Episode 38: Kute Blackson on Unleashing the Transformative Power of Self-Love

In this podcast, Steve again talks to Kute Blackson in this epic podcast about self-love. This podcast was recorded in 2015.

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With all the chaos that’s going on the world right now – how do we find that love inside us?

There is a lot of intense stuff going on in the world right now.

For millions of years, there has been a lot happening, and I think there will always be a lot happening.

Life is intense. Life is challenging. Life is full of ups and downs.

I don’t know if I would say, “How can we find self-love?”, because I think in reality, at the deepest level, what we are (that we have forgotten – which really creates so many problems and challenges) is we are love.

Before a child learns to disconnect, to avoid pain, to create these mechanisms, these masks to fit in… there is love. This is why when we look into a child’s eyes we melt because we are reminded of our true nature. There are no pretences from a baby, no – “Oh you are black, white, Jewish, Muslim… an alien.” It’s just love.

As we grow older, we forget this and we seek outside to try and get love, which is never really fulfilling. For me, therefore, it’s not about finding love, because we have tried so many different ways to find love through food, through money, through sex, through working.

For me, it’s about peeling away the layers – the masks that we have built up over time to function, to survive – and feeling those feelings that we’ve learned to suppress. When we do this, we connect with what we are, and realize what we are is what we have always been from the beginning of time. What remains is the reality that we are love.

So, I think the most powerful thing we can do in these times is not external. It’s not going to try and change what is out there or bring peace to what is out there. Because to me, all the events (the wars, the challenges) are physical manifestations, physical expressions of our collective consciousness.

It’s an out-picturing of the war that’s going on inside of us. It’s an internal conflict that we wage with our own minds, the self-hate. It’s not just the hatred for other countries, for other races, other religions. It’s the non-acceptance of ourselves.

I think we must start peeling back the layers of what we are and realize, “Whoa, I am love. My nature is love.”  From that place there is fullness, from that place there is joy, from that place there is peace. And that fullness, that way of being, our way of being, our way of speaking, our motivations, our drive, totally transform and engage life from a different place.

What I’ve found is: if I’ve got in touch with who I truly am at the core, then, as I know who I am, I know who you are. But I can’t really know who you are if I don’t really know who I am. As I know who I am, which is love, which is pure consciousness, which is infinite, you and I, and you and everyone, and all of us at that level, we are one.

In that oneness, only love can be present. When I realize that I am you and you are me, then it doesn’t matter what you look like – I’ve found that nature’s expression is love. I think love is our nature, but we have forgotten.

More than ever in these times, our responsibility, our mandate, our life’s purpose is to realize, to wake up. Our gift to humanity is to wake up to what we are – which is love itself and live that.

From that place, wars will cease, because when I realize I am you and you are me, then there is a brotherhood.

It doesn’t matter who my mother is or who your mother is, it doesn’t matter what my religion is and what you believe; if we are one, how can I not love you? How can I really harm you, truly? How can I not want to serve you and co-operate? From that place, fear drops away.

And when fear drops away, there is peace.

For those who are either in a relationship or looking for a relationship… we all need to give ourselves self-love. What can we do on a daily basis to give ourselves this self-love?

One of the most simple and practical steps (that at first might seem a little strange if you haven’t done it before) is to have a daily practice of seeing and visualizing that young version of ourselves. Relationships can show everything that love is not.

They can be a source of great joy, but also a source of great pain, because they show us those parts of ourselves that aren’t healed. You may have noticed that all of a sudden your reactions and way of being in relationship are different. You thought you were 25, 35, 45, or 55 years old and then your partner says something or does something, and all of a sudden you are five years old again.

I believe we have a deep longing for completion, so we attract to ourselves those partners that fit the dynamics that were unresolved and incomplete for us as children. So, one of the things that is very powerful is to spend DAILY TIME (maybe 5 minutes, maybe 10) just bringing that “inner child” part of us to awareness.

It can be as simple as closing our eyes and seeing that part of ourselves, just allowing ourselves to feel the connection with that little kid inside. It can be quite emotional if we allow ourselves to feel what that kid is feeling. Take time to start a relationship with a part of you, bring love and healing energy to your inner child.

It’s time to help that young person of ourselves recreate a new story, to understand new perception and give it new interpretations. Often that young kid part of us made up interpretations, something happened – maybe our father left us, maybe our mother left us, or there was a divorce and we made up a certain story that “I’m unlovable” or “It’s my fault” or “It’s because of me”, and it is not reality.

We were doing the best we could as a young child, we were just making inaccurate interpretations, so it’s important that we go back and give that inner child self-loving and re-parenting. To me, real healing is applying love to those parts of ourselves. Practising the following daily is a simple way to do that. Close your eyes, put your hands on your heart, see, feel and connect to that little kid part of yourself.

Another way to self-love is to really make it a practice to notice your feelings, to tune into your feelings, to acknowledge, to honor. As you do this, either the feeling will dissolve or you can make a choice from that place, and it will be self-honoring. But when we disconnect from what we’re feeling, we disconnect from our truth, we often make choices and then create a life that is based on a lie, versus a life that truly honors who we are. For me, this honoring is a foundation in self love.

How important is it that we make this a daily practice?

You hit the nail on the head. It’s a foundation. You could say, “Great, Kute! I loved myself for a week! I did the practice and it’s now 3 months later and I don’t feel great.” Well, I often say to people like that, “Have you done it since?” It’s a daily practice, it’s an ongoing relationship with oneself. For me, transformation is a process. In order to build a great relationship with someone else, you just don’t have a great weekend with them in Mexico and that’s it – you speak to them every day. How often do you speak to your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife? Once a month? Once a year? “Have a great Christmas!” And that’s it? No. You speak to them daily.

It’s so important to have a consistent relationship with yourself. I say that the relationship with yourself is the foundation of your relationship with others. Relationship to me is a mirror/feedback mechanism. I’d like to ask everyone, “Do you like what you see? Do you like what and who you are attracting into your life?” Because ultimately there is no relationship ‘out there’ – you are essentially in relationship with an aspect of yourself that has manifested in the form of the partner who is with you in physical form. Your romantic partner is giving you feedback about your own level of consciousness, about where you’re at and what you most need to heal.

Many times we try to change that person. “If only they would be more like that” or “If only they would love more like that” but if a relationship is a mirror, then you can say… “Wait a second, if this is a feedback mechanism – I’ve attracted an aspect of myself, then the real power, the real freedom is to shift what’s going on in here – I have to change the relationship with myself.”

I often say, “Your relationship with your partner will not exceed the relationship with yourself.” If you really want an amazing relationship with someone you have to have that really amazing relationship with yourself. That comes through daily practice.

I believe as you love, heal and transform yourself, that will be reflected either in your partner with whom you are currently with or in the types of people you attract into your life. If you are with someone and they aren’t loving you in the way that you want, take a look at that mirror and take a look at that feedback, and as you begin to heal yourself, there will either be changes that your partner will begin to shift as you set your boundaries, as you hold a higher standard, or things will change and you’ll no longer be with them and you’ll attract a different mirror manifestation in the form of a partner in your life.

The daily, consistent self-love is like working out. You don’t just go to the gym once a week or once a month, it’s not a great recipe for physical health and a great body. We need to have this foundation in self-love, and then whatever we attract to ourselves will mirror that.