Just Look to Your Soul and Open Your Mind

“Better get ready to see the Light
Love, love is the answer
And that's alright
So don’t you give up now,

It’s (Love) so easy to find

Just look to your soul

And open your mind.”

Tommy James, Crystal Blue Persuasion (1969)

Although the self-help movement didn’t really materialize before the late 1980s, it seems that some people, notably Tommy James here, had the right idea all the way back to the late 1960s. Love is the answer, but not in the way it has so often been defined. Self-love is the REAL answer. And self-love is a matter of looking “to your soul” and opening “your mind.”

I’ve heard this truth since I entered recovery for codependency in 1995, but it never was able to sink in through my very hard head (and social/domestic conditioning as a child), and so I kept rejecting the idea that I had to look inside to my soul, with my Higher Power, and learn to give myself the love that I had perpetually wanted others to give me.

2018 has been a miraculous year for me. I FINALLY get it! All of my strength is inside of me, where God dwells. All of my power flows from partnering with God and allowing me to feel love and gratitude for my very being— ME!

All of the chaos and drama in my life has been created by lack of self-love. My parents created chaos and drama because they didn’t know how to properly love themselves, and that was passed on to me. I didn’t know how to look to my soul, open my mind and practice loving myself through complete self-acceptance. All of the chaos and drama in this entire world is created by people who don’t know how to love themselves properly.

There’d be no hatred, no divisiveness between us if we all learned to love the person God created us to be by seeking our acceptance, worth and value inside of ourselves. If we could all turn inside, then maybe this part of the lyric from “Crystal Blue Persuasion” would also become reality...

"Maybe tomorrow
When he looks down
On every green field, ooh, ooh
And every town
All of his children
And every nation
They'll be peace and good brotherhood"

Love and peace begin inside of us. Turn inside today, surrender to your personal beauty and worth by partnering with your Higher Power and gently learning to love the incredible person God created you to be!

(P.S.-- Based in the first video, I'd say not much has changed in American social/civil rights since the 1960s'. Except back then, the student protests were college-based. Now they're high school-based.)