Recommend teachers who really know self-love

[Lenny]

@molosku

Your awakening does not happen in time. The true "You" lies untouched and forever now beyond the idea of now. The habit to reach out for salvation, toward something other than yourself, takes you further from the Truth (that which you are - even if you think otherwise).

I am not a pro in all of the areas that you have mentioned, but I will try and address the points which I feel that I can. I will try and convey the ideas as best that I can.

Self-love

We all know/have heard about the different levels/stages/modes/forms of consciousness. The "self" that is referred to in this "term" can take many forms/levels/modes (etc.) of "self" (which arises and manifests itself in the form of "I")... "I want self-love". Before your search or attempt to discover/grasp "self-love" for a sense of "me", what is here? What is there before the movement toward "self-love"? What is there before even the urge to want "self-love"? Watch all of this play of imagination (the movements of mind) and do not make it anything less or more than what it is. It is beautiful, but, it is not all that you are. The true you is not an object of your perception. These "objects" (thoughts, imaginations, ideas, etc.) are only an aspect of yourself as the whole of reality. If you define yourself as this body (feelings), this mind (thoughts), then you have already committed an error of mind. This is ok though, it's still so damn beautiful. You believe that you are the thought thinking "I am this thought". You believe that you are the "believer" in this thought "I am this thought", "I am this or that". 

On a more practical level, you mention that you have been practising for 10 years (or telling yourself that you are not good enough and beating yourself up). Do you need to fulfil a certain criteria before you can be loved? Do you need to become someone/something different than what you already are right now? Hey... Do you need to change from this one trying to find themselves? Will you only be loved if you "find" yourself? Does the one trying to find themselves, and fail, have any bearing on the one that is trying to find? In this case, we can replace the spiritual search with any other form of desire or searching, such as a romantic partner or a sense of family or home. All of it is an object of your imagination. An object of mind. Neither is wrong. Making it wrong would be another positionality of mind. Of which got us into this kafuffle in the first place lol.

Self acceptance

Same as self-love (for me).

Feeling good in the body

In my personal experience, "feeling good" is an idea/concept of mind. Does the body, without judgement (for me, the body without the judgement of mind is reality, or Truth), feel "bad" or "wrong". I think that the "issue" here (I have put this in quotation marks because there is no real issue or problem, only to the extent that we want to believe it) is that there is an attention on the "thought" that the body is not feeling good. Or possibly, there is attention on the "thought" that the body needs to "feel good". "Good" is subjective and a perspective of a conceptual "self". For example, do you wish that you "feel good" when you are in deep sleep? Is there anyone there to "wish"? But, are you there in deep sleep? What isn't there?

Workaholism

Workaholism is a word used to label the concept of "spending too much time on work and not enough time on the things that 'matter'". If your friends, family and loved ones worked with you all day, would you call it workaholism? See how if you put it into a different context the idea doesn't hold-up?

On a different note, once you have recognised yourself as not separate from that one Truth, one reality. You will not be afraid to take some chances with your work. You will see that even if you were to lose everything, your house, your car, you would still be here. before your car, your house, your dreams, your family, what is here? YOU. So, what is more important. You get to choose where you place your importance. Tip: don't place it on anything that goes away or changes.

Shadow

I don't know much about the term "shadow". If I could do my best to try and understand it (without research), I think that it is the lower parts of the unconscious/sub-conscious. These parts act-out by themselves as a part of the one movement of reality. If no attention goes toward these movements they will go unnoticed, but, not unfelt by others. I imagine, that an enlightened person needs to work on this "shadow" so that it does not cause any harm for those around them. If the person is free from karma then the shadow will not worry them, at least, only to the extent that it worries them that it hurts the people around them. 

Tantra

I am not sure as to what tantra is exactly.

Childhood trauma

Where is trauma? We cannot "see" it right? This is because trauma is starting from where we are looking from (an identified sense of self - in the case of an "identified" form of consciousness). The way that I see it, does my "identified" form of consciousness have the ability to "grasp" my trauma and then begin to sort through it? Probably not. Because, it in itself is acting from an identified (traumatised) form of consciousness. Even the "wanting" of the discernment to sort trauma (that which we label as being bad) comes from a form of consciousness interested to find that which is bad and "remove" it from its life.

