I am learning to only do for others if I really feel like it. I know that’s counter to what many people say is loving. I naturally want to give to others, though, so it’s not like I don’t go there much. I go there often, because it feels good. I just intend to do it when I really want to, and that’s partly what re-integrating my true feelings in each moment is about.

There are many judgments against putting oneself first. In perhaps all societies, people on the whole don’t tend to put themselves first much, and certainly not without being stigmatized. The very act of putting oneself first too often is harshly put down and written off as “selfish, irresponsible, self-absorbed and unloving.” “Putting yourself first leads to chaos, anarchy and nihilism” is another popular judgment. Rarely is anyone commended for following his or her own truth if self-firstness is a common personal practice. (I prefer the word “self-first” to selfish.)

The only sustainable way for a human being to give that doesn’t produce backlash is to give from a full or at least filling cup, and from pure desire to do so, not from some belief that “it’s the right and loving thing to do” by somebody else’s standards. I love to give, and I am very good at it, but I can no longer give from an empty or nearly empty cup. That way began to kill me, and I want to live forever.

Societies have never tried nor condoned giving to oneself and loving oneself first, and taking care of oneself in order that one can take care of another. The plan of free will in a functional society needs to be repercussion-free for pursuing free will. Instead, because of emotional body denial, guilt is king and everybody is prone to taking guilt-based actions.

We in western culture live an illusion of freedom, but we’re not really free. We’re time slaves, economic slaves, slaves to rules and strictures, inequities and enforced controls overseen by an external global power who has very specific agenda to curtail freedom while diabolically repeating like a mantra that it is protecting and preserving freedom instead. At the collective level, this is the outer reflection of rules curtailing freedom to act as we see fit, originally caused by inner denial of free will. We often deny ourselves what we really feel like doing with many should’s, frozen fears and judgments.

One way to start undoing this imbalance is to try allowing what we feel like doing and see what happens. At first, long-denied personal desires may rush forth and begin to act as selfishly (in the traditional, imbalanced sense) as judgments held against them say they would if allowed to be free. These judgments and intertwined emotions must be released for the desires to find eventual balance in their manifestations. True balance does not sacrifice personal desire and the self, nor does it override and abandon loved ones nearby who are dependent or need help, but finds the middle ground. When we’ve had enough experience and triggered releases, fears and judgments around sacrifice and selfishness can disappear and stop fueling the macrocosmic reflection.

I AM a whole universe, contained within myself. I AM life. I desire life. My desires and my life force and essence are priceless. When I give to myself, I AM giving to the All by vibrating self-love across the psychic realms, across the hologram that we exist in.