Love Thyself

"...love thy neighbor as thyself..."  A dear friend suggested to me that no one can feel Charity, no one can learn the concepts of Faith and Hope working toward Charity unless they loved themselves.  How can one learn to have real, deep love for their own self?

We live in a society that emphasizes the negative.   Our children come home from school lamenting how many they missed on a test.  Seldom do they explain how many they got right.  The news every night is mostly reporting the negative things of the community.  The worse the news, the bigger the headline.  With so much negativity surrounding us, how can we be positive?  How can we see the good in the world?

With so much negativity in our lives, how can we see and accept the positive things of life?  How many commercials on television are urging us to spend money on reducing weight, better looks, catching up with our neighbor by buying a car like he has?  When we look in the mirror each morning, do we confirm the advertisements we have all around us in seeing what is wrong with us.

Or do we see this handsome man/beautiful woman staring back at us?  Do we think of how wonderful we are, how much service we did yesterday, or the last week?  Do we see what Father in Heaven sees in his child who is trying the best he/she can in mortality?  Do we internalize how many times we sacrifice daily, weekly in serving someone else?  Do we feel comfortable in knowing that we didn't have to read three chapters of the Book of Mormon, but spent extra special time with someone who needed our words of counsel, be it a neighbor, or a child?  Do we recall to our minds, OFTEN, special experiences that have built our testimony, the time that the Spirit touched our hearts in the temple, the time someone served us and lifted our spirit?

I agree.  We need to have a strong understanding of who we are.  We need to know how special Father thinks each of us are, even when we are struggling through trials and afflictions.  We need to have a deep commitment to the idea that we really are children of God, that He is our Father and is never far from us.  He loves us so much, that he is letting us experience challenges that build us and prepare us for our mortal, as well as eternal future.

How can one love someone else when they question their own worth?   Once in my life, I thought that serving someone else was easier than loving myself.  But in reality, I was mistaken.  The love of oneself is mandatory in order to be a servant in a Zion society.

I believe that most of us do love ourselves,  But I also believe that the adversary is constantly trying to destroy that love, pushes negative thoughts in our minds, and strives to prevent our feelings of importance to Father in Heaven.  As we let those thoughts remain and take residence in our hearts, we get depressed, sad, and cannot see the principles of faith, hope and charity.  Therefore, I am going to strive to analyze the love of self and discuss in this blog insights given me through the spirit of self love.