If You Truly Love Yourself

If you truly love yourself, you will not only forgive those who have harmed you, but you will be grateful for them, for they have played an as important role in who you have become than those who have inspired you. If you truly love yourself, the negative deserves as many thanks as the positive.

 

I always look at the negative things in my past and feel thankful for them, because they've helped me to become a happier person today.

 

True. Also can't dwell on the negative things that have happened. That will get you nowhere.. Everything is a learning experience and you can take something from everything. Some people aren't able to think this way and start thinking that only bad things happen to them. They are called pessimists.. and they suckk =p

 

We just all end up as worm food, no one cares who you forgive, and over time you cant really remember it all properly anyway

No one is better than anyone else, so you can never be a better person, Trying to claim so makes you sound like you think you are better than anyone else

 

I've been having some issues with this whole loving myself thing. Trying to find the fine line between loving yourself and this self worship, narciccistic, egotistical mindset our society promotes. A lot of times when I hear people talk about loving themselves they veer more into the latter.

 

i think of being kind to myself as part of being kind to everything, as we are each a part of everything too. just remembering to keep it in proportion, not more nor less.
after all, there is no GOOD reason, for being unkind to anything, the self included. though again, neither more nor less.

 

Talk for yourself

Not really, I think that conclusion about how that makes people sound is all between your ears. When talking about becoming a better person it is not really ment becoming better than anyone else or other people It's about bettering yourself. What this entails may depend on the person.
If a person thinks he can't improve for the better they might either be a megalomaniac or actually quite apathetic or nihilistic If one thinks it is not worth to improve yourself in favor of your environment because there is no purpose since we all end up as worm food anyway than it could also be a more of a selfish, egocentric issue. Or simply due to a lack of empathy.

 

You've got me all wrong. Forgiveness is beneficial for me. If I forgive someone, then thoughts of them no longer hurt me.
Additionally, by saying that it makes me a 'better person' what I meant by that is that it makes me better equipped to deal with struggles in the future. I didn't mean that it makes me more moral.

 

You kind of beat me to it with your reply here, but I only just noticed it

 

Look from another angle.

You must condemn in order to justify an unwillingness to forgive.

Before that you must condemn in order to voice dissatisfaction with life.

So first forgiveness is simply the willingness to see the world differently, To forgive it all the things you thought it was.

Love is fundamentally what you are and is beyond what can be taught to you, but we can remove the barriers we have erected to the perception of it which are simply our own verdicts against it.

 

I don't know if this is in response to my post, but I certainly don't feel like I am better than anyone else. I don't need to feel superior to anyone to be grateful with where I am or to recognize that my experiences (good and bad) contributed to that.

As far as no one caring who I forgive, that's besides the point. I don't care if anyone cares who I forgive lol

That's not the kind of love I'm talking about. I'm talking the action, not the gratuitous admiration of oneself.

I like it

 

To really forgive, do you have to forget?

 

I never hold grudges once any abuse stops in life....then I can forgive...and forget, too, as i don't dwell on any of it....try to concentrate on good things.....

 

I can't really say I love myself. I don't dislike myself--I just tolerate myself because when all is said and done, I'm just another sack a' meat held together with some "sticks" and

some opinions about this and that formed through life experiences. In the "my life" scheme of things, I've had my loves, my hates, my fun, my sorrows, my tragedies, just like

every other human, departed or extant. None of it means very much at all. When I change form , I will be remembered by a few, never known by many. I revere some things I have

done heretofore and some of which I'm ashamed. So it goes. I do have a strong sense of forgiveness (learned late in life)and I have forgiven all who have wronged me over the years and I hope

those whom I have wronged have forgiven me. I remain, at least for the time being--Joel

 

Sounds like you had enough love for yourself and the world to wanted to act upon your conscience.. which in essence seems what this thread is about!

 

The former is a choice, the latter is not, so no.

I feel like you are pretty much very accurately describing the human experience. You look within, and sometimes you like what you see, sometimes you don't, sometimes you're proud, sometimes you're ashamed... It's probably like that for everybody (it is for me anyways). Your opinion and judgment of yourself will always ebb and flow like ever other describable thing in the world.

I meant "love" as an effort. As in choosing to to do things that are positive for you, whether it is having a positive attitude, eating well, or in your case, learning to forgive... Sooner or later we find out that having hate in our heart is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to suffer the consequences (I think it was Buddha who said that?).

 

Then those experiences are irrelevant to "where (you) am" now

Well, then if you dont care, whats it matter?

 

Yes but not the way you might imagine. To behold a forgiven world you must forget the idea that you are qualified to qualify. Forgiveness does not undo wrong or change the past, the idea that it does reflects various desires for retribution based on guilty verdict. This is actually antithetical to the purpose of forgiveness. One sense of proportion that we can count on is that reality is correct. We are never upset by fact but interpretation of fact. The practice that liberates the mind is resisting the temptation to qualify, morally judge, or rate on a sliding scale of evaluation the phenomena of our lives. Such ratings are simply not needed to organize our lives and we cannot escape the effects of our own thinking and the power of our own invocations to affect the quality of our experience.

I question the practicality of the idea of loving yourself as love is what we are, loving. So the idea of loving yourself in this scenario means tolerating your self reflection which is purely a vain exercise. We cannot love what we have judged to be unworthy and you cannot help but love what you value.

 

I haven't suffered that much abuse from others, but when I have it has always been due to ignorance, stupidity, insensitivity - that sort of thing.
So I tend to condemn such qualities, whilst seeing that the abusers are mainly unconscious even robotic actors.
Some might say that's a patronizing attitude, that I think I'm superior in some way - but I don't think so, as I can see where my own actions are often purely conditioned or even reactionary. When I find I'm acting like that, I try to change it.

It's a cliché to say it, but if you hang onto negative feeling towards others, it can end up poisoning your whole psyche.

 

On the subject of condemnation, when indulged at any level it gives the vibratory experience of being put upon by the phenomena. There is another kind of value added position we can take and that is to discount. To discount is to not accumulate debt but reduce it.

What is false by definition is not true and what is not real does not exist. What is false has no value that need be accounted for and it's illusory appearance is dispelled when you don't try to give it one. That is ignorance flees in the face of education but persists as a cause if we continue to call upon it as one.