Secrets of Self-Empowerment: The Ultimate Secret is Loving Oneself
Does the journey of self-empowerment have an end?
Is there a treasure to be had from the hero’s journey?
Yes! My experience says, “Yes!” But the destination, the treasure, this secret is deceptively simple: it is self-love. It is the restoration of a sense of self-worth, which is our birthright. It is a birthright that may have been denied to so many by upbringing and/or by culture and religion.
At the beginning of the journey to greater personal empowerment, a type of primal memory of self-love nudges one forward, providing the energy to move onward and begin to dare. It comes from the silent knowing that things could be better, that “I” am worthy of better and more. In this sense, spiritual self-healing is a universal human imperative – a striving to wholeness that emerges out of our individual and collective unconscious to define pathways capable of leading us to more complete self-love. This has certainly been my experience.
Self-love evolves out of an incremental realization that one is worthy of the concentrated investment of time and energy required to move to a place of greater personal empowerment. Being able to sense one’s inner worthiness, brilliance and beauty makes it easier to love oneself. And the opposite is also true: it is difficult to treat oneself in truly loving ways if one feels unworthy, pitiful and flawed. Paradoxically, self-love is the impetus for putting aside habits and ways of thinking that are born from a devalued self-perception, and self-love is also the outcome of this striving for greater personal power. Self-love is the essential ingredient of the state of personal empowerment itself.
The self-love, about which I’m writing, shouldn’t be confused with self-indulgence, a sense of one’s self-importance or narcissism. It is none of these. In fact, it is just the opposite. Self-love is marked by a shift away from an excessive concern about one’s welfare and one’s vulnerability to pain.
Self-love means abandoning the urge to preserve at all costs the self-image that we have cultivated and presented both to self and to the world. With that abandonment, there inevitably comes a renewed confidence and courage with an irresistible inner command to move forward and make a difference.
Don’t confuse self-love with narcissism or being egotistical. It is just the opposite. When you feel this love of self in your being, it is love that you will radiate into the world; and you will transform the world around you spontaneously and habitually.
