Metta To The Beloved Friend”