(Note – a reader just alerted me that this may have been written by Kim McMillen, and somehow was attributed to Charlie Chaplin…well, whoever wrote t – it’s awesome. Enjoy!)
As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is AUTHENTICITY.
As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody as I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it RESPECT.
As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it MATURITY.
As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment, so I could be calm. Today I call it SELF-CONFIDENCE.
As I began to love myself I quit stealing my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it SIMPLICITY.
As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything the drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism.Today I know it is LOVE OF ONESELF.
As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is MODESTY.
As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worry about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it FULFILLMENT.
As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But As I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection WISDOM OF THE HEART.
We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born. Today I know THAT IS LIFE!
Just wanted to share this with you! – Adam
Thanks Adam,
I absolutely hold this view. Charlie was a very wise guy.
To implement this wisdom and awareness in life means you have to work constantly on yourself and it needs a lot of time and patience.
By the way, Charlies`s wisdom contains Buddhistical philosphy for a long time.
Klaus
Thanks Adam! I feel like I need to print this out and put it in a frame. As I have been going through some very tough things lately I have begun a journey inward. Searching for what brings true happiness and clearing away the things that detract from that. Remebering that your guitar playing always made me happy and inspired me I looked you up and lo and behold there are all these wonderful nuggets of wisdom. Thank you so much for what you do, your honesty, integrety, passion and talent are a beacon of light for me right now.
Hope to catch a live show soon. We are in Northern Vt. there are many venues that you would love especially in the Burlington area. My wife and I are musicians here and if it’s something you’re interested in would love to help in some way. Distribute promo package etc… We also have ties at a Jay peak resort(currently undergoing millions of dollars of infrastructure) and they are having some pretty big groups play there. I’m sure you’re as busy as you’d like but I know the Vermont crowd would love you.
Thanks again and have a great day!!!
Nice.
Thanks for posting.
Hi Adam –
Nice post Adam. Of course, like guitar, all of these take daily practice over many years to get them into the brain and nervous system. But what else do we have to do with our moments?
If you ever think about doing a New England tour, get back to me and we can put you in touch with a network of performing arts theatre and house concert venues NH and MA..
Thanks
It’s a beautiful poem, thanks for sharing it, Adam. It’s a great message whoever wrote it, but It was actually written by Kim McMillen, modified, then falsely re-attributed to Charlie Chaplin. He was 70 years old in 1959–that language is way too contemporary for that era.
https://www.myinnerspaceblog.com/2012/01/17/when-i-loved-myself-enough-by-kim-mcmillen/
You can also find the original handwritten book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/When-I-Loved-Myself-Enough/dp/0283073373/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
Will update! Thanks Annabel..
Great
When people want to progress they should not brute force it, or as you say “beat yourself up” I say…. behave like water and learn from it. When water is too weak to overcome what is in its way it does not try to plow through with brute force. Instead what it does to pools itself – its resources- behind the object that is blocking it. Eventually it builds enough of itself to begin to flow around that object and in the end that object that once blocked its progress is actually worn down to nothing – as if it were never there.
That was something I learned while reading up on Taoism.
Hi Adam, thanks for these words. They remember me on the words of the pope in his book Evangelii gaudium.
Absolute beauty in its pure honesty. And on top of that, a clip of Sahdguru exploding the canard of suffering being inherent, simply by pulling our cameras back to glean a wider view!
Nothing more can be added except…thank you!
🙂
This is by far the most far-out guitar class I’ll ever attend! 😉
Thanks Dale!
You are with out a doubt the most ethical professional musician out there, and already had the “self confidence to publish your personal contact information, including your phone number. And better than that, you respond to every one like they were your best friend an you were just waiting for their call.
I am also involved in transmitting messages for deceased loved ones, it has taught me the true meaning of joy. Your inspiration of professionalism and some of the voice to text technology available for free (google) has allowed be to transcribe the messages (still takes hours to proof read, and correct). Usually the content is very very personalize and cannot be shared, but it just so happened that one sermonlet on self love came through, and since your post was on self love here goes, and anyone who wants a copy can request it at keitht@sasimedia.net or better yet wendi@sasimedia.net if there may be continue interest because on that computer is where we keep track of inquiries.
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There still are a few typos, final proof read yet to be done…
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Not Lovealble????
