Affirmation means acceptance of your own miraculous complexity. It means saying "yes" to your own being. It means acquiescing to your reality as a spirit in flesh. Within the framework of your own complexity you have the right to say no ' to certain situations, to express your desires, to communicate your feelings.
If you do so, then in the great flow and sweep of your eternal reality there will be an overall current of love and creativity that carries you. Affirmation is the acceptance of yourself in your present as the person that you are. Within that acceptance you may find qualities that you wish you did not have, or habits that annoy you. You must not expect to be "perfect." As mentioned earlier, your ideas of perfection mean a state of fulfillment beyond which there is no future growth, and no such state exists.
"Love your neighbor as yourself" Turn this around and say, "Love yourself as you love your neighbor, " for often you will recognize the goodness in another and ignore it in yourself. Some people believe there is a great merit and holy virtue in what they think of as humility. Therefore to be proud of oneself seems a sin, and in that frame of reference true affirmation of the self is impossible. Genuine self-pride is the loving recognition of your own integrity and value. True humility is based upon this affectionate regard for yourself, plus the recognition that you live in a universe in which all other beings also possess this undeniable individuality and self-worth.
False humility tells you that you are nothing. It often hides a distorted, puffed-up, denied self-pride, because no man or woman can really accept a theory that denies personal self-worth.
Fake humility can cause you to tear down the value of others, because if you accept no worth in yourself you cannot see it in anyone else either. True self-pride allows you to perceive the integrity of your fellow human beings and permits you to help them use their strengths. Many people make a great show out of helping others, for example, encouraging them to lean upon them. They believe this to be a quite holy, virtuous enterprise. Instead they are keeping other people from recognizing and using their own strengths and abilities.
Regardless of what you have been told, there is no merit in self-sacrifice. For one thing it is impossible. The self grows and develops. It cannot be annihilated. Usually, self-sacrifice means throwing the "burden" of yourself upon someone else and making it their responsibility.
A mother who says to her child, "I gave up my life for you, " is speaking nonsense. In basic terms such a mother believes, no matter what she says, that she did not have that much to give up, and the "giving up" gave her a life that she wanted.
A child who says, "I gave up my life for my parents and devoted myself to their care, " means, "I was afraid to live my own life, and afraid to let them live theirs. And so in 'giving up' my life I gained the life I wanted."
Love does not demand sacrifice. Those who fear to affirm their own being also fear to let others live for themselves. You do not help your children by keeping them chained to you, but you do not help your aged parents either by encouraging their sense of helplessness. The ordinary sense of communication given you through your creature hood, if spontaneously and honestly followed, would solve many of your problems. Only repressed communication leads to violence. The natural force of love is everywhere within you, and the normal methods of communication are always meant to bring you in greater contact with your fellow creatures.
Love yourselves and do yourselves just honor, and you will deal fairly with others. When you say "no, " or deny, you always do so because in your mind and feelings, a present situation, or a proposed one, falls far short of some ideal. The refusal is always in response to something that is considered, at least, to be a greater good. If you do not have too-rigid ideas of perfection, then ordinary denial serves a quite practical purpose. But never negate the present reality of yourself because you compare it to some idealized perfection.
Perfection is not being, for all being is in a state of becoming. This does not mean that all being is in a state of becoming perfect, but in a state of becoming more itself. All other emotions are based on love, and in one way or another they all relate to it, and all are methods of returning to it and expanding its capacities.
You must first love yourself before you love another.
By accepting yourself and joyfully being what you are, you fulfill your own abilities, and your simple presence can make others happy. You cannot hate yourself and love anyone else. It is impossible. You will instead project all the qualities you do not think you possess upon someone else, do them lip service, and hate the other individual for possessing them. Though you profess to love the other, you will try to undermine the very foundations of his or her being.
When you love others, you grant them their innate freedom and do not cravenly insist that they always attend you. There are no divisions to love. There is no basic difference between the love of a child for a parent, a parent for a child, a wife for a husband, a brother for a sister. There are only various expressions and characteristics of love, and all love affirms. It can accept deviations from the ideal vision without condemning them. It does not compare the practical state of the beloveds being with the idealized perceived.....one that is potential....
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