The Graciousness of Self-Love

In the Gene Keys Venus teaching, the Spheres of IQ, EQ and SQ correspond to the three seven-year cycles of childhood, from birth to age 21. The IQ holds the code to the mental imprints and wounding patterns formed between the ages of 14 and 21 that continue to get solidified in adulthood. They run like powerful programs beneath the surface, shaping how we experience reality and how we see and value ourselves and others.

This month, the Venus journey moves to the Sphere of IQ, and my contemplation sent me down the memory lane, time-traveling back to my teenage years.

Contrary to the typical adolescent experience, mine was a smooth, breezy sail, with little drama or turbulence. School in China in the 80s and early 90s offered a simple, uni-directional track with clear markers for success. I excelled at school, got along with peers, and caused no trouble for my parents. I was adorned with accolades, praised by adults, admired by my peers, and perhaps envied by a few. I can recall no traumatic event, wounding experience, or emotional struggle.

What strikes me now about those years is precisely the absence of internal suffering, setbacks, struggles, or failures.

Challenge is simply how a growth opportunity presents itself. When the outer ride is smooth and rewarding, there is little reason to turn inward to search for meaning or love. Looking back, the absence of inner challenge also left a missed period of growth. The truth of who I am, the essence buried deep inside like a treasure, was never excavated, recognized, and appreciated.

Wounding does not have to mean physical or emotional hurt or trauma. It can take the form of limiting beliefs or thought patterns imprinted on the mental plane by people, environment, or experience.

For me, those early years of academic success firmly oriented me toward external performance and achievement. I was confident in nearly everything I did because the evidence supported it. I felt good about myself because the results proved it. Self-love was not even a concept in my awareness, because there was no experience of non-love to prompt it.

In a way, success conditioned me with this unconscious belief that self-worth is sourced from outside. It needs to be earned, proved, and approved. I did not develop the inner capacity to recognize and value myself without external validation.

When the familiar measurement of success fell away, I found myself entering the real school of life. It was a journey of trial and error over the next thirty years, until I finally began to mature into who I am and recognize my worth beyond achievement, proof, or validation from others. The growth period in early life was not truly missed. It was just delayed, following my own timing.

Now I can turn toward the golden glowing essence within me with a loving gaze. It is one-of-a-kind, beautiful, and perfect exactly as it is. No ornaments from outside can make it more or less so. No external forces can shrink or expand the space that’s holding it, because that space is infinite.

That space is self-love.

Photo by Manish Upadhyay on Unsplash

My IQ is Gene Key 22, moving from the frequency of Dishonor to Grace, through the gift of Graciousness. It is the master key of the Venue teaching, which is about Love.

Love is the energy connecting everyone and everything. Self-love is not being selfish. It is the foundation for embodied understanding and expression of universal love and unconditional love. Only when we honor and love ourselves can we honor and love another for exactly who they are.

Graciousness arises when we take a stand in that luminous, infinite space of self-love within us. Outflowing from that space are attitudes and actions towards self and others rooted in reverence of the essence within each human being. It is through the Graciousness of self-love that we open our heart to receive Grace – the Divine Love.