02.16.2024 How to Cultivate Self-Love Many have shared their love with someone special this Valentine’s week — be it a partner, a friend, a child, or a cherished pet. As we bid farewell to heart shaped-chocolates, let’s shift our focus inward and continue the celebration of love, starting with the most crucial relationship: the one we have with ourselves. We all struggle with an “inner critic” — that irritating, judgmental voice that pops up in your mind to tell you you’re not good enough, successful enough, or beautiful enough. Whatever it tells you, it’s always both unhelpful and inaccurate. The three teachings in this Weekend Reader remind us that we don’t have to listen to that nagging voice by showing us ways we can cultivate self-love. By nurturing the love within, we can direct kindness towards ourselves instead. We can offer ourselves the same love we’re more easily able to give to others. It’s through a healthy relationship with ourselves that we can best benefit the world around us. May these teachings warm your heart this weekend. —Lilly Greenblatt, Digital Editor, Lion’s Roar   Making Friends with Ourselves Being our own best friend is a challenging feat. Kate Johnson explains how meditation can help us get to know our inner critics and prevent them from hindering our path to liberation. Meditation is making friends with yourself. How many of us can truly say we are our own best friend? I know I mentioned in the introduction that meditation alone is not enough to undo the conditioning that has been perpetuated by systems of injustice. It’s also true that meditation can be a part of the healing process for those of us who have been deeply harmed by these systems. The key is not making meditation yet another way to beat up on ourselves for not being good enough. Meditating from the belief that we are broken and need to be fixed will only undermine our efforts to develop calm and ease. Self-aggression squeezes the mind, and discursive, aggressive thoughts spill out everywhere. Meditation, at its best, is an offering of love to ourselves. It gets even better with practice. ADVERTISEMENT Silencing the Inner Critic   The nagging, negative voice of self-judgement, says Christina Feldman, is a powerful affliction best met with courage, kindness, and understanding.   We can learn to pause and to listen deeply to the voice of the inner judge, with its endless symphony of blame and shame, and we can surround it with the kindness of mindfulness. We can investigate the truth of its story. We can begin to sense that the inner critic truly warrants compassion, as does any suffering and affliction. Instead of fleeing the painfulness of the judgmental mind we can turn toward it, sensing that everything we are invited to understand in the journey of awakening can be understood within the judgmental mind. Letting go, compassion, the emptiness of self, equanimity, and wisdom are the lessons we are invited to explore with this most powerful of afflictions. The alchemy of mindfulness is to nurture a sense of possibility. We are encouraged to imagine a life free from ill will, blame, and shame. To imagine a life and a heart of compassion, wisdom, and peace. A Loving-Kindness Meditation to Heal Your Inner Child Peggy Rowe Ward and Larry Ward on how to give the wounded child inside you the love and compassion they deserve.   Childhood traumas can impact our capacity for self-love as a result of stress trapped in the body. This is one of the reasons that the following meditation begins by strengthening our heart and mind with the somatic sensations of love and peace. However, it is important to remember that the inner child is not a separate, unchangeable self. It is not a permanent essence or state of being, but rather deep patterns resulting from many causes, conditions, and perceptions that are both individual and collective. While these patterns may arise in any moment, it is our good fortune that there is a natural neuroplasticity of our brain and mind. This plasticity allows for deep healing and transformation illuminating the divine child hidden in the suffering of adversity. Healing that inner child within us is the first and most important expression of love and kindness toward ourselves.