Daily Inspiration

[cmc]

A Valentine's Day Two-Part Message (Part One-Loving Yourself)

Jesus said, "The second is like it, 'you shall love your neighbor AS
YOURSELF.”
Matthew 22:39

God is love; we are created by love, in love, to express love. It is a
responsibility of each one of us mature in our spirituality, to express
love.

Have you noticed how wonderfully peaceful our lives can be in one moment,
and then in the next second something happens that disturbs us and all of
a sudden we are very much into our humanity of nervousness and fearful
thinking.

There are stages of growth in relationships. Mastering them is the Ph.D.
of spirituality.

There is no judgment of good or bad about what stage we may identify with.
We are simply where we are. Life is a process, and every stage has come
to pass, not to stay. So you might say that one really does build upon
the other, and each stage is essential in our own spiritual evolution.
So, we make every stage okay, regardless of where we are.

The word “co-dependency” is a buzz-word which came about a few years ago.
A co-dependent relationship is when I depend on another person for my
worth, to make me feel better, to tell me I’m okay. We do all kinds of
things in order to get what we want from the other person.

We need to remember and recall that were always okay in God's eyes. How
much more important it is to be dependent upon God.

Human dependency, for the most part, is quite unconscious. It is not
usually deliberately done, even though there have been those times when we
certainly have done it consciously. And it is something we learned as
little ones along the way. It seems that as we were growing, we learned
to get what we wanted by working the system.

Life does go forward and not backward.

So you might say it was our way of surviving to learn these various
manipulative roles in order to have some kind of control over our lives.
We all want control.

What we realize fully that God is with us all the time we lose our need to
have control over others to feel powerful ourselves.

We learned how to work the system as children. We found that through
manipulation we could get what we wanted, at least to some degree, but not
without a price.

With the hand we were dealt, we can either use it as a way to keep on
doing things the way we are doing them, or we can use it as the very
stepping stone into the kingdom of heaven.

Let’s allow it to simply be a stage of growth that has come to pass, and
let it pass.

We say to ourselves, “Why is this happening to me again?” Can anyone here
identify with that? It comes to the point, however, when you’ve done this
so much that we come up with the unfortunate recognition that THE COMMON
DEMONINATOR is us. We’re the ones who are going to have to do something
different if there is going to be any kind of change in our relationship
so it will be something we call healthy.

An independent time is not really a stage of growth. It is more of a step
sideways. An independent is a co-dependent who is single. Now, you can
be in a primary relationship and still be an independent. It feels like
living with a roommate.

When we get tired of going back from co-dependent to independent, when
we’ve been in that pattern long enough, we say “There’s got to be a better
way. There has to be more than what I’m going through.” We feel like
we’ve done everything we should, and we don’t understand why it isn’t
working.

Let’s take a look at what is really being offered to us in every
relationship if we are willing to see it. I believe that a relationship
can offer us the very key to the kingdom of God that we all say we are
seeking; to the kingdom of power, wisdom, understanding, harmony, and
peace. But this is not without a price.

You might say that it is the narrow gate that not everyone is willing to
take. How does it happen?

First love yourself as God loves you, and then love others from that point
of spiritual awareness. You can't really experience something that is not
contained within yourself, for yourself.

It begins with a willingness to love and accept ourselves just the way we
are. Are you willing to look at yourself with all your wonderfulness and
all your less-than-wonderfulness, with all your mistake-making, and all of
the negative traits that are a part of our humanity, and then love and
accept all those things about you just the way you are?

Until we accept it, we are stuck it with. Until we are okay with where we
are we cannot move higher. It is our very acceptance that allows us to
change the things we need to change in life. We need to look at ourselves
openly and honestly—and that means opening our hearts to ourselves and
seeing what we see, not judging it, but being gentle with ourselves—and
pour out the love of God that we are toward our own humanity.

The greatest power in all the universe is God’s love coming through YOU.
It seems like we have a tendency to want to love everyone BUT US. In
fact, we’re so busy fixing, changing, and loving everyone else that we
sometimes neglect the fact that we exist. What we really are doing is
trying to compensate for the whole world by not allowing the love of God
within us to be expressed toward ourselves.

Ask God to teach you how to love yourself.

Ask in prayer, “Dear God, teach me how to love myself unconditionally.”

This is an open door to the presence of God. This is an open door through
which God rushes in to give us the next step we are to take in
consciousness (whatever that might be) at a level we can understand
perfectly.

But it isn’t just prayer, or meditation, or forgiveness that is required
of us; there is another part. What do we do when the emotions are running
high? What do we do when everything is falling apart, we’re feeling
unworthy, rejected, and depressed, and all sorts of negative things are
going on?

God is in the midst of your very being.

Every cloud contains a silver lining. The power that is in the midst of
fear…. is that not God? Could it be the calming voice of God saying,
“It’s time to go higher?” Could it be the voice of God saying, “Let’s
move up because you are now ready for your next level of understanding,
consciousness, and wisdom?”

Say, “Okay, God. Let’s go forward. I’m ready to move out of the darkness
into Your light.”

That means we can’t shut-down. That means that the fear (or whatever it
is we are experiencing) is going to be the very catalyst that is going to
get us moving through this. Or I can do the same thing we might have
always done--use it as my millstone and keep status quo so we don’t have
to change at all. We can repeat the same pattern with predictability, I
can say once again, “Why is this happening to me again?”

It takes courage. But we have the courage of God. We have the strength
of God. We have the wisdom of God. Are we willing to use it to move
forward through what we have to face?

It’s like giving birth to a child. It hurts a lot when it comes through,
but when it is gone it is the most wonderful thing of all. When we walk
through our own fears, it’s the same way. When we walk through them
instead of shutting down, we experience the presence of God because just
on the other side we are removing the curtain between the limited, the
painful, the misunderstandings into the light of clarity, joy,
understanding, and love.

When we can unconditionally honor and love ourselves just the way we
are—and that doesn’t mean to stay there—this allows us to change. We are
no longer wasting our energy by judging and wishing things were different.

We’re using ALL the energy now to move on through it and go on with our
lives.


God Bless You! Happy Valentine's Day!
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

reprinted with permission

[cmc]

Until we are okay with where we
are we cannot move higher. It is our very acceptance that allows us to
change the things we need to change in life. We need to look at ourselves
openly and honestly—and that means opening our hearts to ourselves and
seeing what we see, not judging it, but being gentle with ourselves—and
pour out the love of God that we are toward our own humanity.

When I read this I am reminded of just how simple God's plan for me is. I am the one who complicates it or puts a negative spin on things. I suppose that He looks upon my viewpoint of it all intrigued with interest, love, some genuine amusment and perhaps a bit of sadness too, after all He does have my best interest at heart.
Regardless of how I am deciding to interpret the events of my life, the fact remains that He loves me 'just as I am' and that is a huge relief!

[CAPTAINZING2000]

some us didn't love ourselves not alone God or another human being

A lot of us want or think, we have control.


We have to have a positive attitude that God is in control and there is a reason for the things that happen in our lives. Similar to the butterfly effect.

Good post !!