This came from a conversation with a friend, a friend who recently has been transformed by starting each day by honestly praying lord show me the way, show me how to serve you, show me how to get myself out of the way, lord bring me the right people at the right time as you heal me, as you set me right and prepare me to better serve you, for your glory. You have already show me some of the amazing things possible if I just let go and let God.
This is on believing deep inside at a subconscious level, at a level we are not aware of, that we are not loveable. This something that 99 % of the people of world believe in some form or another to some degree or another.
So In various ways people act out, and behave in certain ways, because of this belief that they’re not lovable.
It is a fairly advanced concept, hard to understand but let’s lower it down a level and talk about the idea of people feeling they need someone in their life. This idea of needing someone to complete them. Someone to fill a hole. Side by side, they’ll be better. They’ll be better when they find that someone. The think know life is too empty without their soulmate, without that special someone, and so the quest goes on, the search goes on. I must find that someone, I must, I must have that girlfriend, I must have a boyfriend. Or I must tolerate the one I’ve got, or I can’t leave the one I’ve got because I can’t be alone or I must put up with what I’m putting up with, because I don’t deserve better. Now, you start to see one of the various versions of “I’m not lovable”!
Sometimes one of our parents said and did things that put ideas in our heads that made us think we are not lovable. Sometimes the kids in high school said and did things that made us think we were not lovable.
It’s just a whole bunch of versions of that! And you know there’s layers upon layers upon layers upon layers that go on top of it and on top of it. To make it hidden, not easy to see when one stops saying “it’s everybody else” and begin the journey of self-discovery, of personal growth, that we all need to go through. And I it’s hard, it’s very, very, very hard to peel back the layers. And sometimes it takes many, many, many years to get down to that root cause of all, the thought that I’m not lovable and that nobody would love me, and so I have to behave in a certain way, that I have to put up with certain things. That I have to Color my hair, that I have to I have to belong to this group even though I known I am lowering my standards, hat I’m compromising my beliefs .Or that I am going out and committing crime(s) or performing acts that I really don’t want to do ….
You know (I know) that are wrong when I do them, but I do them, because I want to be accepted, and the need to be accepted is stronger than the voice inside my head that says this is wrong !…. I tell my voice “be quiet” because I want to feel love (false love) …. Because I don’t want to be alone, I really don’t want to be alone, I don’t like the idea of being alone, I’m am afraid of that.
So this is what we’re talking about! There’s just a whole bunch of behavior, call it the various versions of acting out due to the underlying miss belief. You can look around you, look around at the children, look around at the adults, look around at couples. Look at the couples that are struggling. Look at the couples that appear on the outside to be doing very, very well, but if you get to know them they’re not really happy. The evidence of that is that all of a sudden one day they are having affairs, all of a sudden one day getting divorced, all of a sudden one day committing suicide, all of a sudden one day doing drugs. They are also one-day doing something so big, and it is totally unexpected to you because you’re their best friend and you don’t expect it, but something happens and there you go! There you go, because really their life was just a bunch of things they were doing to go through the motions. It’s because it really wasn’t really fulfilling them and it’s all now coming down like a house of cards.
My own personal story was, well I won’t bore you with the long version The short version (relative to this) is it was 20-25 years before I could even conceived of the idea, even think the thought that the problem was, that I didn’t think I was loveable.
I had wonderful parents. I didn’t have that problem where my parents were the problem and planted seeds of thoughts that I wasn’t lovable, I don’ know where it came from. But at the end of the day had to admit that those thoughts were in there deep inside. And I had accepted Jesus!, so how could I have that thought. I was lucky enough at a young age to go to a Christian summer camp and had accepted him into my heart. But there is a truth, a truth that if you have really fully accepted Jesus in your heart and if you have subsequently understood that you are perfect and beautiful to him and God (having been made in the image of God), you can’t do that and have a belief that you’re not lovable!!!
Because his love …. So full, so complete, so all-encompassing, so much beyond what any human being could give you that you can’t do both! you can’t have feelings or thoughts that you’re unlovable and have embraced Jesus!
You’re a liar if you if you try to say both those statements and try to say them truthfully, they don’t go together .They don’t live together, then one of them is a untruth.
I don’t say to this to minimize how difficult it is to get there, and I believe that most people live out this conundrum for most of their lives. And of course there is no guilt or shame in not being awe of this conflict and conundrum. You are already forgiven, and Jesus is already aware of the struggle, and is celebrating each step, each layer that gets peeled away, because he knows where it all ends up. You get closer to him, with every step, more able to accept the gift of grace with every step.
