Charity- what the heck is this all about?

Okay this isn't about Sunday School, but I just wanted to say I got a lot out of our Relief Society lesson on Charity today.

I found it interesting that the reading assignment I was given was about a topic I've been gaining some insight into recently. Under the section Developing the Virtue of Charity, this is what I read:

Third, we can learn to love ourselves, which means that we understand our true worth as children of our Heavenly Father. The Savior taught that we must love others as we love ourselves (see Matthew 22:39). To love ourselves, we must respect and trust ourselves. This means that we must be obedient to the principles of the gospel. We must repent of any wrongdoings. We must forgive ourselves when we have repented. We will come to love ourselves better when we can feel the deep, comforting assurance that the Savior truly loves us.

I commented that a friend recently told me that she has never heard me say anything good about myself, and she helped me realize that I had a deep-seated, underlying, foundational belief about myself that I was unacceptable, unlovable, unforgivable, and somehow otherwise just not good enough. The other ladies in the class quickly changed the topic without addressing my comment. Maybe they really had nothing to say about that, but as I've thought about it since I think people are really uncomfortable with the topic. In fact I think many other people have the same stinking issue. Which is why nobody has anything to say when I discovered this lack of self -acceptance. Has anyone else conquered this battle and knows how to overcome it? Because if so I sure would like to hear about it.

And I'm not talking about just some feel-good responses that give the outward appearance of feeling better for a few hours or a few days. I'm talking about deep self-love and self-acceptance flowing from a fountain internal love that spills out into our families and those around us - a well-spring of living water from within. Complete unconditional love for ourselves - loving ourselves and having compassion for ourselves no matter what we do. The same kind of unconditional love and acceptance that we hear we need to have for others all the time.

I notice that we spend a lot of time thinking about other people, how to serve them, how to share the gospel with them, how to love them, etc. A friend joked to me that the scripture should now read "Love yourself as you love your neighbors" because we spend so much energy on other people.

I was really surprised to see it there, right in the basic principles of our gospel - we can learn to love ourselves, Gospel Principles, Chapter 30.
The other points in the section can provide guidance to us of how we can develop charity for ourselves:

One way we can become charitable is by studying the life of Jesus Christ and keeping His commandments. We can study what He did in certain situations and do the same things when we are in the same kinds of situations.

Second, when we have uncharitable feelings, we can pray to have greater charity. Mormon urges us, “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love [charity], which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ” (Moroni 7:48).

[This applies to us too. If we have a lack of charity for ourselves we can pray with all energy of heart that God will help us love ourselves. Isn't this important when you think how much you love your children ad how much you want them to love themselves? How the heck are they going to learn how to love themselves if you don't show them?]

Fourth, we can avoid thinking we are better than other people. We can have patience with their [and our own] faults. Joseph Smith said, “The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 428–29).

Be compassionate to yourself. Be willing to cast your own everyday sins behind your back.

Its not like its new doctrine. It's just that outside factors seem to pull us away from the truths we learn in Primary and YW/YM - I am a child of God. I have a divine nature and infinite worth. I am a beloved spirit daughter of God.

I can already see how as a parent I can drain the self acceptance right out of my children by being sharp and harsh with them, by overemphasizing the mistakes they make as they work to learn how to live in this world.

Something I love about myself is that I care enough to notice the seemingly small stuff and that I am working to conform my actions, thoughts and behavior to the standard and example the Lord has set for us. As imperfect as I am, I know that I can rely upon the merits of Christ who is mighty to save! Wow! What an incredible gift! Hallelujah! That takes an incredible load off of my shoulders and frees me to direct my energy toward love rather than beating myself and everyone around me up for anything we ever did wrong.

I know that my Savior loves me!

I encourage you to go back through the lesson reading it for clues on how to have greater charity for yourself. :)