Including

Notice the way you hold yourself in everyday moments. Notice the judgements. The self criticisms. These are often so ingrained in our daily lives we don’t even notice them. Listen to your self-talk. Not as taking it as truth, but just being aware of it.
What are you saying to yourself? 

What is the emotion in your body?
Is there shame? Is there pride? 

Instead of pushing away these emotional responses to yourself, bring them closer. Allow them to be there. Believe them for a moment. Not as a truth in themselves, but as a part of the whole truth. A part of the whole you. Bring them to rest beside you, maybe on either side of the real you.

And notice, if they are a part of you, a part of the whole truth, what's in the middle? What is between the shame and pride? What is before the judgements? 

You might find a warm and gentle love. 

Or, paradoxically, you might find nothing.

And maybe both are true. 

The path to self love is through the judgement, not adjacent to it. The journey includes the self criticism, almost as a vessel, piloted to something before.

A place where we rest between the urge and resistance. Between the shame and the pride. Not other than them, but including it all.