I want to begin with why I named this article Love Thy Self. The second commandment is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. This is the simplest, yet most misunderstood commandment of them all. To love yourself as you love your neighbor is a simile. To do something like or as you do something means that those things should be the same, equal, or at least similar. To love thy neighbor as you love thy self means that the love you have for someone else and for yourself should be the same. Not less, not more–the same.
Commandment Ten: Love Thy Heart
Let me ask you a few questions: Do you really love people? Do you have compassion for others? Are you a warm person?
I’m sure you answered yes to all of those questions, but the truth is many of us are not as warm-hearted as we think we are. Our hearts is possibly the most overlooked part to us there is. The only time we pay attention to our hearts in when someone breaks it. But love for ourselves and others should be an important thing to our lives.
You cannot love anyone at all unless there is love inside of you. Love comes from within. It’s not something that other people have to influence us to do. People don’t make us like them or love them. We choose to love them. Those emotions were already inside of us and we chose to let it out when we pleased. We have complete control over that.
When you make mistakes, do you call yourself stupid? Are you mean to yourself? Do you call yourself ugly or fat time to time? If you do, there is a great chance that you do it to others as well. When other people make mistakes, you probably call them stupid too. You probably call others fat or ugly also.
If you do this, you may have a lack of compassion, or a lack of heart. I understand that some people do stupid things, and it’s so tempting to call them stupid because of it, but pay close attention to how much negative thoughts come to your mind whether it’s about yourself or others. If you are always criticizing yourself or others, you are teaching yourself to be an unloving person, or a heartless person. The more you do it, the more you’re going to want to do it until it becomes a habit. You’re creating negative energy, and you’re putting that out into the world.
Being positive and being loving is practically the same thing. Love is always positive. There is no such thing as negative or bad love. If it is bad, then it’s not love. It all comes from within. But real love can only be given from someone that has a warm heart.