What is the tie-in between self-love and “new thought”?
We now know what self-love is all about, so perhaps we better define “new thought” a bit more.
New thought was a philosophy that began in the early mid-nineteenth century that postulated the idea of “healthy mindedness” as well as a healthy body. It was a spiritual movement with its roots in metaphysical beliefs. It grew out of existing Christian beliefs, especially those of a Calvinist origin. New thought’s basic premise was; “that anything that exists in the mind and could be expressed through words had the ability to transcend the physical and be realized through individual thoughts and intuition.”
Many philosophers and thinkers of the time latched onto “new thought” as expressing their belief in the universality of humanity and whilst still accepting a higher power, they attributed that higher power to the Universe rather than some arbitrary human construct, such as God, Yaweh, Allah, or whatever it might be.
Perhaps, for most of us today, “new thought” only came to the forefront of our consciousness in 2006 with the world-wide streaming of Rhonda Byrne’s movie and later book, “The Secret”. It was at this time the idea of the Law of Attraction and New Thought actually swept across the world. Rhonda would be the first to admit that her movie was espousing nothing new, but rather sharing the “secret” that she had discovered from reading a one-hundred-year-old book by Wallace Wattles, titled, The Science of Getting Rich. So, although Rhonda’s epiphany may have seemed startling, exciting, and new to a whole new generation of adherents, the basic principles that made up the new thought philosophy had been around and discussed for many years.
Joseph Campbell:
One adherent to the new thought philosophy was Joseph Campbell. An American author and editor who lived from 1904 to 1987, Joseph Campbell is best known for his works on comparative mythologies across the world. He examined the universal functions and impacts of myths in various cultures and mythical figures across a wide range of different literature from all over the world.
For me, however, it was his pronouncements and quotes that have the greatest effect and inspiration. We talked last week about the greatest way to love yourself is to find your true path in life – that which you were gifted; those unique and special talents that we’ve been talking about. Joseph Campbell’s simple quote, for me, sums up perfectly what we need to do, as individuals, if we are to achieve the self-realization, self-actualization and self-love that we both seek and deserve.
“Follow your bliss and the Universe will open doors where there were only walls.”
Joseph Campbell
Such a simple phrase – “follow your bliss” but one that is guaranteed to put you where you (a) want to be and (b) where you belong.
Follow Your Bliss:
What is bliss?
Bliss is a concept that almost defies description. It is vast, boundless, immeasurable AND it is a totally different state, for every single person and that is the key. Bliss must be personally experienced to understand what it is for YOU. Bliss exists on an entirely different dimension to simple happiness – it is so much more than that. It is a state where the sense of ego slips away and a feeling of total connectedness takes over. When you are in a state of bliss there is no sense of “me”, separate from the rest of creation – there is just joy and peace.
Perhaps the best definition I’ve heard of bliss is doing something where time, the environment, and everything around you fades away into the background and only the thing you are currently focused on matters anymore. This is the way I feel when I’m writing these blogs, or my novels, so, for me, a state of bliss is attained when I am writing. For everyone it will be different and you need to focus on what gives you bliss and then find a way to relate that to today’s environment and a way to “follow your bliss” that also rewards you financially for doing so. Remember what Richard Branson said about not doing what he did for the money, but for the fun and the challenge. But that when he had fun, invariably the money followed.
If there is one guaranteed way to achieve the self-love and satisfaction that we all seek, that is it.
“If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are — if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”
Joseph Campbell
Simply put, if you do things that you are passionate about, you’ll feel more alive and doors will open for you.
New Thought and Self-Talk:
We’ve talked a lot in the last few blogs about the importance to our well-being of our own self-talk. Regardless of the reasons for us having a low opinion of ourselves, so many of us do and we are continually berating ourselves for not measuring up to either our or others opinions or expectations of us. When we denounce ourselves, we are doing serious harm to our self-esteem and self-worth.
