The Mastery of Love Part 7 of 10: Self Love Vs. Selfishness
March 24, 2009 by dr. lam
This is a big topic. At first glance, these two things seem to be precisely the same, when in fact they are polar opposites. When we love ourselves we will not act selfishly. When we hate ourselves, we will act out of fear and loathing and will respond to the world in a selfish way. Remember in last week’s blog, we talked about two courses that we can pursue in a relationship: the track of love and the track of fear.
When we love ourselves and are happy/content in our lives, we can radiate love to all those around us. Our magical kitchen we talked about yesterday is full, and we can make any dish that we want. However, when we live in a fearful state that we don’t have love, then we follow the track of fear. By doing so, we only see scarcity and we act out of fear that we will lose that precious relationship because we are needy. Alternatively, we may be just filled with emotional poison that we transmit to all of those around us like the emotional ping pong that we addressed last week. When we are filled with self poison, self loathing, and self hatred, we look at the person next to us with that same dread and we push their emotional buttons to release our own poison. We then have that other person release that poison back onto us, and matters escalate.
When you are accepting of yourself and when you reach a happy state even without reference to another person, you invite love in. As I talked in my leadership series, you must first work on yourself. You must lead yourself. You must love yourself, then others can love you. Or if you are a leader, then others will follow you. All of you who read my daily blog are on the same journey with me toward life fulfillment, enrichment, happiness, and peace. I am honored that you can work with me on our personal journey toward self love and away from selfishness.
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8 Responses to “The Mastery of Love Part 7 of 10: Self Love Vs. Selfishness”
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Staring at the blog again. That’s good.
haha. ok.
I had to crack another book (Holy Bible) to see if I could reconcile, interface this somehow in light of my faith (Christian). We are to love Him. We are to love each other (as ourselves). I believe Ruiz’ thinking is compatible; difficult if not impossible to love Him or others if you don’t have your own house in order.
THANK YOU for the good deed of placing this out here.
nice observation. much agreed. Loving yourself and your own body and spirit as a vessel and temple of God is a first start that we must have. However, selfishness must be separated from that idea since it is actually the opposite. But it is also a fine line that we all can cross from self love to selfishness. thanks again for the beautiful insight!
No doubt. That line seems to be right in front of my feet as they hit the floor each morning.
Ruiz seems so wonderful, his thinking/teaching applicable to ALL.
O/T–my DH is in Houston on business–we were just on the phone and I was recalling some household tedium and stopped myself (TYand-RuizVM)–realizing it was simply ‘poison’ I was transmitting.
So, your blogs do GOOD.
Read ya in the morning!
cool!
This is a very big topic! I think a lot of people get the two confused, and how ironic, because they are polar opposites as you so well pointed out, Dr. Lam!
I used to work with a lady that constantly would put others down in hopes that it would somehow make herself appear better. At first due to my own insecurity at the time, I took her insults personally, but after carefully examining myself, I realized that the problem was not mine; it was hers. She didn’t love herself and her only way to alleviate that pain was to put others down so as to make herself appear better. It was a selfishness. Even though the problem was hers and not mine, it was still in my power to handle the situation in the right way though. What helped the situation was I tried to help her start loving herself by complimenting her on the things that she really was good at. She found this ironic that I treated her with respect even though she hadn’t treated me with it and later apologized for her behavior. I think she also learned to love herself to a better degree and this enabled her to have a different outlook and to apologize. So this is so true, self hatred creates selfishness; whereas, self love, radiates love to those around us!! Very good post, Dr. Lam and so true!!
thanks heather and welcome back! great comments!