Love and Respect

I deserve to be treated with love and respect.
Any act that is not loving, is not respectful.
Seek the answers within you because you already know the answers.
You will know them by what feels right in your body.
The next step is loving action. 

As I delivered the above message from Spirit to my client, my initial thought was that the first line is so obvious:

I deserve to be treated with love and respect. 

However, as is typically the case with Spirit, there is a deeper meaning. If it is so obvious, why is it that we tolerate people who treat us disrespectfully? I don’t mean those who bruise our ego.  We often endure situations and people who treat us in deeply unloving ways. Maybe we don’t know what disrespect looks like or feels like. How we are treated typically reinforces the way we treat ourselves. The key to identifying disrespect is found in line two:

Any act that is not loving, is not respectful.

Spirit says that we already know the difference between a loving and a non-loving action because our body is telling us. Are we ignoring it?

Seek the answers within you because you already know the answers.
You will know them by what feels right in your body. 

Do you push aside that energetic punch to the gut or that sinking feeling when, for example, someone makes you feel that you are not good enough? Once you step back and begin to identify these feelings you will have to ask yourself if you love yourself unconditionally. Others can only reinforce what you deeply feel about yourself. They are holding up a mirror to focus you on the inner work you have yet to do. That is where the work begins. It is not linear. You can work on unconditional self-love from multiple angles—spiritual maturity asks that you avoid the blame game. No one can act lovingly toward you when you are harboring unloving thoughts about yourself.

The next step is loving action.

If it is respect that you are looking for, then you must unearth and release unloving thoughts about yourself and others. Forgive yourself and forgive others. Talk about and own your feelings in a loving and compassionate way without blaming yourself or others. Self-respect will emerge followed by more loving and respectful interactions and relationships.

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash