Our ego comes with being human; it is a part of the brain that controls fight or flight. The ego believes it is separated from God/Spirit, everyone and everything. This is the judgmental, negative, prideful, shadow side of us. The Soul and ego are in direct conflict and always fighting for control. I believe that the ego is spiritually purposeful to help our soul evolve to higher levels of consciousness. The ego knows nothing about love but directs us all day long. We have all learned to listen to the voice of the ego as our own voice and believe what we hear is true yet there is no truth to what it says. Our ego projects onto our outer world what we believe unconsciously about ourselves. It actually creates a mirror for us to see ourselves in others both positive and negative. Our Soul’s job is to awaken to this mirror and remember that it incarnated into human form, transcend the ego, and learn to live with the ego within a harmonious state. This is a lifetime of work if not many more.

So what is Self-love? It is a difficult concept since most of us have not witnessed or been taught what it is. I thought self-love was taking care of myself spiritually, emotionally and physically, which can be an extension of the meaning. In exploring myself with the help of my Spiritual guides I have been learning that it truly means loving ourselves without judgment. Whether we are in the highest form of ourselves, which is Spirit, who is pure love, joy and compassion or whether we are in our ego and full of fear. Fear gets manifested in many ways, behaviorally and emotionally such as, anxiety, frustration, anger, performing and controlling so we feel comfortable in our environment.

As a human being it is normal to waffle back and forth from being our highest to our ego. Our Spiritual journey awakens us to all of the complex intricacies within us and calls on us to learn discipline and love for all of the dichotomy within us being a beautiful blend of spirit and human. Our life quest is to align more with our highest form (Spirit) and less with the ego and to accept and love ourselves regardless of which part is present or not. By the way, this takes a lot of boundary setting and self-discipline within us and outside of us.

Our Spirit lives in the present and our ego lives in our unconscious world where everything is an illusion and then a projection of that illusion. As a human we have both of these extremes happening within us and that will never change, although we work diligently to remain present so we can be in our highest form the majority of time. If we can develop self love by understanding the immense task we have taken on to awaken and master ourselves it should bring the same love and compassion for others as they are also in the same trance of the ego and are trying hard daily to understand themselves and life, just as we are who have already embarked in the awakening process. Self love means accepting the whole of who we are not just when we are in our highest form.

We are to transcend judgment of others and ourselves. We become aware of behaviors but that is different then judging. Something that can help take away some conflict and judgment of yourself and others is while we are walking an awakened spiritual path remember that we are all helping others whether we are in our highest form or in our ego as we role model to each other what needs to be healed within. We are all student and teacher. I learn from watching my own behavior and what I witness in others. If I see others as broken, I see myself as broken since everything outside of us is a mirror image of us. Judgment is pure belief in brokenness, which comes from the ego. We only need to stop believing that we or others are broken. The only way to do this is by walking a Spiritual path of awakening, enlightenment and remembering that we are all innocent, sinless and the same.