Buddhism = Self Love and True love (Personal Experience)

Many of us suffer with a huge challenge to have self-esteem and self-love resulting into dented life with bad experiences in love, friends and even family relationships additionally work relationships. If one lacks self-esteem then there is no way you can win over the struggles of your life.

Let’s look at this, and see how familiar it seems, you found love probably first love and you fell in love and then the person moved on and you took longer to accept and forget about moving on. Then someone else came along and a repeated pattern and here you are with feelings like ¨no, i love this person how can i move on¨ or ¨You don´t understand Priya, all i want is this person´s support even though person is already committed to someone¨. At work you are smart and with great ideas and such a creative vision yet your colleagues steal your ideas and make you feel like a failure. You lack at decision making and always looking at others to tell you what to do.

In short:
Tough luck at love, after break up hard to move on
Friends use you and leave and then again you suffer for years at the back of mind
Work or family but you are always looking for others to support us

Why is it so hard to love ourselves?

Firstly: Family upbringing, strict or critical and it made us seek love outside. We kept looking for love or reassurance and our self-worth in toxic relationships. Waiting for our girl/boyfriends or wife/husband or people in your environment to show appreciation and feel the love and the worth. 

Secondly: Our selfless and sincere nature as a daughter/son or wife/husband or mother/father. We feel guilty to take care of ourselves and we continue living like a mess in looks, sleep deprived, spiritually low and so on with mere excuse of being too busy to take care of our own health and attending meetings etc.

Experience: I had a strict upbringing and a childhood based on reverse psychology where you tell the person you are a failure and the person will take it like a challenge and prove them wrong which totally failed in my case. I took everything literally and absorbed everything that was told to me including ugly, failure, dumb and so on. It made it hard for me to shine in school life or anywhere. This led to me getting hurt each time a friend or anyone in my environment betrayed me, till my relationships with people were toxic and more like an addiction and i was seeking love outside home. I thought of myself like the victim, oh poor me, I have no friends, my family thinks i am a failure and now my boyfriend left me and it is all my blame as i am not beautiful or good enough and blah blah blah. 

Buddhism happened, i found it in the turmoil of my broken relationship and i went on with chanting to save my relationship. 6 months passed, who knew instead of saving my relationship with that guy, i would end up saving myself forever. One morning I woke up and looked in the mirror and realised that I never cared to look in the mirror and see how beautiful i am just because whole my life, my sweet family and relatives always put me down saying i was a dumb and ugly girl. I never thought i was good in studies despite scoring in 90s as i was always told only 100/100 is good. 

The journey of self-love never stopped since 6 years of my practice. I learnt how to put the line for people to stop giving me their free remarks as i know my worth and my worth depends on me not what others say. Then guys or friends i lost over the years, i was wise enough to let them go as i deserve better. It did hurt and sometimes i still think on a few people but i know it is part of process of my growth, "Love me or hate me is your personal choice, but if you are willing to stay in my life you got to respect me or i will let you out of my life with all due respect."

Daishonin says again and again, "Master your mind", which is don't let your mind master you. The mind listens to the world and thinks that all is true especially negative things.

VICTORIES

• My mother who has been my biggest critic now appreciates me and says openly how proud she is to have a daughter like me.
• Relationships and friendships got everything like a few countable people but they all look up to me and when i have hard days, they respect me and stand by me. In fact they remind me of what i have done so far and help me grow further.
• Work relationships, no one passes remarks or bully me as they know i have always maintained a line of respect with all and i won't accept such childish behaviour.

Many people look up to me today, in the end i don't care if my people leave me as i am happy with myself and proud of who i have become. I have learnt not to waste my energy over drama of other people, i chose my fights wisely. I don't feel guilty for dressing up or self-pampering as i deserve to be my best otherwise i will only cause more damage to my environment and bonds i have. If one wants to give their best to others, one must give best to oneself first.

P.S We chant to raise our life state and it is an act of self-love. If we are in low life then we are living a life with a downward spiral. Self-love arises from high life state and then it is seen in our self-care (haircut, dressing up, or so on) and the care we do for others. The way we take care of ourselves, is the way we will take care of our environment. Kosen rufu is one's individual happiness that leads to other's happiness and eventually world peace. It doesn't mean be selfish but it means take care of you. Sensei always stress upon women to always take care of how they look or how he stresses upon members to be safe, proper sleep or take care of our health.

TREAT YOURSELF AS A BUDDHA YOU ARE.