During a recent retreat I hosted, I did a session with the guys that turned into a “how to do self love” kind of thing. It wasn’t planned, but what emerged felt really profound so I want to capture those ideas here.
The starting point is: you accept yourself as you are, you accept current reality as it is, you forgive yourself (and others) for whatever you haven’t forgiven yet.
Here’s how to actually do it:
Metta
Start with an easy, enjoyable metta meditation.
I love “think of something or someone who’s easy for you to feel love towards” as a prompt. Think of a kitten, a childhood pet, your grandma. Tune into love and appreciation that feels totally unproblematic, totally untainted.
Practicing metta, even just one time, is a good way to tune into that feeling of love, caring and well wishing.
Here’s one of my favorite guided metta meditations you can listen to for free.
Inner Child
Next, think of yourself in the past. Think of your younger adult self. Your teenage self. Your child self. Your toddler self. Your baby self.
Go as far back in your past as you need to go, to feel that same kind of uncomplicated love for yourself. Basically, get to a point where you can envision that kid version of yourself and just see the innocence of that child with nothing but love.
Spend some time meditating on that and/or writing about it.
Small Steps to Acceptance & Forgiveness
From here, it’s step by step. Think of something you did when you were a kid that you were hard on yourself about. Something that maybe at the time seemed like a big deal and you never actively, deliberately forgave yourself about.
It could be something as trivial as knocking over a glass and spilling its contents. As a kid, depending on how adults around you reacted, this could be quite an intensely negative experience. And maybe you’re still carrying a wound related to this.
The idea is to do something like progressive exposure. You can forgive yourself for spilling the milk when you were 4 years old?
Great, go one step towards discomfort. Maybe something you did as a teen, that you still regret and find a bit harder to forgive.
What comes to mind for me is a moment when I was about 16 years old and one of my class mates asked me about the latest R Kelly album. I replied with something like “why the fuck would I care about that?”, which wasn’t meant to come off as mean but I later realized it was really harsh and dismissive. And it made me realize that I had really misread and poorly responded to a bid for connection.
I regret that and part of me is like: “why were you being so mean!?”
Which is to say: it’s not instant forgiveness on my part.
And the solution to that is the Thinly Sliced Life approach: can I see that circumstances in my life led me to that moment and that response?
Maybe I was having a bad day (in my teens, most of my days were bad days). Maybe it was just bad social skills - and as a teen who’d been socially shunned for most of my life and who probably had undiagnosed mild autism, I can certainly understand that.
I was also in one of my least favorite classes at the time - an added stressor.
And finally, we all make mistakes. I was a bit mean, but it wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone or dismiss anyone.
With all that in mind, can I forgive this teenager for a lapse in judgement?
Yes, I can. (interestingly, I feel goosebumps right now, as I’m writing this)
He was doing what he could, he was going through all kinds of struggles of his own. He meant well. He’s a good kid.
The Act of Self Love
There’s a conclusion I came to in our session that I’m trying to find again.
Basically the idea that love is a verb, it’s daily action. It’s what you do, every day, in small ways.
Every struggle you experience, every internal tension, every moment of negative self talk is an opportunity to practice, to choose love.