Blake Bauer – Unconditional Self Love
OMTIMES: Where do you begin when working with people who are clearly immersed in their suffering? What’s your starting point?
Blake Bauer: We begin right in the present moment, and I help them to openly and freely express everything they are holding in and everything they might have been holding in their whole lives. We discuss their present thoughts, feelings, needs, fears, concerns, desires, and dreams. We talk about everything they do not love about themselves, their lives, and their past. We identify where they are not loving, valuing or being true to themselves now, and we clarify practical ways to change these self-destructive and fear-based habits immediately.
OMTIMES: How are you and your work different to other teachers in this field?
Blake Bauer: I don’t like to compare myself to others. What I can say, which I feel is important, is that my work stems from my own path of intense suffering and a deep longing for lasting peace, health, and happiness. I have struggled with all forms of relationships; parental, friendship and love. I have mourned the death of loved ones, battled drug and alcohol addiction, had suicidal thoughts and bore the physical pain. I experienced severe insecurity and feelings of inadequacy as well as a lack of purpose in my life that leads to deep depression. It was only after hitting rock bottom, after years of drug and alcohol abuse, and then becoming aware of my ability to transform myself and my life through the practice of unconditional self-love that I can say I have found a deep level of peace, understanding, self-awareness, faith, health, and ultimately happiness. To date, I have shared my practices with thousands of people across the world who have discovered that my life experiences and teaching are extremely helpful and effective in their lives.
I have also been told that unique to my work is my perspective that we create our ego, or the defensive aspect of our personality, as children, in an effort to protect ourselves emotionally, our heart and soul, in the same way, a caterpillar creates a cocoon to protect itself while it becomes a butterfly. My view differs from other teachings on the topic of the ego and is a very critical distinction. If we make our ego-based thoughts wrong or judge them as bad, then we leave aspects of ourselves that we have not loved, accepted, integrated, or owned. Consequently, we not only judge and reject these qualities in ourselves, but we exist in the world judging, criticizing and condemning these qualities in others. If we do not take responsibility for the ego’s existence and clearly understand its purpose, then we will still blame the ego, and thus blame ourselves, others, God, our parents, etc, rather than embody an unconditional love, understanding, compassion and acceptance for ourselves first and then to others who are struggling in their own unique but similar way. Like the cocoon that protects the caterpillar as it goes through its transformation into a butterfly, which is the free and full expression of itself, our ego too protects us as we go through the healing and transformation needed to embody a free and full expression of who and what we truly are. In my experience, this perspective is the only view that supports true freedom, peace, insight, wisdom and compassion as we interact with others who, like us, are struggling with their own pain-body, with their own untrained reactive mind, and ultimately, with how to love themselves and thus others unconditionally each day.
OMTIMES: What is next for Blake Bauer?
Blake Bauer: I will be at the Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles in February and then hosting a weekend retreat in March at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado. Beyond this I am currently exploring a few more book projects with publishers, working with the media to spread this message, and I will be teaching in the USA, UK, and Australia throughout the rest of 2016. In the future, I will continue to help as many people as possible in the USA and internationally to understand the causes of their suffering and how to love themselves unconditionally and practically as a direct path to freedom, peace, health, happiness and fulfillment.
For more information on Blake Bauer, please visit Unconditional Self -Love
