Page 40 - Seniors Today - Jan25 Issues
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my spiritual studies for advice, and that As I explored my thoughts about self-love
advice is what I would paint. and with the influence of Wayne Dyer’s
I continued with this process for about book entitled Sacred Self, I came to the
nine years, and then one day I made a conclusion that there are two kinds of self-
discovery that would change my life love.
forever. There is ego-based self-love and there
I was drawing the image of a woman with is spirit-based self-love. The former
words of encouragement all around her, cares about what the ego cares about—
and then I suddenly realised that these appearances, power, and survival. The
words were messages of self-love. And latter cares about what the spirit cares
then I realised that all of my paintings were about—healing, wholeness, and love.
messages of self-love. But how could this Early on, when I lost my ability to love
be? I thought that I didn’t know what self- myself, I could feel how conditional my
love was. self-love was. And now I can see that the
I couldn’t see before that my art was reason for that was because my self-love
about self-love because I was so focused was ego-based. But now I was ready for
on creating one painting at a time. But unconditional self-love, which is a love that
now I could see that each painting was a never abandons us.
reflection of my journey in search of self- Before I lost my self-love due to illness,
love. life was going great. But when I got
sick and lost everything (except my
Even more amazing was that I could see wonderful now-husband), my ego judged
that my creative process was teaching me as a failure and worthless because its
me how to love myself, and it did this by love was conditional. My life had to look
giving me a setting and the reason to: a certain way before my ego would allow
• Slow down me to love myself. And then, when my
• Look inward ego became displeased, it activated the
• Ask myself questions and listen for voice of my inner critic.
answers
• Seek new solutions
• Be kind and patient with myself
• Value my opinion
• Trust in my instincts
• Embrace my sensitivity
• Forgive my mistakes
• Quiet my inner critic
• Give myself a voice and allow myself to
speak
Now that I could understand what self- From the wreckage of my life, even my
love was, at least within the boundaries of ego eventually gave up on me, and in its
creating my art, I felt motivated to examine silence, the gentle voice of my spirit could
self-love further in order to incorporate it finally be heard. It guided me to paint art
into all areas of my life. as a form of therapy. And within the quiet
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