“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your kind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 30-31) Oftentimes, we look at the words of Jesus and we see only two commandments, but really there is third important commandment that is often forgotten. “… as yourself.” What Jesus implies is that you love yourself, and not only that, he also implies that how you love yourself should be a reflection of how you love others. And yet, we still concentrate on loving only God and others. Perhaps we are afraid of being deemed selfish; however, we must remember that self-love is different. And also remember that we cannot be selfless and give ourselves to God and others unless we know and love ourselves first.
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Our last gesture for this sequence. Start once again breathing in and out, thanking God for the life you were given. Place hands in front, ready to receive your gift from God. Share it with others, spreading our arms wide like Christ on the Cross. Then bring our arms straight up, reaching up towards the Heavens, allowing ourselves to be channels of God’s love for others and ourselves! And we end by bringing our arms down into a warm embrace, remembering that while we are channels of God’s love to others, we are also every bit deserving of God’s love for ourselves.
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The Moving Prayer 