Healing your self-love

I recently was asked "how can I improve my relationship with my partner?" My response was that most of us haven't learned to completely love ourselves and we project that lack of love on to others. So our relationships are simply a mirror of what we believe. If you wish to have more love in your life look within. As long as you're looking for love outside yourself you will continue to be lost.

Then I was asked, "how do I learn self-love?" and here's my answer:

First of all, our concept of love is largely erroneous. We do not give love, we express love. True love is unconditional otherwise it isn't love- when we love as a parent loves a child, then we are loving unconditionally. And this then connects us with the divine, even as God loves his children unconditionally so must we strive to love those around us unconditionally, if we truly wish to experience greater love in our lives.

The example I like to use is of a two year-old child. Despite being less mature than a ten year-old the younger child is equally deserving of love. The same applies to adults, those of us who express high levels of fear are equally deserving of love as those who express high levels of love. This goes against conventional thinking which would incite us to hate.

Our true nature is to love, it is our ego's tendency to defend us where we have learned to express fear instead of love. So we don't need to search for love, we need to let go of that part of us living in fear and anger. And in our relationships we find the greatest mirror to our own ability to express love. And when we find ourselves lacking love the antidote is forgiveness. When we forgive, even things we deem terrible, we are expressing unconditional love.

Here's an exercise in healing relationships that will improve your ability to love yourself and others:

1. Write a letter to your partner expressing every terrible thing you think about him. Don't hold back, you're not actually going to give it to him. Let out all of your anger, fear and pain. If you have other partners from the past you may want to include them too. The point is to allow yourself to express yourself freely.
2. Now write a letter to your partner expressing all the good things about him. Again, this is just for you.
3. You may want to separately write letters about yourself, again, all the judgements and criticisms of yourself and then all the good things you see in yourself.
4. When you're done, burn the letters. I usually do this outside so I don't get smoke in the house. As you burn them, feel yourself letting all that energy go. You can put the ashes in the garden or down the toilet or in the trash, as you feel.
5. Repeat this exercise until you feel you've gotten everything out that you needed to.
   This is one of the most powerful healing techniques you can learn (its referred to as psychomagic popularized by Alejandro Jodorowski) and it will change your life for the better if employed consciously.