Be Kind to Yourself: It’s Your Gateway to Happiness!

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So the topic for today is, “Be kind to yourself because it’s your gateway to happiness.”

So I invite you to be kind to yourself today. It is your gateway to happiness. There’s a post that, on Fridays, I post quotes by other people, and keeping within the theme of self-care and self-kindness, which I also talked about self-care last week: A quote by Jack Cornfield, which says, “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. So I want to just show you physically an image, just the concept of it, what it looks like. So we are a web of life. It is not just words that we’re interconnected and interdependent. We can see how what we’re doing in humanity, how it’s affecting nature. We’re seeing that, right? We can see that our actions as human beings are affecting the melting of the ice caps, right? So we know more and more. We actually know both from physics and from spiritual laws and principles that the world is interconnected and interdependent.

So imagine this is it. You see, it looks like this, and let’s say you’re this, that’s you here, that’s you here. And there’s this net, right? There are many, many more connections. And imagine if you’re not taking care of yourself, then you’re not at your best, and you don’t have compassion for yourself, you have self-loathing, self-hate. We all have that to an extent about something where we feel we could be better or childhood traumas.

But imagine if you let that be the main leader of your life. Then look at you, then you’re not at your best, right? In this connection. Maybe you’re barely touching. And so you’re not showing up providing optimal conditions for all the other touch points in your life because you’re in a weak touchpoint, right?

Now, if on the other hand, you live with purpose, and you are connected to the essence of your calling, and you feel that your life has meaning, and you live in spiritual-material abundance. You appreciate what you have in your home and you appreciate what you’re able to create and produce as part of your life’s purpose, and you enjoy the interactions you have with people, with colleagues, and people that love you, that you love. If you’re living from that optimal state, you become a very strong, optimal point for all the other touch points in your life.

So you can see why even an act of self-kindness and self-love and self-care is actually in service of the whole, because you show up in your optimal state. And I don’t know what happened, Judeo-Christian beliefs, about or wherever it comes from. But what it is is that when we don’t love ourselves, and we’re not compassionate towards ourselves, and we don’t care for ourselves, and you know, we all have it. I have it as much as you and anyone else, those places where we just cannot love a part of ourselves. But when we are in this place, we are in a consciousness of separation. The world is out there. We might love others. We might serve others. We might be kind to others, but we’re separate from that world.

We’re here separated, not worthy of our own love. And if not us, who’s going to love us? And so know that you’re in a conscience of separation when you don’t practice self-love and self-care. And so you want to move into a consciousness of interconnection, of interdependence, because there that’s the consciousness of love, where you see the connection and you want to show up in your optimal state so that all the touch points throughout your day and your life are strong and fulfilling and nourishing and create a wholeness that’s right for everyone who engages with you and who is involved with you.

So I hope that kind of illustration helps you see why an act of self-care and self-love is really important not just for the general wellbeing of your world and your points of contact, but for the whole planet, because it does spread. If we all do it, it does spread and creates an effect on the whole planet. So what are some things that you can do for self-care and for self-kindness as your gateway to happiness? And I spoke about it last week as well, but I want to pick because all of the posts this week are around things that you can do for self-compassion, self-love, self-kindness in order to be in your optimal state.

So let’s just go to a few other posts. So for example, yesterday, Tuesday, I posted something that has to do with spiritual-material unity. So the post yesterday says, “Search for a sense of grounding in your home. Spend time in that area, getting calm and centered.”

So I speak often about, you know, we’re at home a lot these days with COVID and your home is not just like a collection of objects that are at home. These are meaningful things to you and so they have their own creative from birth to here being in your home. These are things that you’ve collected over time that are meaningful for you. So they have more, it’s not just a thing. It has value. It has value to you and it has its life. And so I bet you, there’s an area in your life– a corner, a view, or an object that can ground you in your home. So spend time in that area, spend time with that object and just spend time there and get grounded and centered and calm. That’s one way to practice self-kindness.

On Tuesday I post, no, that was on Monday. Monday, I post expansive meditation practice. And so this Monday, I posted, “Form a bubble of joy in your heart and let your bubbliness light up everyone you meet.”

So you can create this bubble, this invisible, but you can see it. It’s a real bubble. It’s a field that’s real, but you know, you don’t see the bubble, but in your mind’s eye, you can see creating this field. It’s protecting you, and pour joy into it.

What makes you feel joy? Whatever it is, remember it, enhance it, and fill your bubble with joy, and then walk around your day with this bubble of joy. That is self-care for you because you have this protective shield of joy. That whatever happens, you have the buffer of joy to protect you. That’s self-care. That’s self-kindness. And then whoever you touch and comes in contact with you, whatever point of contact you have with people, things you’re working on, producing, creating, they get to enter your field of joy. So by taking care of yourself and protecting yourself with joy, you are spreading joy in the world and all the points of contact that you come into connection with throughout your day. So that’s another way to practice self-kindness and the gateway, the key to your happiness.

Then another post that I posted this week. So on Sunday self-care practice, I said, “Bake a cake, but infuse it with herbs,” because nature is a powerful force, a powerful force for so many emotions, all that fall under this expansiveness. Nature is very expansive. So if you look for a recipe, so I here, I found an image of a lemon pound cake that’s infused with the flower pieces of lavender. Suddenly, you’re eating a cake, which is self-kindness to your soul, to your body. You’re taking some time off, but you’re infusing it with nature. So you don’t need to go to the Grand Canyon, you just need to have some lavender or Rosemary or Sage, whatever you like and put it in your cooking or in your baking, and then take it in. And suddenly you are in this expansive state because this piece of lavender that you’ll taste will awaken you to your essence. It will just do that. You can also pick herbs and crush them in your fingers and just take the scent in. And when you take the scent in, also, you feel grounded, maybe if it’s rosemary, or calm if it’s lavender, or uplifted if it’s lemon balm, whatever you have in your garden or windowsill.

So these are different ways that you can do acts of self-kindness, and in doing so, you tap into and you strengthen your emotional resilience. You tap into spiritual resources that you have available to you.

You create a buffer for anything happening in the world to support you and anyone who comes into your field of interaction gets to enjoy whatever it is. If it’s the cake that you offer them, or your field, your bubble of joy that you created, or a grounding in the house, and centering the house in a corner with an extra, you know, some flowers or a soft pillow or blanket that makes it cozy there. Then people feel really cozy and calm in your home. You’re creating this field that both creates a buffer for you and serves the world. So practice this, and I want you to commit to– use technology, use your phone– once a day, pick anywhere from one minute to five minutes and do an act of kindness for yourself. Just stop, be quiet. One minute to five minutes, and pick one of the ideas that I gave you or anything else that creates kindness for you that you feel is an act of kindness for yourself. An act of self-compassion, an act of self-love, an act of self-kindness. One to five minutes is so little, but it will infuse your entire day. It will affect you, the choices you make, the decisions you take, the interactions you have, and the results that you will experience from your day.

So I just want to remind you of the quote by Jack Cornfield: “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

So practice some self-compassion today and this week until we meet next week again, and remember that when you create self-compassion, you’re in your optimal state. It affects all the points of contact that you have throughout your day. Throughout your day, they become more optimized and it spreads like this.

So I send you off with blessings of kindness towards yourself, a wonderful rest of your day filled with kindness, and the rest of your week and weekend. And I’ll see you here next week, again, with another Expanding on Expansive weekly tips and teachings.

You can leave a comment and I’ll respond to you.

I send you many blessings.