By Peggy Rowe and Larry Ward, Lion's Roar, December 25, 2019
Thich Nhat Hanh, our teacher, described love as an extremely powerful energy that has the capacity to transform ourselves and others. But many of us find it difficult to direct love toward ourselves. We quickly become aware of negative feelings like shame, guilt, and self-criticism that make it hard to love and care for ourselves. Unfortunately, this is all too common.
Luckily for us, the seeds of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity are in our store consciousness, ready and waiting to grow. We can study and practice in such a way that we shrink the seeds of self-aversion, self-criticism, shame, and guilt inside us and grow our hearts as wide as the world. When we are able to practice self-love consistently, returning over and over to maintain a soft heart in the face of our own suffering, eventually we’re able to let go of our negative thought patterns and find ourselves transformed.
Thich Nhat Hanh talked about healing the inner child within each of us as a key way to give ourselves the love and compassion we need. For children to feel a sense of belonging, they need to feel understood and loved. They need the feeling of connectedness that comes when they are seen and held in love. But if our parents, teachers, or society didn’t listen to or respond to our fears, or sent messages that we were not good enough, we may continue these behaviors with ourselves as adults. We may disconnect from and bury parts of our inner life because they are too painful to face.
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