Hi jack,

Someone told me “Be nice but not TOO nice”. Even with myself, I’ll eat a piece of chocolate cake, but I won’t eat the whole cake in one sitting. That’s not being “mean” if I don’t give myself or anyone else the whole cake. Sometimes love, real love, is saying “NO”. A few years ago I had a real oppose-er to my boundaries. And when I stood by my “NO” I lost the friendship. Now, I did love this friend. Even as myself. But no regrets.

So yes, you can (should?) love others as yourself. However, the other people shouldn’t act like jerks! You can, though, even love a jerk. But from a distance.

Inky

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Inky.

I am seeing a very liberal woman with a 13 year old girl. When Bill Clinto was dealing with Monica he said that Blow Jobs were not sex. Remember. Well this girl had found that clip on You Tube and the girl loves Bill Clinton. So the girl bought the argument hook line and sinker. She gives blow jobs to her boy friends. This goes on relentless ly. Her mother had tried talking with her but the girl sees nothing wrong with it.

Love one another as you love yourself. Do you follow this rule in your daily life?

Before I think that question can be answered I think we must understand what it means to love oneself.

What is this thing we call Love and If we were to love ourselves unconditionally what would it look like?

For many unconditional love is an unconscious expectation or requirement of unconditional allowing.
We are told love means we must turn the other cheek and that that means someone can be and do what they will and that forgiveness means saying what happened was ok. That is not love and not if we look how we love ourselves.

The expectation or demand that love be unconditional in this way is one heck of a condition!

What then is unconditional love?

When we meditate on the nature and experience of love it appears to operate on multiple planes. As conscious Beings we want who we are and so what we do to matter, to make a difference, to impact and be valued, especially in or interactions with those we care about. We seek meaning, purpose in our experience and expression of love.

We love ourselves unconditionally when we allow ourselves the experience of meaning and purpose in who we are and what we do which requires ‘getting to be’ held accountable for who we are and what we do.

When we don’t hold ourselves or others accountable we do not love them for such a thing would mean that who they are and what they do has no value.

For meaning and purpose to be experienced the qualities of accountability and responsibility must also be qualities of love. Love means we get to be held accountable and responsible for who we are and what we do. Thinking, feeling, doing, being

So it seems to me that we love ourselves when we hold ourselves accountable, in grace, for who we are and what we do. To love others as ourselves we love unconditionally and say YES to life as it is.

Loving others as ourselves is not a compromise nor does it require that we or the other be perfect.
Loving others as ourselves does not mean we make ourselves vulnerable. Acts of ‘turning the other cheek” are actually quite aggressive as it forces the person to see themselves as they are. Turning the other cheek can be acts of love or hate.

Loving ourselves means we live our truths in grace so that when we learn better we might do better. Holding ourselves accountable not out of anger or sense of justice but because that is how we learn who we are and experience meaning and purpose.

When we love others as ourselves we say YES to who we and they are.
We accept getting to be unconditionally accountable, for the good we and they do and what we might experience as bad. Not from a place of anger, hate, justice but Love.

Too often we create labels of our experience to justify and empower what we do to others and how we treat them. We call it justice or self-protection. We use hate and anger to hold others accountable, (and sometimes ourselves) but we can do not need to hate to empower our actions and being we can love.

This is not a Hate the sin love the sinner philosophy. When we say Yes to life as it is we say yes that we will missing the mark in our becoming (sin). This is not a passive allowing and accepting. We must live our truths. Saying Yes we must stand up and say no to what our truths require us to say no to, just as we must allow others to live there truths, coming from a place of love.

The emotion of anger might point to a confrontation with our experiences of our truths and others however we don’t need to empower the action we might take from a place of anger.

We say yes to life as it is by living our truths as authentically as we know them while being open to learning better. We will get it wrong just as the other we love will get it wrong yet in grace we create the space were everyone involved might become more conscious and awaken to who we are.