The Universal Energy is not only loving you and me… it also loves itself by doing so!  Herein lies the most important key for humankind today.  We also need to be in harmony, loving ourselves.  Practicing self love has long been regarded as being selfish and arrogant, even though the message from christian traditions has been to ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’.  The deeper wisdom within these words is that to lovingly focus upon yourself is just as important as to focus lovingly upon others. We have been taught to tend to other peoples needs first.  This has led us away from our own self discovery, from truly knowing ourselves at a deeper level. When we love others first, (and very often we only love others and not ourselves!), we become unbalanced and as a result can suffer in many different and often subtle ways.  This can easily be seen and is totally logical when we remember that we are energy.

As long as we don't acknowledge or remember that we are aspects of the Universal Energy, and that love is our basic nature, we will always cultivate the feeling of ‘a lack of love in our lives’, in fact lack in general. We then look for things outside of ourselves to fill this ‘hole’ in our lives.

We search for satisfaction in thousands of amazingly creative ways. We nurture the belief of our unworthiness by constantly blaming and criticizing others. We long for the ‘perfect’ partner, we change our appearances with cosmetic surgery, we engage in extreme sports, we over eat, we starve ourselves, we gorge ourselves on entertainment and so on…

The truth is, only you can love you the way that is needed to feel whole as a human being, and thus contribute to the creation of a better world for us all. 
Only I can fill the gap in my life by knowing that I am not only worthy, but am a part of and unconditionally loved by, the Universal Energy.

 Self-love enacted from a limited perspective can easily become selfishness.  If you put yourself first, you are not necessarily selfish.  True love of your own self has nothing to do with greed, jealousy or for seeking attention.  True self-love is to fully accept and honor your body, your personality and your abilities, with love and humility, as you are now, in this moment. It is in forgiving yourself for all things and freeing yourself from guilt and shame.  It is treating your body with respect, giving to it the food it requires for true health, dressing it in beautiful comfortable clothes.  When you truly love yourself, you won’t see yourself as better than another. You will simply be you, proud of being you! 

Selfishness is born from the fear of not being loved, not getting enough, of being neglected or even rejected. When you are selfish, fear rules your personality. This is not so easy to see when you yourself are in the grips of fear based thinking. A selfish person will often appear to those around them as unpleasant and demanding to be with.

The girl on the top picture is Kanani who is showing us a fresh coconut. 

 The next girl is her sister Kalana making face whilst showing us a print of a famous actor on her cheek.  

We are sure all of us have been selfish at times, being afraid of not getting our ‘piece of the cake’…  Most of us perpetuate the thought pattern – ‘that there isn’t enough for us all’.  If we fully believe that we are all parts of the Universal energy, that we are loved and that everything always is provided for us, we would never be afraid… 

I thought I had to be perfect to be able to accept and love myself. It was extremely difficult to love my belly and my chocolate eating… But I found out, that was exactly what I had to do!
If you think you have to change your body before you start accepting it, you underline your dissatisfaction, and your condition will most likely deteriorate because ‘you attract what you focus on’.  If your body is ravaged because of your mindset or behavior earlier in life, you’ll need to accept and forgive and ultimately love that as well.
Accept yourself the way you are.  You can start right here and now.  The present moment is always the starting point, and the present moment is always with us.  You cannot wait until you have lost weight or stopped smoking.  Start accepting your body, your mind and your habits as they are today. Total loving acceptance, whilst still maintaining questionable habits.  That is key!