Loving yourself is not making and accepting yourself as the ego wishes you were, making yourself over to be the envy of others. Loving yourself is loving you as you truly are, with all your faults, even those you have hidden or do not wish to recognize.
Most have heard or read declarations like what Rabbi Rami Shapiro said in an interview posted June 23, 2020 on www.awaken.com "To know yourself is to know God" and "to know God is to know yourself"; in Luke 17:21, we read that the "Kingdom of God is within you.” Socrates summed it up simply, "Know Thyself.”
All Parts Matter
My bottle is empty
Once it was a bottle of plenty
Parts I have lost
At great cost
One at a time taken from me
Some I gave of me
Some I was told that part was not for me
Some I did not recognize as belonging to me
Now I am near collapse
Trying to survive with less than half
I have nothing left to give to me or another
All I do is continue to suffer
Oh I want my parts back
Reclaim what I lack
To live and thrive
To feel alive
I need all of my parts to see
Who I am and meant to be
To fill myself with love of me
To understand and give empathy
All parts matter
"I read it cover to cover and quickly realized that I'd barely broken the surface. I'll need to read it again and again and again..... It's richer than a Venetian tea cake (medu kuka to you). I envy your need to search, but not your agony. But that agony will lead you to that brightest of lights, as you make your discoveries. The cover art is genius. Well done my friend. I'll continue to read it until I discover my hidden parts that you've woven into this tapestry." Brooks Fountain
"Very good read and the format made you look at what is written and how the author hopefully intended it." Jerry R
In Volume Two as in Volume One, I combine poetry, quotations and my comments. In this volume, I suggest parts with which you might wish to begin the process of knowing yourself. I do this with my poems about persons faced with different life challenges.
I suggest a path to address the challenges the subject of my poem is facing. Should you relate to part or all of a poem, I am hopeful that my suggestion/discussion will provide a starting point for your journey. “You be the judge. “
This volume is dedicated to you discovering a path and being encouraged to begin your journey to knowing yourself to reach truly loving yourself.
Truly loving yourself is the most important achievement to which you can aspire.
It’s a process you go through by yourself and for yourself. You are choosing this process because without it, it is almost impossible to reach your full unique potential. Truly loving yourself is the foundation needed for your gifts of life to be opened. Achieving true love of self can lead to a greater spiritual awareness and understanding of the human’s connections to the universe.
My journey to self-love was piloted by a voice from within. It took me 12 years to reach it, encountering along the way the empowering benefits and insights which would otherwise have been lost to me had I not taken the journey. I discovered parts of me which were essential to completely “knowing myself”, the flaws, shadowy sides, and hidden as well as the strong, powerful and creative. From there, I journeyed onward to learning to truly love myself by accepting all of me, the good, bad and ugly.
You can’t love yourself completely if you don’t know all of you or reject the parts you do know.
I learned it is the taking of the journey (the process) that leads to knowing yourself, and it is continuing the process that leads to loving yourself. It’s like taking the back roads, with stops along the way to explore, that leads to knowing a country, instead of flying over it or taking the interstate.
You are more than the person you see in the mirror, you're the sum total of all your parts (physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral). These parts are unique to each person, formed by their DNA, thoughts, feelings, actions and experiences. All parts must be visited and explored to “know yourself.”
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” – Aristotle
Knowing yourself is also the foundational step toward a meaningful life, emotional intelligence and rational decision-making. Without the journey (the process), it cannot be truly achieved. You can just accept who you are. Your journey will not be the same as mine, that is to be expected.
All journeys are not the same, though the destination is and the tools you need are. This series is about my journey and the tools I used along the way; tools that you will use, too.