It’s a hard thing to do, a very, very hard thing to get to the point where you can even say the words “I have to admit that for many, many years deep, deep, deep inside I have had the belief that I’m not lovable”.
Wow that’s hard, that is really hard!
Have you had the good fortune, the very good fortune to have known God, and have had have the good fortune of having his guidance, tried to follow the good advice and model the 10 commandments, and just tried to stay on the true. Know that the complete love is there. Simply fully accept the Grace, fully accept that he died for you and forgave all your sins, and fully accepts you exactly as you are! There is no war (internal, therefore there is internal peace), there is no ugliness (you are perfect and beautiful as you are), there is no fault (you are forgiven), there is no shame , there is absolutely nothing that you have done or could do, there is no shape, there is no smallness, there is no thought, there is nothing in you about you or of you that would cause Jesus or God to love you even the tiniest little bit less let alone not love you at all!
Please my blessed one!
Accept that!
Accept that and it will transform you 100 %, instantaneously.
Imagine!
Imagine and just think for a moment the people you know, understand that they’re acting and behaving the way they are because deep inside they have this thought that they’re not lovable. You can see, you can see clearly that they’re acting the way they are because they think they’re not. Imagine if they can erase that thought and belief and replace it with a true believe that they are LOVED UNCONDITIONALLY and how they then would behave when they believe that they are good, that they are whole, that they are perfect, that they are lovable and loved. What a world we would have.
What a world we would have!
All of a sudden you don’t need to go out and chase the other, someone to fulfill your life, you just need to find someone who has compatible beliefs, compatible goals a compatible vision. A partner, a partner to go out there and be stronger with, a partner to share, a partner to just be evermore glorious with. It’s a wonderful world when that happens and it’s also wonderful world while in those times when that partner hasn’t shown up yet, when you reach the point where you are in the believe that you are lovable and that God loves you and you begin to manifest all that simply will just will happen naturally. That person will show up in your life and many others and everything will just flow beautifully for you.
So I pray for you and I pray for every other person, that they find that they are lovable, and they believe it from the bottom of their toes to the hairs on your head, that they believe fully to the point where they have no fear. That they have no fear of death! That they have no fear of losing someone! That they have no fear of being alone! And life transforms for them instantaneously when they can reach that state and imagine the world that we can all share!
I send you this message with love I send you this message to share. It took me many, many, years to get there and I’m still learning every day every.
Wow, thank you Keith!
Hello Adam and Everybody,
The words words are so poignant as true, if everyone tries to keep in contatc with his/her own best part and work hard to become everyday better person than yesterday, world can be a be a wonderful place where peolpe can live in harmony…even though it is hard to reach as every common “project” I do the best that I can….for me and for you!
Many thanks for sharing it!
Greetings form Italy
Tom
Tom thank you so much for commenting!
Wow! So much there in those words. One should never ever stop practicing, and I don’t mean just the guitar!
Bob
I finely got to view this and it too gave me tears! That is exactly what I am focusing on in my daily life. And everything you’ve posted is a miracle come true, Adam. And all those I follow and support feel the same way for 90% of the time. I struggled so much these many years and came to the light that it felt so good to be blinded before the true was found this year in February. So much commitment and ideas shooting out now. Time to start looking that your emails to me. By the way, I messaged you about chord agility and you asked if I was right or left handed. I’m right handed and I figured it out from a friend who has played for 15 years. I love your uplifting and extremely wise suggestions in your videos. God bless you!
Thank you so much, for not only sharing your expertise, but also your wisdom.
Greats words to read on a day when my mind was filled by the lies of the new Administration and the war going on among the media and their particular agendas.
There’s madness going on, and at the same time, there’s a deep silence where you can play a Dm chord that rings so true, that chases away all the demons and leaves you with the feeling that life is so worthwhile.
Thanks for posting. I sometimes go back to old emails that you sent. Love the bits of wisdom in them. Thanks a lot, Adam.
Jai
Absolutely beautiful. Thanks much for sharing Adam!
Shawn
Finding this couldn’t have come at a more fitting time for me. Maybe one day I’ll tell you why, if you want to know. For now, just thanks, Adam.
Dan great! I need to revisit this one as well…
AR
You’re an amazing man, Adam. Don’t ever change.
Thanks. This is true.
Needed this today. Thanks, Adam.