General emotional intelligence

I would rephrase the term "emotional intelligence" with the term "emotional resilience". Can you experience emotions and then let them drop away? Don't try to make them drop away. You can even ask them to stay. How long will they keep?

For me personally, the following practise really helped: 

Find somewhere quiet to sit (not necessary, but may help you to focus). Close your eyes and focus on the energy that is accompanying the emotion. From here, place your mind aside for the moment. It doesn't need to be long, just for a little while. By "the mind", I mean thoughts, notions, ideas, concepts (forms that can be held in your perception with your eyes closed). Now, just sit there with the feeling, without adding an interpretation of what it is. Don't wish it to go away. Here we are searching for Truth, so, if it stays then we may have found something important. If it goes itself, then we will let it go. The important thing here is to not add any interpretation on what is occurring in the body. You may even recognise this energy/feeling as something that is very familiar to you and takes many forms, whether that be frustration, confusion, sadness, etc. So, just watch. Once you have placed the mind aside for some time, you may even like to imagine pouring love over it and asking it to get bigger. Say: "it's ok, you can stay if you like. Show me what you've got" (something like this with a calmness/openness).

Dealing with fears

For me, I felt as though I didn't need to work explicitly on fears, they just left by themselves. The falling-away of fears seemingly accompanying my slow and progressive movement to higher states of consciousness. Keep a close eye on this. Are you scared to be fearful? Who told you that you are not allowed to feel fear? Who told you that you shouldn't? Who told you that the fear is yours?

I hope that this has answered some of your questions, and that it helped. Please take everything I say with a grain or two of salt. These are just words. They are an attempt to conceptualise that which cannot be touched conceptually. Also, I am not the best person for advice as I am not full enlightened. I still hold a lot of identification and I swing between purer forms of consciousness and the more identified forms. A lot of what I am saying has come from my "seeings" and experiences, not necessarily what I have been experiencing lately. But, I have achieved self-love since the beginning of my journey (I have heard that this is the first of the big hurdles to get past [self-hate/need for self-love]). I know that I am all that God wishes me to be at this moment. I am that which he has created, not what I have created. I am that Truth and reality of which I cannot see or understand with thoughts. Actually now that I think about it, this is the biggest thing that helped me in the self-love department: Your lack of self-love is coming from a error in your perception (it is ok that this error is made, how beautiful is it that we even get to experience error!?). Think about it this way: yourself as pure and unmanifest awareness shines through your mind (field of thoughts), from here it becomes "stuck" into ideas, concepts and identifications. This identified form of consciousness then tries to judge itself (based on a story that it tells itself [it's also habit and conditioning that plays a part here]). It's basically ideas telling themselves about other ideas. The idea that you have of yourself (identified and conceptualised self) is being hurt by ideas that it has about itself. The true you is not concerned with self-love. The true you doesn't even get hurt by anything. It has never been touched. Your ego has never known your true self. The Self.

Peace dude  

Lenny

 

 

 

[Lenny]

@zazed well said  

[Shin]

The catch 22 is that what leads to awakening ist to be fully conscious, happy and peaceful in this very moment.

Then you'll truly want to awaken, not as a need to supress your suffering (basically a magic pill), but as a way to share how amazing you already feel.

[susanyzm]

For me, Teal Swan's Self-love E-course has helped me a lot.

https://shop.tealswan.com/pages/self-love-online-course

She has a FB group for students of this course. To a certain degree, I think the community is more valuable than the course itself. We need a tribe to stay grounded. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tealswanselflove

And I keep a self-love practice journal on this forum. Self-love needs practice. It's like learning a completely new language. This is the best practice you can do. Self-love is the raw material for any form of abundance in life. Best wishes for you!

[Mu_]

@molosku

Ram Dass, hes my fav.  And hes got a great sense of humor, or atleast I think so