Foundation of Loving One's Self

Karen asked me a question this morning. If the foundation of loving others is loving yourself, what is the foundation of loving yourself. I took some thought before responding and came up with this: the foundation principle of loving one's self is being accepted by the authority figures around you. When you make the childhood mistakes, the authority figures are fine with it. They even laugh with you about it. This makes the child's true self feel secure in his environment. It is perfectly acceptable by the authority figure and others for the child to explore his world and try new things. Everyone, especially the authority figures, are delighted with the child's creativity and imagination.

Children, I believe, are resilient. They can take a lot of negative feedback and still develope normally. But, there comes a point where the balance is tipped and the child's true self recedes and finally disappears deep inside the child's unconsious. This happens when the environment the child is in is sufficient negative or when traumatic experiences occur in the child's life. We call these experiences forms of abuse: mental, emotional,spiritual, sexual and physical.

The stage that follows loving acceptance is for the authority figure to foster growth of the child's inner knowing. The child has already felt secure and accepted. He has a foundation to try new things without any feeling of recrimination.

When a child has been traumatized, his true self hides deep within. A this point the genuine, loving overtures of the authority figure to foster development and creativity, don't work. The child either is unresponsive (fights back) or goes along believing the authority figure that the proposed course of action is as good as any. The child is inadvertently gambling on manipulations and whims of others to decide his future. He has given up his own direction. He no longer is his own authority figure.