Train the unconscious mind.

Train the unconscious mind. Find something you aspire to be and repeat, repeat, repeat. In word, in thought and in action. To find Love - be it for yourself or for others - we first have to recognize that most of us spend most of our lives undermining ourselves. We would love a quick fix when it comes to self-love, but that won't work. Self-love is a habit, not an achievement. The mind would love it if it were so. The mind longs for a day so sublime you will experience an enlightenment or an epiphany that will change the course of your life forever. But that day won't come. The mind wants to optimize effort and so it naturally fantasizes about a perfect image of bliss contained in a moment of pure grace where everything falls into place. Yes, you might experience moments of pure grace and yes, they will impact you positively. The problem, however, is that such a moment of grace will exist in relation to all the time you have spent away from self-love. You will rejoice eating the fruits of positive circumstance. But these come and go as playfully as the winds. When circumstances aren't in your favour, you will seek the fruits of your inner garden of love. But you haven’t tended to it and you trees bear no fruits that may satisfy your hunger for Love.

A lot of us spend most of our waking hours judging. Judgment isn't only negative. You can also judge when you express positive thoughts or words. For example, when people act in accordance to what the judge within considers to be right, the mind praises. That praise, however, is judgment in disguise. Even thoughts that are emotionally neutral can be judgments. The act of judging is that which orders, prefers and puts hierarchy into all your experiences, thoughts, impressions and interactions. The conscious mind is a radar trying to find a culprit that might cause us pain or suffering. Most of the time, however, that radar isn't needed. But the mind cannot sit still. It needs food.

That food is your judgement. The believer of your judgements is the one who eats. We love judgement. Everything is either good or bad, useful or not useful, valuable or invaluable, and so on. Though it might seem natural, our addiction to judgment isn't our true nature. Judgment comes from our fears. Our fears become our habits, views, perceptions, thoughts, desires. Our fears come from our pain. Our biggest pain is our lack of self-love, which can be measured by the intensity of our self-rejection. Whatever happens within, happens without. If you judge or reject yourself a lot, you will judge and reject the people and things in your life just as much. Just as on some days you love or hate yourself, on some days you will praise or resent the people you love. Once you recognize that judgment comes from fear, you will recognize that we mostly think, speak and act out of fear.

Fear is very powerful. It is love's container. To contain something as strong as love, fear needs to be equally strong or even stronger. Love is exceptionally strong. Think of the things you have done in the name of love. Feel back into these moments. The joy of a having done a selfless deed fills your body, mind and soul with strength. For a brief moment, you feel invincible. Your whole being expands. You feel a deep sense of serenity, both in your conscious mind and in your body. Your breath is effortless. Your shoulders easier to carry. You smile at the uncertainty of your future. You project a clear path of peace and love from this moment to your death. Think of all the acts of love the world has seen. The construction of the Taj Mahal is such an act. For her final resting place, Shah Jahan wanted to build the most beautiful mausoleum the world had ever seen. That act of love cost him his empire. Such is the power of love when it is felt strongly.

Now fear is just as powerful. It contracts your whole being into a space so small, you feel absolute isolation. You feel the movement of the world and you have the feeling that you're not moving with it. Your fear tells you that you are alone in your suffering, that you are useless. So you contract even further. Your suffering wounds you and so you become selfish. The wounds within the mind are the very place from which judgment arises. The wounded mind needs to judge in thought, word and action because it needs to create a reality that harmonizes with its sense of inadequacy and pain.

So if we live in fear but seek to find Love, we need to meet our fear with even stronger Love. We need to feed our soul with love. We need to love everything we do and seek love in everything we do. We need to listen to our own inability to listen, and do so with love. We need to accept the storm within and do so with love. We need to recognize our honest longing for love and how it will bring us peace, even though we are brought up with the belief that being independent is the highest form of existence. And it is. But not because you have beaten out of you your capacity to be vulnerable. You naturally become independent when you love yourself because there's nothing in the outside world you need to fill the gap within.

The path of love needs courage. And time. It takes time for love to permeate the unconscious mind so that it may spit out praise instead of blame, compassion instead of resentment, understanding instead of judgment. So the only way to proceed is to fill the conscious mind with love through repetition and wait patiently until love trickles down to the depths of your being. Read books. Listen to podcasts. Read them and listen to them again. And again. Talk about Love with your friends, your family, your partner, with strangers, with yourself. Write about it. Think about it. Feel about it. Dance about it. Feel it in the songs you listen to. See it in the clouds. See it in the trees. Taste it in your cup of coffee. Recognize it in your loneliness. Choose to see it between everything and in everything. Repeat to yourself that you love yourself and that you seek the path of love. Do this daily. Many times a day. When you talk to friends, family, your partner or to strangers practice asking questions, practice devotion, practice giving your full attention. Practice listening to the movement of their spirit and not to your thoughts. Providing space to others is one of the best ways to teach yourself how to love others. By loving others, you train your capacity to love yourself.

Practice loving that which we have not been taught to love. Like brushing your teeth or taking out the trash. This doesn't mean that you have to smile and be in love in the romantic sense. There's a big confusion around what it means to love. The romantic part of it is a very small part of what Love is. Love isn't only the longing for romance or sensual communion. When love meets chores, it becomes attention. When love meets people it becomes respect. When love meets work it becomes diligence. When love meets beauty it becomes joy. When love meets suffering it becomes compassion. When love meets yourself it becomes reverence. Love is a force that is constructive. It asks of you to give. It wants you to harmonize with that which is selfless. It creates presence and loving awareness, so that you may aid whatever requires your aid, serve whatever requires your service. It will even enable you to see the love within those who blame and judge, because Love understands that blame and judgment is not the true expression of self.

Little by little you will cultivate an awareness so honest, you will witness nuances within you with increasing clarity. You will understand the underlying currents of your wounded mind that take you away from love and into fear. You will also find the few currents you do not wish to face. If they are there, Love will find them. Stay strong. You will have many moments where you will feel lost. You won't want to face the darkness you carry within. You will feel that the path of love is hard. Too hard in fact. You will want to give up everything and return to what you know. Doubts will arise and try to wrestle you to the ground. As you beat one of them, satisfied with your victory, another is already waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Relentlessly your fears, doubts, and selfish motivations will come for you and try to beat you until you break.

You won't break. Trust that you won't. Hold your course. Lift your head high. Keep going. Follow the light. Even if you cannot see it, sometimes for days on end, the light is there. It is always there. You have chosen the path of self-love and you will find it. Whenever doubts arise, rise with them and give more love. Whenever you feel pain, feel the energy it creates and transform your suffering into courage. Honour your deepest fears by crying them out until all your hidden tears have been shed.

Self-love is a habit and takes work. A lot of it. But as with everything, if you work on your self-love with reverence and kindness, your work will bear the fruits of freedom. With time self-love will become an instinct. At first you will dread tending to your garden. But soon enough you will be excited to do so. It will become effortless. Not because you won't experience pain, but because a flower of pain will seem small in the lush garden of your love. With time you will become humble, caring, joyful, playful, serene, compassionate, honest, kind, loving, devoted and respectful. You will have the eyes of a smiling baby and the heart of a wise zen master. That is how you heal yourself and heal the world around you. Start with yourself. The rest will follow. Shower yourself with Love and in time the unconscious mind will return the favour.