Watching for "I'll Love Myself When..."
Longchenpa says:
"Freedom is timeless, so constantly present."
In many different ways, we've talked about the ego's habit of creating time where there wasn't any! Where there was just the profound simplicity of this timeless presence, now there is some complicated process!!
One of the main examples of this is the core egoic belief: something needs to happen in order for me to be fully myself.
In this belief structure, we need to be more calm, or more focused, or more evolved, more whatever... in order to really be aware and present. One day maybe we'll get there. But now there's all these other things to do first, before we can really come home and be what we are.
Nonsense!
Awareness wakes up in the midst of all states and activities! It accepts and forgives everything ceaselessly without end!
But "deferment" thinking is subtle. We must be sensitive to it taking over! It can sound so reasonable. And so many people around us reflect it back to us!
It loves, loves, loves to target any areas of vulnerability we have around our self-image. One of the main thoughts it formulates is some version of "I'll love myself when...."
I'll love myself when I've lost 5 pounds.
I'll love myself after I've exercised today.
I'll love myself after I've eaten healthy for three days.
I'll love myself when I can say no to sugar.
I'll love myself when I'm more of the person I want to be.
This thought is usually either totally unconscious or barely conscious (in the background enough so that it is not seen clearly and we can suppress it).
It leads directly to violence.
To treating the body and mind as enemies. As obstacles that we need to bend to our will. As split-off fragments that we must discipline and punish.
Interestingly, this kind of thinking also energizes the opposite outcome from what we are wanting at the level of the conscious mind. The basis of the entire mental sequence is non-acceptance, so non-acceptance will flavor absolutely every thought and action that follows from that core belief.
It's like screaming "I won't accept who I am" a million times and wondering why our relationship with an issue feels like a struggle or a war. The entire basis of the egoic operating system is war.
Real change, real health, takes Love as its basis. There is no exception to this.