Love
Yourself
by Sylvia Browne
 We're
going to talk about behavioral modification. I think
that all through your lifetimes, literally, you've
been inundated with erroneous information. It
becomes terribly hard to try to figure out what's
right. You're inundated by all types of moralistic
behavior, commandments, church rules, and law.
Behavioral modification is probably the most
simplistic.
Our Lord said, "Love your
neighbor as yourself." Now, let me get more specific
about that. Let me try to release some of the
burdens of guilt you may have. There are people whom
you cannot possibly like. Yet many times, because
"Love your neighbor" has been given to you, you are
convinced that it's wrong to dislike others.
It is wrong not to dislike. Let
me tell you why. If you're going to like and care
for every single person (I'm not speaking of love),
there's something wrong with your personality.
You're deficient in being a whole person. Whole
people have decided likes and dislikes, paths in
which they follow, paths in which they won't follow.
You must try to love everyone's
soul and wish them the best. But you certainly don't
have to like their behavior or actions. To stay
around a person that you intensely dislike is wrong.
It disintegrates that person and yourself. Many
marriages, friendships, and family relationships are
built upon trying to stay around a person that one
cannot tolerate. This causes you guilt and heartache
and stunts your spiritual growth. You're laboring so
hard to be "perfect" for no reason. Again, Jesus
recommends that you "pick up your pallet and walk
away."
When you give someone advice (all
human beings are filled with advice for everyone),
don't ever give advice that you think will apply to
you, or what you would like. Try to be objective.
That is the most spiritual road. Whenever someone
asks you for an opinion or advice, don't internalize
it; rather, try to put yourself in that person's
place. There, again, is a very spiritual
modification.
Care more for yourself. Reward
yourself. For one week, try to do everything that
you wish to do just for you. For one week, try it. I
guarantee that by the end of the week, you will not
only be doing things for you, but you'll be doing
more for other people than ever before.
Once you can love yourself, so
much love begins to emanate. If you find that you're
a person who doesn't like people, you're in great
difficulty. The greatest challenge that you'll ever
have in this life is to get along with other people.
That doesn't mean having to like them or constantly
give out more than is humanly possible. It means
being able to discern how compatible with you others
will be.
Do you know that Jesus did not
like everyone? He did not like the Pharisees. He
could not stand the courts. He could not abide the
rulers of Rome. Yet he cared for all people. Do you
understand that?
It's impossible for you to walk
around constantly, truly loving everyone. When you
try to love everyone, you've diminished the word
love. You use the word love so much that when it
comes to truly loving and caring, you have no way to
express it anymore. Most of you, I can truly say,
"like" and "care" for others, but very few of you in
physical life know what true love is. This is not
because you're deficient. It's because on your plane
of existence, it's nearly impossible. Infatuation is
probably the closest thing.
Because you get a brief glimpse
of this feeling with a partner, you're constantly
looking for the next, in your slang, "fix." The
older you get and the more worn down you are from
life, the less it comes. Something else must replace
it -- some deeper knowing that you're finishing out
your contract with God, then you will go Home.
If you're constantly bogged down
with grief or what should have been or what was not,
you'll stunt your spiritual growth. If you're
constantly wondering what people think of you, you
stunt your growth. Does this make you an uncaring,
unfeeling human being? Maybe according to the
world's norm, but not in the bigger scheme of life.
Every single one of you is
individually alone, making your way on a
well-defined path to get back where you came from.
You may select partners and companions along the
way, but as I've stated before, because of your
physical body and because you cannot merge, every
single one of you is isolated. We, your spirit
guides, are probably closer to you than any human
being can ever be.
Don't be so obsessive about the
next day, the next year, money problems, and so on.
You may reply, "But I have to live." Yes, you have
to live, but things are only going to be one way or
the other. Believe me when I tell you: Almost
everyone survives the money worries, the business
worries, the love worries. So much excessive time is
spent worrying about what is already predestined by
you and the other individuals anyway.
Money is a great deal like love.
It's meant to be taken in and given out. If money is
taken in and held, it does not reproduce anything.
People become too terribly concerned about
materialistic holdings.
People have asked me, "Am I too
materialistic?" Almost every time, I have
reiterated, "No." Very rarely have I seen a person,
regardless of their holdings or houses or cars, who
I feel is truly caught in material greed. Now, as
far as possessions, people can get caught up in
materialism by caring too much in almost a
self-conscious way what people think of them. That
is being caught in matter.
It is so simple. You care for the
majority of people. You hope they care for you. If
they don't, there are others who will. That's what
makes you more spiritual.
 This
article is excerpted from the book:
The Nature of
Good and Evil
by Sylvia Browne.
It is
reprinted with permission of the publisher Hay House
Inc.,
www.hayhouse.com
Info/Order this book.
More books by this author.
About The
Author
Sylvia
Browne is the author of
Adventures of a Psychic, Life on the Other Side, and The Other Side and Back, among
numerous other works. Visit her website at: www.sylvia.org.
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