Elders are shocked. Preachers fall out of their pulpits. Mother's stop their children's ears. But it's true and I'll say it:

I am head-over-heels in love with myself, starry-eyed crazy about Me, my own Self. Pouring rapturous praises over myself, I crown myself with laurels, pin on rows of medals, grin and strut and crow until Shame itself is scandalized.

Vanity and conceit have nothing to do with this, and not arrogance or righteousness. those are the masks of Shame, the 'proud' man, the 'vain' woman, the smug, the selfish, the egotistical and the stuck-up, all the 'better-than', the know-it-alls and judges and busybodies, inside they squirm with unworthiness worms and have no love for themselves.

Self-love is good-humored and easygoing. A self-loved body tingles with pleasure like a sun-warmed beach when waves of love wash over. A self-loved mind is at peace, does not turn against itself in criticism, does not strive to make up for itself with a good show, is content with itself, and therefore has no dear, no anger, no greed, no hurry, no worry, just glides along like a white cloud doing one thing at a time as though it were serious.

Self-love is the spring, the source of all the rivers of love that flow. It is the hive for all the honey, the store for all the presents. It is a home of God.

It is not 'attention-getting' It is not at anyone's expense. It is free for all. it is everyone's birthright.

Unconditional, It cannot be earned or achieved. It is not because of anything, it's just there, like space, and it moves through the body like a river of light.

Self-love is not different from humility. Humility means going easy on myself about achievements and image, the puffed-up masks and costumes, the dramas to stage myself and be seen as the star of the show. Humility means giving myself a rest from the rush against time, the endless, busy river of explanations and justifications and compensations and rationalizations and stupefying lists of projects for self-improvement and doing good, none of them ever enough, never enough, never enough, hurry along, there's more to do, more to do, more to do. Self-love has enough already, delights to give itself away like an ice cream machine overflowing.

Self-love "versus" love-of-others is a treachery to the heart. Love radiates. Without self-love, what is there to radiate?

How many grim relationship we endure, to try to get the love we fail to give ourselves, sucking at a dry breast when the milk is flowing in our own hearts. Why should we have to wait for a lover to fall in love?

So here it is! your full pardon from the Governor. It reads: "my life might need some work, but I myself, the worker on my life, am forever immaculately perfect."

Frame it. Hang it in your mind. Never surrender your Freedom from the dismal prison of Shame.