Truth is setting me free

I'm reading the book, The Voice of Knowledge by Miguel Ruiz. He wrote the book the Four Agreements. I read this quote, and thought of the process I have been on. I didn't know this is what I was doing, but its what I was doing.

"The first step toward improving your relationship with yourself is to accept yourself just the way you are. You don't need to learn HOW to love yourself. You need to unlearn all of the reasons why you reject yourself, and by nature you love yourself. You love not the IMAGE you project or the WAY you are, but you love yourself because of WHAT you are. Then you start to enjoy yourself until you love yourself so much that you give yourself everything you need. You don't leave yourself until last anymore. The more you enjoy the presence of yourself, the more you enjoy your life, and the more you enjoy the presence of everyone around you."

I am unlearning all of the reasons I reject myself. I am unlearning what I don't need, which has opened up space to learn all sorts of new things. Loving myself isn't one of those new things. I have always been lovable. I have always loved me. That love just got buried. Really deep. All of the new things are much more amazing than that.

I thought I was supposed to learn to love myself. I would do that by making lists of things I liked about me. Those lists didn't make me like me anymore than anything else I did. That wasn't the process. (Although I am sure it didn't hurt...)

Its more simple and more complicated than that. Face the lies. Face the past that has made me believe I was unlovable, worthless, bad. Face the voices in my head that repeated the lies. Understand them, and then they just go away...