Self-Love Is the Salt of Life, It Makes Everything Taste Better.

(Transmission + guided meditation.)

Hi friend,

This article can help you increase your self-love through

• a simple practice, and

• a guided meditation.

In the beginning, there was the word.*

[*Side note: One way to think about this is that language has been crucial in the development of our species. Individuation seems to require a means of structuring our thoughts, aka language. For instance, children generally start talking around the time they begin to individuate more.]

The word was used to create things. Then, the word was used to impose further limitations. (For what is creation into form but a limitation, albeit an often wonderful one?)

We started turning the word against ourselves.

Negative self-talk, anyone?

What we must remember, then, is to use the power of the word—the power of language—constructively. To use it to support ourselves, to build ourselves up, to help us become the person our dog thinks we are.

That is the meaning of true self-love.

To use your inner self-talk constructively.

Self-love practice

Here’s a practice for you to consider: Pick a day on the calendar when you have some space for reflection. Then, spend that day with the intention of being loving toward yourself. During the day, you will likely have experiences that make it challenging to stay rooted in self-love.

Whenever you encounter something that takes you away from self-love, connect with the archetypal energy of the proud parent. Because this is an archetypal energy, you can connect with it regardless of how much (or how little) loving parenting you received during your life.

Imagine the ultimate Cosmic Parent who is so proud of you and who loves you just as you are (while knowing that you are on a never-ending journey of growth). How would this Cosmic Parent see you?

Meditation for more self-love and compassion

Below you will find a meditation that can help you anchor yourself more in self-love.

Background story

The images I used for this meditation have a fun personal story associated with it. It’s based on pictures and videos I took in the Dambulla Cave Temple in Sri Lanka:

This place contains 153 Buddha statues… and when I was there in 2019, I tried to connect with every single one of them. Not only that, but I also imagined offering energy to them. I moved from one statue to the next, and energetically made an offering. When I was done with one cave, I moved to the next.

Let’s just say it took a while.

A few days later I found myself in Kuala Lumpur where I visited my brother. I had gotten sick on my travels and was in bed with a fever when…

… the Buddha appeared to me. This took me by surprise, as I was somewhere between being awake and sleeping, and in a much more mundane environment than the Dambulla Cave Temple.

But I guess I had been asking for it, right? Making offerings to all these Buddha statues is basically the equivalent of knocking on a door (repeatedly), so it’s not like the Buddha showed up uninvited.

What I also found interesting is that the Buddha sometimes morphed into the Christ and then back again. My interpretation of that is that these spiritual masters carry a similar energy of love and compassion.

It was a pretty cool and uplifting experience, I must say!

Hopefully, this meditation and image carries some of the resonance of that experience with it, so you can enjoy it that, too (should you choose to). And if you ever go to the Dambulla Cave Temple, be careful what you ask for. :)

How to listen

You have two options for listening:

• the audio itself (good for meditating with your eyes closed) or

• the video I created with images from the Buddha cave (good for meditating with eyes open).

Warmly,
Louise