Each Act Of Loving Yourself Is Healing To Our Planet

When I was four years old, I had one of those snapshot moments that is clearly embedded into my brain. I was outside by our duplex – at that time kids were safe outside alone - and there were three boys poking a snail with a stick so they could watch it writhe. I was stunned that they could do this, because I was feeling the fear of the snail. At that time I didn't know that I was an empath and could feel the feelings of people, animals and even the planet, and that many others couldn't. I had no way of understanding how those boys could do what they were doing without feeling the hurt in their own bodies.

I could always feel my parents' feelings, and again, I didn't know that they couldn't feel mine. I was always stunned and deeply hurt when they could hurt me and feel no compassion for my pain.

Just as we are mind, body and spirit, and when we harm our body with junk food, it affects our whole body and our ability to connect with our spiritual guidance, any harm we do to ourselves and others affects the whole universe. If you knew and felt this, what would you be doing differently?

Because we are all one, loving yourself isn't selfish. In fact, it's the least selfish choice you can make, because when you love yourself you are loving everyone, and when you love yourself, you can share your love with others.

What Would Be Different?

Our society is off course due to believing in our separateness, which results in greedy and controlling behavior – everyone for himself or herself. Everything would change if we knew and felt our oneness. 

• If the CEOs of large corporations felt their oneness with everyone and the planet, they would do nothing to harm the planet. Processed food and factory farms would not exist. Climate change would no longer be the threat that it is.
   
• If physicians, drug companies and insurance companies were more concerned with creating health than with the bottom line, the rampant illness on our planet would heal.
   
• If each of us were loving ourselves and sharing our love with others from a place of knowing and feeling our oneness, racism, gender issues and issues around sexual orientation wouldn't exist.
• If parents knew and could feel that abusing their children harmed themselves and everyone else, they would be loving parents.
   
• If partners knew that trying to control each other hurt not only their relationship but harmed the entire planet, they would be kind to each other.
   
• If societies understood and felt the oneness of everything, they would do nothing to harm land, rain forests, animals, oceans and rivers. They would treat the planet and everything and everyone on it as sacred expressions of the Divine – the one alive and conscious intelligence in the universe.

Each Act of Kindness Affects The Whole Planet

Just as many drops of dark water dropped into a clear pool eventually cloud the pool, it is so that many drops of clear water will eventually clear the pool. This is equally true of each act of loving kindness we offer, however small.

• Bob Rutherford, 88 years old, has made more than 10,000 socks for shelters across Canada using a homemade knitting machine. He and his older friends get together to make the socks. Each time they do this, they are putting clear water into the pool of the universe. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/88-year-old-saskatoon-man-socks-1.3922778
   
• Aghan Oscar, a Kenyan man, turns plastic waste into a way to save trees and employ people. This one small act is adding love into the universe. http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/man-turns-plastic-waste-way-save-trees/
   
• Cyclist volunteers give nature rides to wheelchair bound people. http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/cyclists-volunteer-give-nature-rides-wheelchair-bound/

These are just a few of the small acts of kindness that many people do daily. Each act contributes to the health of our planet. Imagine what would happen if everyone were focused on offering loving acts. Rather than coming from the greed and controlling behavior that result from believing in separation, knowing our oneness and loving ourselves and others would transform our planet.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships."

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 Photo by Nathan Anderson