Self Love is Not Selfish

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  Matthew 26: 37 - 40

It seems to me that in this life we are constantly faced with two choices, will you follow your head, or will you follow your soul.

Before I go one word further, I would remind you that if my words resonate, than accept them, if they do not, release them. I do not wish to tell you how you should live, I just see many people caught in an endless cycle that I broke free off five years ago and if my words can help even one other person break free, then how can I not share them?

We are conditioned in this life from the time we are quite small, especially if we have loving or fearful parents. We are taught what to eat and not. We are taught not to be selfish, but to share, and be kind. We are taught to be responsible. We are taught we must grow up and do our part in life. That usually means get a job, a spouse, and have children.

Even today with all the options available us, the underlying message we all receive is, to be happy, you get a job, get a house, get married, and settle down.

We are very rarely encouraged to honor our souls and so, we get the job, and the house, and the spouse, and the kids and we think... something is still missing.

We are taught to use our heads as opposed to our imagination, or that we should listen to the deeper parts of ourselves, to our connection to the divine. Most of us fear that connection to some degree. We feel we cannot trust

The Knife's Edge

I'm watching someone I'm close with be torn apart by relationship drama and in quietly watching, I'm learning something that I want to share with you all today.

In all the conversations I've had with this man, one thing is apparently clear, he's torn. He's living a life he doesn't feel is where he's supposed to be, but he won't let go of anything to move forward. He wants to stay where he is, and just bring in the stuff that's missing. I've never seen that happen for anyone, I don't think that's how it works, but it got me thinking about how we so often talk about coming to cross roads, or being on the fence, I want to give you a different analogy, one of the Knife's Edge.

There is much debate of paths, is there a "right" one? Is there a specific one that we should each be walking? What if the truth is that all god is asking of us is to simply pick one and be dedicated to it?

What if there is no right or wrong per se, but all we're being asked for in this life is dedication to a course of action, to a life, to living?

Not to get overly religious on you, but I'm reminded of the bible verse, Revelations 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

Now as a child, and really up until this past week when I started looking deeper at this, I've always seen that as a rejection. That god would reject us if we weren't passionate about him. Now I'm realizing that