Learning to Love Your Sacred Being

There is a wonderful story about a king who went into a downtrodden village, a village with no schools, no libraries and no joy. He told the people of the village that he had just replaced one of their newborn babies with a royal child. He said that he was going to come back at some point to see how they were raising this royal child, and warned them that they had better do a good job. Since no one knew who the royal child was, each parent said to themselves, "Maybe it's my child. I'd better be very loving with this child so the king will be happy."

Years later the King came back to the village. Now the village was flourishing, with schools, a library, and much peace and joy on the faces of the people. He met an old woman who said to him, "King, tell me - it's my daughter who is the royal child, right?" And the king said, "They all are."

Treating the children with much love changed everything.

What if you believed that your inner child was a royal child, a sacred being? What if you believed that you were the guardian of this sacred being within you? If you believed this, how would you treat yourself differently than you do now?

Our essence - our true Self - is a sacred being, the aspect of us that is created in the image of God-Which-is-love. Our essence is the pure energy of love, peace, joy and creativity. Our essence is an individualized manifestation of Spirit. Each of us has been given special gifts to offer each other as we journey together on this planet. In order for our gifts to fully manifest, to express the fullness of our beings, our sacred selves need to be loved.

If you begin to think of your inner child as a sacred being who needs your love to flourish, it might be easier to remember to take loving care of yourself. After all, if you had an actual child whom you really believed was a sacred being, you would probably do all you could to be a loving parent to that child. The challenge is to see your own essence, your own true Self as a sacred being and embrace the guardianship of your inner child.

Your sacred being is your emotional self - your feeling self. If you accepted the guardianship of your sacred self, would you ever ignore your own feelings? Would you ever tell yourself things that caused you to feel anxious, scared, angry or depressed? Would you keep trying to get someone else to take responsibility of your feelings? Would you try to put a lid on your feelings with food, alcohol, drugs, TV, busyness, blaming others and so on?

Until you actually embrace the guardianship of your sacred being, you will not be treating yourself in loving ways. Once you accept this responsibility, then you can develop your loving adult - through your connection with Spirit - who is capable of taking loving care of your sacred being.

Our society has done a very poor job of being loving guardians of our actual children and of Mother Earth. Perhaps we will not embrace the guardianship of our children and our land until we accept the guardianship of ourselves. Many indigenous peoples knew about their sacred selves. They knew that they were eternal beings on an earthly journey, and that it was their responsibility to honor their sacred being and the sacred being in others. They also knew that this planet was a sacred being that needs tender loving care.

As we accept the honor of being guardians of our own sacred being, we will naturally treat others and the planet with the same love we treat ourselves. Healing needs to start within each of us.