{"id":44443,"date":"2024-02-14T20:23:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T01:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rachellerogers.com\/dev1\/?p=44443"},"modified":"2026-03-09T15:02:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T19:02:27","slug":"self-love-a-path-to-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rachellerogers.com\/dev1\/self-love-a-path-to-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Love: A Path To Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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14<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

February 2024<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

AI
Literary Spam
Books<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Self-Love: A Path To Freedom<\/h1>

by Rachelle Rogers<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n

Last Saturday was the final monthly seminar with my Wisdom Healing Qigong teacher, Master Mingtong Gu, for the Living Tao mentorship program I\u2019ve been involved in during the past year. The theme Mingtong presented at our meeting was \u201cself-love as a path to freedom.\u201d I wasn\u2019t having a good day. I\u2019d been experiencing strange physical symptoms that had continued on and off during our day long gathering. And, since I\u2019ve chosen not to continue on with the mentorship at this time, I was already missing those with whom I\u2019d developed such a deep connection, even though I continuing with the Qigong For Life Mastery program I\u2019ve been part of for almost eight years. At one point, Mingtong invited each of us to share what self-love means to us. I get extremely nervous speaking spontaneously in a large group situation on Zoom. I\u2019m much better with small groups, and better yet with writing, where I can revise and edit and make sure that what comes out is intelligible. When it was my turn to speak, my heart began to race, and my mind turned into a jumble of brainfog, words flying and tumbling over themselves. In those situations, I often have no idea what will come out of my mouth until it does. And I wasn\u2019t exactly in a space of self-love. But somehow, in a mist of uncertainty, I got through it, and shortly afterwards, we broke for lunch.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The minute I got off Zoom, I dissolved into tears, moving through a myriad of feelings. They weren\u2019t about what others might think of me, or anger at myself for messing up, but about the intense discomfort of the out-of-control mental murkiness I experienced. It felt terrifying, along with the fact that on and off for several weeks, I\u2019d been struggling with feelings of close-heartedness, toward myself, and towards others. I had learned a long time ago that I can only give as much love as I feel toward myself. It\u2019s always an inside job. Whatever face I put forward outwardly is a reflection of what I\u2019m feeling within. And lately although unexpressed, I\u2019d become aware of annoyance and judgement, and even envy of those around me so easily radiating Light. Self-love has never been an easy thing for me. I was not taught to love myself. I was taught the opposite. From the day I was born, I was a disappointment to my father who had his heart set on a son. When he was told he had a healthy little girl, his response was, \u201cAre you sure?\u201d As I grew, his disappointment in me shaped my self-image, and my teenage years especially were extremely challenging. Among other things, he called me a \u201cselfish good for nothing.\u201d Not exactly a blueprint for self-acceptance. It was also a pattern with certain people in my family that I was close with to assess my physical appearance and express their opinions. They liked or didn\u2019t like a new hair style, certain clothes, etc. My mother was always telling me to \u201cstand up straight.\u201d My aunt once gently pinched the tip of my nose with her thumb and first finger, saying, \u201cjust a little off the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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But, even as I write this, please know that these memories no longer have any \u201ccharge.\u201d There\u2019s still sadness, and a new compassion for that long ago me that was in so much pain, but, along my inner journey, I\u2019ve been able to heal most of these things both within myself and with family as well. How many years can one sit in her \u201cshrink\u2019s\u201d office re-living the same sorry story, blaming her father for everything wrong in her life. There came a point on my path when I began to understand that I had choice, that even self-love was a choice. And that I also had a very real part in creating my own experiences. For me, however, self-love is a continual practice of becoming aware of what is self-love, and remembering that I can choose something different. It\u2019s being gentle with feeling the feelings, utilizing my energetic tool kit, even offering soft words, often out loud, of reassurance \u2014 You\u2019ve come a long way, Rachelle. You\u2019re doing great! This, too, shall pass. I love you. And I\u2019m getting pretty good at embracing both the ordinary and the remarkable things about this me. I can also say that on many occasions, I have known the kind of freedom devoid of definition, true feelings of Haola! All Is Well. It happens in those vast moments when there are no thoughts of anything that self-love, no thoughts at all. Moments when I spontaneously laugh out loud. Moments that fill me with silent wonder, marveling at the taste of strawberry or the subtle dazzle of a leaf's uncurl. Moments of being deeply moved by music, poetry, theatre, dance, what I call \u201cGreat Art.\u201d Moments of expansive Oneness.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Today\u2019s is Valentine\u2019s Day, a day when thoughts turn to small \u201cel\u201d love, and I find myself venturing back through times when the dream of romance was at my center, early times when, looking back, I realized that I didn\u2019t even know what love was, times I defined myself by what others thought of me, always looking outside myself for the kind of mutually loving, honoring, accepting relationship I fantasized about. It took a long while to understand that everything I was looking for from another was within, and that until I embraced my self with love, honor, and acceptance, I could never truly find it anywhere else.<\/p>\n

My romantic journey has taken me down many adventures \u2014 three marriages, three interdimensional affairs du coeur, <\/em>(two that I\u2019ve written about in my memoir Rare Atmosphere: An Inter-dimensional Affair of the Heart<\/em>), several karmic affairs, a few superficial intimacies, and now a time when I\u2019m content with living alone, beyond the desire for physical intimacy, at seventy-seven, learning to embrace wherever life leads me now.<\/p>\n

Over the decades, I\u2019ve woven my deepest feelings into a tapestry of words, in prose and poetry. to lovers real and imagined, to longings for what has been or would never happen, and finally, to my self.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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WAITING<\/strong> (2005)<\/p>\n

If I had known you
when my skin was smooth as summer
and a man would lose the hour\u00a0 \u00a0
in its caress, when my hair swung wild
in copper ribbons that begged
to be undone, I would have lain with you
in sunlight by a callow stream, content
with passion easy spent.<\/p>\n

My hair grown vintage as a silver
wind, this body marked by longitudes
of time, if I could know you now,
I'd sway you sweet and slow,
unfolding autumn round
beneath this moon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

LEGATO<\/strong> (2008)<\/p>\n

I think about Beethoven,
the Ninth especially,<\/p>\n

how it deepens possibility,
dares to become more yet more,<\/p>\n

how, if the maestro heard it played with outer ears
it might have shriveled him to bone \u2014<\/p>\n

the divine rarely translates to the earthly undistorted \u2014\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

and I find the slide
of my own imaginings,<\/p>\n

grown too used to
your whisper<\/p>\n

insubstantial as
an echoed wind\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

wondering if we will
find perfect cadence\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

or fade into elegy,
too grand for a tone-deaf world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

VALENTINE TO MY SELF AT 75<\/strong> (2021)<\/p>\n

A rose still has thorns,
Svelt bod\u2019s gone to hell,
Yet the inner allurement
is awesome, ma belle.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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← <\/span>The Traveling Sisterhood of the Stinky Feet<\/span><\/a><\/span>The Soul, Other Lives, and Interdimensionality: A Perspective<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n