This is particularly cogent when we look at new thought beliefs. One of the core beliefs of this new thought philosophy is expressed in the concept that; “thoughts are things”. One of the best known of the new thought authors is Napoleon Hill and perhaps his most famous quote was:
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
I’m sure that will right now be resonating with readers of this blog. What an inspirational quote – if we act and think positively, with respect to self-love and self-talk, we can create whatever we desire and need. If thoughts are things and we can achieve whatever we conceive and believe in, if we don’t believe in ourselves, we will create exactly what we believe in and constantly tell ourselves – that we are hopeless, we are a failure, we can’t do anything right, or what’s the point in even trying if we’re just going to mess it up?
That, in a nutshell is why positive self-talk and believing in ourselves and our unique abilities is so important. If we don’t – we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy through the Law of Attraction. Remember the mirror exercise from recent blogs. We really need to practice that – we need to be able to look in the mirror and say; “I am an awesome human being, I can achieve anything I set my mind to, I am capable, I am special, I am unique, I am… (fill in the blank).
There are so many people in this world today who are quick to try to bring you down, to scoff at your achievements and to belittle you or even withhold applause or praise. Congratulations, and celebrations are so important – always look for things to appreciate in yourself and give yourself a big pat on the back and a high five whenever you make constructive progress or take positive action. Self-love is also about moving away from lower [on an energetic sphere] feelings / emotions such as shame – guilt – anger – judgement and so on, and raising your vibration, instead.
We hope you’ll review this series from time to time and deploy some of the tips on a regular basis. It is your duty to yourself to remind yourself that you are better than all of that, that you are special and unique, that you are wonderful. If you don’t believe it, how can you expect anyone else to believe it?
I hope you have realized over these last four blogs why self-love, self-care, self-awareness is so important to us, as human beings and what we can do to ensure that we do love ourselves properly and look after ourselves so that we are able to utilize those special and unique talents that make us who we are. I want to leave you today, with a special quote that neatly sums up everything we’ve been discussing over these last four weeks.
“You can’t hate yourself happy. You can’t criticize yourself thin. You can’t shame yourself worthy. Real change begins with self-love and self-care.”
– Jessica Ortner
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Till Next Time I’m Sending: Peace and Light
Now, these are all great lessons to learn but, what do they teach you about loving yourself and caring for yourself. Do they tell you to hug yourself? Do they tell you to be kind to yourself? Let’s be honest, the only time our parents allowed us to interact with ourselves was when they placed us in “time out” for being naughty and then self-love was far from our minds. Invariably we were fuming about losing, our play time and our toys, for a while which seemed like an age.
This is why, let’s say you see some new activity, sport, idea that you think would be brilliant, your ego immediately kicks into gear and reminds you just how “ordinary” you really are. The ego says things like: “sure, that looks like fun but remember the last time you tried something new… well, that was an abject failure wasn’t it?” It constantly seeks to remind us that we aren’t good enough and we genuinely think it is us that is saying it – it’s not.
Why is it that we are invariably our own harshest critics? We have this tendency to do things or take particular directions for all the wrong reasons; either we’re striving for something we’re not quite ready to achieve yet, or we’re seeking the approval of others. Often when we make a decision to improve our lives (self-love), we’re not motivated by what we want but rather by impressing others or from a sense of guilt (in the example of being overweight for instance). When our motivation is not driven by what we want, it is a lot easier to give up and add that to the impressive list of failures the ego will bring out to bombard you with next time you make a positive decision about yourself.
Not eating properly: Comfort foods are a temporary fix at best. Eating a well-balanced, healthy diet keeps you good not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well.
Next week, I’ll be looking at some practical ways to break down these barriers that keep you from self-love and as always, I’ll be reminding you to LOVE YOURSELF because you absolutely deserve it – you are a unique and beautiful human being.
For most of us the fears that cripple us are just simple psychological fears that we have allowed to become the ruling paradigms in our lives. These are fears that have been drilled into us over the years by the people we have most trusted to guide us in our lives; our parents, our siblings, our teachers, our friends, our work colleagues and indeed society in general. We have, like good and faithful dogs, been exceedingly well trained. The problem is that these fears have become so ingrained in our subconscious that they can stop us from doing things we WANT to do and even beneficial stuff, to grow as individuals and experience the awesome life that we were born to live. So, what are these fears that hold us back from achieving our greatness? 
