Everyone talks about a coin having two sides; heads and tails. In reality it has three, there is an edge. Just because it is thin, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and how many times have you flipped a coin and it actually landed on its edge?
It may not stay there for long, and finish on a head or a tail, but it still does.
For me, happiness is the same; many people think of it in just the binary form of happy or unhappy. In truth there really is a third option, which I’ll just call ‘not unhappy.’
This is the middle ground between happy and unhappy, and unlike the edge of the coin, can be quite a broad plan of existence for many.
This is where I live much of my life, with some happy and some more unhappy. Here I sit, struggling with, as this edition calls, self-love.
I’ve never really been one for self-love, self-destruction would be a more appropriate epitaph. Irrespective of the why, which I do have a fair understanding of, it is still a struggle to begin to feel worthy within myself and from others.
I bury myself in work as a simple way to salve the conscience, or throw myself at books and learning new things.
Of course that is seen by many as worthy, but it really doesn’t nourish the soul; it doesn’t really give one a sense of purpose, or even belonging to anything less ephemeral than money or some notion of intelligence.
I read every article in this edition prior to publishing, and it gave me both a sense of dread and also of hope. Dread from the point of here I am at the age of forty five and self-love has passed me by.
But also hope; hope in the understanding that there are tricks and tips I can start to do. Hope that I can start to have self-love, and over time, be so much more accepting of what I give myself, and what others give to me.
My fervent wish is that all who read this edition, see, however small, a kernal of hope to how they can garner self love.
You can read the FULL version of this magazine in our quarterly eZine, ‘Holistic Living Magazine,’ look for Edition 6 on this archive page. There’s many more articles about self love waiting for you too!
Cassandra Jones – Editor At Large For Holistic Living Magazine
