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Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89125

Enjoy another wonderful text by Rev. Phil Smedsted, minister Emeritus of Oasis Rising Center

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Phil Smedstad's texts are one of the ways Oasis Rising Center supports members.

A Positive Path for Spiritual Living

Oasis Rising Center Spiritual Center
Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89125
(702) 804-8189
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“Loving Yourself for Fun and Profit”
`By Rev. Phillip Smedstad

Now that we’re thinking about Christmas giving, it’s a good time to first focus on self-love.  Why?  There are several reasons:

• We can only love others to the degree we love ourselves.  Also, there are more reasons:
• We can only receive love from others to the degree that we love ourselves.
• As Lura and I have said in Prosperity Workshops, We aren’t actually paid so much for what we know and how much experience we have as we are for how much we love ourselves.

I grew up not knowing how to love myself very much.  No one in my family had much self-esteem.  Also, at church, we used to affirm every Sunday, “I admit that I am by nature sinful and unclean..”  (How’s that for an affirmation?  It took me several decades to unlearn all that guilt.)
My parents had never learned to love themselves unconditionally.  Consequently, they couldn’t love us children unconditionally.  So, what passed for “love” in my childhood family was approval.  As a result, I became an “approval seeking machine” as an adult.

I still remember the first Transformational Breath Work series I had with a coach.  He gave me the following affirmation:  “I no longer need the approval of others because I always have my own approval.”  I also remember how scared I was in writing it.  I thought that if I let go of needing approval from others, I would do terrible things.  (I didn’t.)

It would have been good to have reminded myself of something Dr. Seuss used to say, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”  I love that.

I also used to think I could hate myself and then get others to love me over the top of my self-hatred.  If you’ve ever tried that, you know it doesn’t work.  The truth is that all the love we receive is a reflection of how much love we have for ourselves.

One more thing I used to do is to believe that I wasn’t worth much, and then I would get angry because my employer didn’t want to pay me what I asked to receive.

Actually, low self esteem runs most people’s lives.  It especially runs most people’s relationships.  A Course In Miracles talks a lot about special and holy relationships.  It says that special relationships come in two forms – special hate relationships and special love relationships.
Special hate relationships are those in which we project the guilt we believe we have onto others.  We look for some way to judge them and feel better than them.  Special love relationships are those in which we find that “special someone” who can supply the piece or pieces which are missing in us.

In both cases, we try to use other people to prop up our self-esteem and keep our guilt from surfacing.  Actually, beneath both special hate and special love is hatred.  Special hate is obvious.  In special love, the hatred is more subtle.  The unconscious thought we have is, “Every time I look at you, I am reminded of what I think is missing in me, and I hate you for that.”
On Sunday, I asked everyone to join me in saying aloud, “Everything I want is already within me.”
A holy relationship is based on knowing that both of us are whole and complete beings.  I don’t need you to complete me, and you don’t need me to complete you.  Relationships are a lot more fun when we WANT to be together to empower each other than when we are in one because we believe that there is a lack in us.
Regarding self-esteem, another thing I used to say is, “I’ll love myself when...”  (“when I lose 30 pounds, or when I quit smoking, or when I have a certain amount of money in the bank, or...”)

If you know this one, you also know that this is like waiting for Godot.  These days, I have a different affirmation and belief:  “There is no reason good enough not to love myself just the way I am.”

Most of us grew up believing at least one of three thoughts: 

• There is something wrong with me, or
• There is something missing in me, or
• I am special and fundamentally different from others.

The truth is that there is nothing wrong with you.  There is nothing missing in you.  And we are all, including you, fundamentally the same.  You are created in the image and likeness of God, so you can’t possibly be less than others.

On Sunday, I asked everyone to turn to a neighbor and say two things:

• “I am the image and likeness of God.  I can’t possibly be less than you.”
• “You are the image and likeness of God.  You can’t possibly be less than me.”

Alan Cohen once said, “You cannot gain worth by achievement.  You can only CLAIM it by self-recognition.”  Then, in one of his books, Alan says, “Fascination is fertilizer.  Whatever we’re fascinated with grows.” 

This is true whether what we’re fascinated with supports our happiness and abundance or whether it supports our misery and lack.  The Universe doesn’t say, “That’s not good for you.  You can’t have more of that.”  It says, “Whatever you are focused on, have more.”

What are you fascinated by in yourself?  Are you fascinated by what seems to be wrong with you, what you seem to be missing?  Or are you fascinated by what’s right with you?  Which has more “air time” in your thoughts – your inner critic or your inner admirer?

The truth is, you are the equal of everyone on the planet.  There is no one on earth who is better than you, and no one who is less than you.  The more you practice loving yourself, thanking God for being you, the better life gets.

Some of you have heard me say, “There is a question we can all build our whole life around when we’re considering whether or not to do something:  Would doing this be loving myself?”
This week, practice loving yourself every day in every way.  The more you do, the better it will feel this Christmas to give to others.