Unconditional Love of Self

I'm just going to plunge right into this, because it's a very dense packet of energy and information.

Things happen to us and around us. Let's call this catalyst. When catalyst occurs, as it invariably does, we have a response to it. When our response is one that feels unpleasant to us, feels imbalanced or more intense than the situation seems to warrant, we are receiving a sign that there is something within us that we have not come to resolution and acceptance with. Our mission, if you will, is to come to complete knowledge of the self and acceptance and love of the self. We are helped in this mission by these signs that come up. Anger, fear, resentment, anxiety, jealousy, self-doubt, mistrust.... All of these are signs that there is something there that is not resolved into pure love.
So, when this happens, take the time to look at whatever it is within you that is not love in the moment. It will show itself to you, because in a way, it already has. It's not trying to hide. Usually it is we who are trying to hide from it. Take the time to be with it and to just feel it. You might be at your desk, driving a car, peeling potatoes or walking the dog. It doesn't really matter, as long as you have a few minutes of alone time to ask yourself some questions and hear the answers come.
Ask yourself what it is. Let the answer come and practice feeling absolutely no judgement about it when the answer does come. Imagine that a dear friend were telling you this about herself or himself. Would you feel compassion and love for your friend, or would you feel judgement? We tend to give much more readily to others what we deserve to have ourselves - unconditional love, non-judgement, compassion and understanding, even appreciation for the complex and perfectly imperfect human beings that we are!
This part of you, be it angry or fearful or hurt or jealous.... or playing a seemingly endless game of being a victim of events and people beyond its control.... This part of you is perfect and is integral to your totality of selfhood, your wholeness and your sacred experience of being in the world. You would not be as you are now were it not for this part of you that seems to be struggling - whatever it is.
Imagine a hurt child. Imagine that the child 'brought it on himself' - that is, he was riding his bike way too fast and was being reckless because he wanted to impress an older boy, and he took a bad tumble and hurt his leg, scraped the skin off quite badly from his knee - We all know how much that can hurt. How would you approach this child? If you are anything like me, and I suspect very much that you are, you would offer comfort and support and understanding and love. Be like that for this part of you that is hurt, needy or afraid. Offer that compassion, that love, that soothing comfort, as a mother or father will do for a child. The instant that you do this, everything changes. This part of you that has felt denied and rejected, suddenly feels allowed and accepted. This part of you, call it an aspect of you, if you will, then will share with you all of its experience. "I was hurt. I was rejected. I thought that I was wrong. I thought that I was guilty...." Whatever it is, it will come out and you will know of it. And the understanding will come. The knowledge of self will come. You will come to understand very deeply why this part of you is the way that it is. As you have learned to offer compassion and understanding to others, you can learn to offer compassion and understanding to yourself. And as you come to deeply understand the feelings that arose and that have been living within you ever since the initial catalyst which brought them forth, you will come to a deep and rich feeling of love for yourself, appreciation for yourself and compassion for all that you are and all that you have been. It is nothing short of glorious.
When aspects of ourselves show themselves to us and we recoil in disgust, we have extra work to do. This happened to me at least once that I can immediately recall. There was a part of me that was very resentful of other people's successes and accomplishments. I was jealous when other people seemed to have an easy time of it, because my life seemed to be so difficult. When this part of me became apparent, I was disgusted. I didn't want to accept it. It seemed so petty, selfish and pathetic. When this happens, we need to spend the time with this part of ourselves until we can fully accept it. We might not like it. We might not want to see it, but we need to come to an acceptance of it and to understand that it too is an essential part of our experience of being in the world.
We cannot experience our perfection until we have come into complete acceptance of every single part of ourselves, even the petty and pathetic parts. We cannot come into a full experience of unconditional love for others, and for the moment, until we have come into a full experience of unconditional love for ourselves, and that means everything. Everything about ourselves.
The good news is that this work gets easier and easier the more that we do it. We do get down to the last few layers of the onion skin, and we come into a greater knowledge of self and a love of self that feels like heaven on earth.