Are You Emotionally Self-Reliant?

Are you Emotionally Self-Reliant?  Do you look for happiness from others?  If you look to others to fill your cup, you are likely often disappointed as other people come and go, or become unavailable as they separate to meet their own individual needs.  

Our own happiness, peace, calm, faith, joy, etc. is found within us. It’s not in the future, it’s not somewhere else, it’s available within us, right now, and all the time.  

Do you become overwhelmed when you experience emotions that you believe you shouldn’t feel?  Have you divided the human experience into good and bad states of being?  

Do you look for who is to blame, even if it’s yourself when you are frustrated, tired, sad or angry?  Do you think something is wrong when you are not feeling the way you prefer to feel?  

It’s important to acknowledge that to be fully human is to embrace all emotional states available to humanity.   None are bad.  None are shameful.  And none are off limits.  

Love is inclusive of the full spectrum of human emotions, even the ones we fear and the ones we hide.   

“Perfect love is to feeling what perfect white is to color.  Many think that white is the absence of color.  It is not.  It is the inclusion of all color.  White is every other color that exists combined.  So, too, is love not the absence of emotion (hatred, anger, lust, jealousy, covertness), but the summation of all feeling?  It is the sum total.  The aggregate amount.  The everything.” – Debbie Ford (The Dark Side of the Light Chasers)  

To embrace the full range of emotional states and conditions requires a great deal of personal grace and self-acceptance.  

How do you learn to honor both the emotional experiences you like and despise? How can you love yourself when you are not in love with your own current state?  

Jung once said, “I’d rather be whole than good.”  

If you are more interested in your wholeness than your goodness then consider these suggestions: 

• Sit alone, without a device or distraction. Look inside.  Get to know your mind.  Follow your breath.  Don’t judge the success of this action by how active or inactive your thoughts are. Just observe.  
• Write.  Write what your grateful for, angry at or puzzled by.  Write lists. Write stories.  Write poems. Write free form.  Write the things that make you cringe and the words you want to burn. Visit the places you keep off limits. Learn to love all parts of you.  
• Rely on yourself.  If you are bored, go learn something.  If you are lonely or hurt then learn to comfort yourself.  If you are in pain don’t wait for someone else to reassure you, reassure yourself.  If you are angry, forgive yourself and whoever else required.  If you are tired, sleep.  If you are being needy, give.  If you are complaining, be grateful.  Employ your common sense.  Sooth yourself when you are in distress or discomfort.  Meet your own needs quickly and sufficiently.
• Understand that you are your own solution.  If you blame others or wait on others to fix your situation then you are reliant on them.  If you believe they aren’t part of the problem you will look inside for the solution.  If you want someone to help you, help yourself.
• As you become increasingly Self-Reliant you find your WHOLE-ness.  Then you will be free to truly love ALL of who you are.  You will be free to love ALL of who others are without needing anything in return. You will love others fully simply because it is an amazing thing to do! 

You will no longer love others to get something in return.  You will be freed up to love others because loving them is and feels amazing.