Why Is It Difficult to Love?

“Love” is a big word in all human civilizations. For all religious disparities, love still plays an essential role in all the world’s religions. Love plays an important role in human lives, especially living in a world of conflicts and aggression.

But it is not easy to love, and that is the reality.

What is the real meaning of “love”? Love involves our emotions and feelings. We all love some things and some people. Love, ironically enough, gives us both happiness and unhappiness. When the love is fulfilled, we feel happy; when the love is rejected or unrequited, we then feel pain, which becomes the unhappiness. This, unfortunately, is the reality of love.

Loving others is not that easy, and loving yourself is sometimes even more difficulty. This is also the reality of life.

The truth of the matter is that to truly love someone is very difficult, if not impossible, unless you love yourself first.

Self-acceptance

In a general sense, self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluative perception of self.  It is a rating of self based on a partial assessment of current and/or past traits. Many mental health professionals claim that achieving higher self-esteem is the keystone of good mental health, in particular, in avoiding depression; such claims, however, are dubious at best.

Low self-esteem is self-doubt, often expressed in not asserting oneself in public or workplace, and not pushing past one’s comfort zones.

To love yourself is self-acceptance, which is accepting who and what you really are—and not who and what you wish you were (that is, your ego-self). It should also be pointed out that “loving yourself” and “loving your ego-self” are not quite the same. The former is loving yourself for who you really are despite all your imperfections; the latter involves loving or craving to be the person you wish you were. “Loving yourself” means you can love others as well because they are not very different from you in that they, too, are as imperfect as you are. On the other hand, “loving your ego-self” means it is very difficult to love others because you want to distinguish and separate yourself from others; accordingly, others must somehow satisfy your ego first before you can love them. That explains why if you have a big ego-self, you cannot easily and readily love others.

The bottom line: if you can accept yourself as who and what you are, then it may become much easier for you to accept and love others as who and what they are.

Oneness of all life

Accepting and loving others implies having mindfulness of the inter-connection between people; that is to say, no man is an island, according to the poet John Donne. This mindfulness leads to love, and then to the awareness of the presence of God or that of a Higher Being. Love is the first step towards spirituality.

The oneness of all life is one of the basic laws of Nature: that is, we are all inter-connected with one another. This universal moral principle holds the key to true and lasting freedom in living. Without that freedom, we are forever living in human bondage that inhibits further development of the wellness of the body, the mind, and the soul. Without this wellness alignment, there is no wellness wisdom.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Why Prayers Are Seldom Answered?

Why Your Prayers Are Seldom Answered?

Albert Einstein once said, “Thinking is difficult; that’s why so few people do it.”

Thinking is a process of self-intuition through asking relevant questions to create self-awareness and self-reflection. It’s the natural habit of the human mind to try to solve all problems by asking questions. Through the process of solving problems, the human mind may then make things happen.

So, asking all relevant questions is self-empowerment of the human mind to increase wisdom because it initiates the intent to learn, to discover, and then to change for the better.

Here are some of the questions you may want to ask yourself concerning why your prayers are seldom answered or not answered at all:

What’s a prayer?

Jesus said: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7) Is a prayer just your way of asking for something that you want?

Is it a personal request to the Creator to make something happen or not to happen in your life?

Is it a conversation or communication with the Creator to further develop your relationship with Him?

Is it a way of seeking advice from the Creator to help you deal with your own life’s problems and challenges?

Is it a means of asking the Creator for His blessings you think you may be entitled to?

Or is it none of the above?

How often is a prayer said or offered?

Before you getting up, and before you going to bed?

Several times throughout the day, such as before your meals?

While attending a religious service?

Seldom, if ever, unless expressing with your condolences to someone you feel sorry for?

There’s an old proverb that says: “He who cannot ask cannot live.” Life is all about asking questions, and seeking answers from all the questions asked.

By answering all of the above questions, you may be able to self-intuit why your prayers are answered or not answered at all.

Your self-intuition requires not only your spiritual wisdom, but also your human wisdom, in particular, the TAO wisdom of the ancient sage Lao Tzu from China, who was the author of Tao Te Ching, the ancient classic on human wisdom.

Click here to get Why Prayers Are Seldom Answered.

Click here to get The Complete Tao Te Ching in Plain English.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© Stephen Lau

Wisdom to Cope with Cancer Fear

Wisdom to Cope with Cancer Fear

To be diagnosed with cancer is stressful. To cope with cancer stress, one needs wisdom--profound human wisdom.

Life is stressful, and thus many negative and unpleasant experiences are recorded in the subconscious mind as memories and thoughts of those experiences. According to James Allen, author of As A Man Thinketh, men are “makers of themselves,” and the human mind is the “master-weaver" of his future experiences; in other words, the thinking mind may make him become what he thinks.

Therefore, a toxic mind with toxic thoughts may have composed a toxic personality over the years. It begins with the ego-self, which is your self-identity—that is, who you “think” you are—based on your memories and past experiences. As a matter of fact, your whole being comes from your memories, which control your life by making you “believe” that you are really who you “think” you are.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), there are seven emotions that disharmonize the body and the mind: anger, fear, fright, grief, joy, worry, and pensiveness or over-concentration. At first glance, “joy” may seem to be the only positive emotion among the seven negative ones. However, even joy may also become toxic, especially in an inflated ego. A case in point, the once-celebrated-but-now-disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs to win his races in order to sustain and protect his ego of winning. It was his self-inflated ego that led to his ultimate downfall in his career.

Toxic emotions may also easily lead to the Seven Deadly Sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Toxic thoughts from toxic emotions become toxic memories stored in the subconscious mind. Toxic memories cause the conscious mind to make toxic choices and decisions, leading to toxic behaviors, actions and reactions that further exacerbate the toxic mind.

All in all, stress is the underlying cause of many diseases, including cancer. Stress can often worsen the symptoms of cancer. Therefore, it is important to have good sleep to reduce the stress level. Sleep is vital to wellness. A gold fish deprived of sleep will remain still for a prolonged period to make up for its lack of sleep. Natural sleep holds the key to living a stress-free life. The paradox is that we cannot have natural sleep if there are too many stressors in our lives. Living in this day and age, stress is an everyday phenomenon. In contemporary living, nearly every aspect of life and living involves speed, so much so that many of us have become addicted speed, and thus become time-stressed.

Remember, the body and the mind are interconnected. If you continuously think of cancer or worry about getting cancer because of your family history, you may end up having cancer, because cancer is a disease that may be caused by many factors other than the genetic factor. As a matter of fact, cancer fear may read to many actions taken, such as the actions taken by actress Angelina Jolie to remove her breasts because of cancer threat.

A cancer diagnosis may be stressful, but use your mind to overcome cancer stress.

Get your book on cancer: Congratulations! You've Got Cancer! Get the wisdom to cope with a devastating situation, such as a cancer diagnosis.

This 132-page book is about what to do when one is diagnosed with cancer. The author is neither a doctor nor an oncologist. He is simply showing the power of the mind not only in coping with the traumatic experience of cancer but also in overcoming the disease itself. In addition, he presents detailed information on what an individual must do on the cancer journey of cure and recovery. A cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence. Rather, it is an opportunity for growth and development. Harness mind power to combat cancer.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau