The biggest embrace of love

"The biggest embrace of love you'll ever make is to embrace yourself completely. Then you'll realize you've just embraced the whole universe, and everything and everybody in it." —Adyashanti (((Hugs)))

Yes, to embrace ourselves is to embrace the whole universe because the universe is in us and we are the universe. All love is self-love, as you have shared before.

Whitney Houston's song "The greatest love of all" came to mind:

"I found the greatest love of all 

Inside of me 

The greatest love of all 

Is easy to achieve 

Learning to love yourself

It is the greatest love of all"

I also like a similar message in this article: 

"And when we nurture ourselves, the ripples really do pulsate outwards.

Love yourself, exactly as you are, right now…

This is the most divine gift you can give yourself.

It is also the most powerful gift you can give to the world.

By loving YOU, you send out a message of unconditional love to all sentient beings."

A word of encouragement by Robert Rutherford

We are all faced with challenges. Loss.... Disease..... Death of loved ones....financial catastrophe.... Abuse..... Hurt..... Pain..... All of these things serve to strengthen us..... To make us better.....
To prepare us for the rest of the journey. In the middle of the trial... We must focus on the strength within... And, look to the finish line. We will make it. The challenge at hand is our friend. It will help us. Don't hate the pain.... Embrace it.

~ Robert Rutherford

Yes, we all face challenges in life, at different times and in varying degrees of hardship, and I also agree that these things serve to strengthen us - we will emerge not only better, but stronger and wiser. It reminds me of an athlete training for a marathon - each training exercise, each lap around the running track, serves to prepare us for the long journey ahead. As we progress further down the road, I believe we will be able to look back and marvel at how our past hurt and pain have bolstered us and given us the strength and endurance and wisdom that we have acquired which we would not have otherwise acquired without the initial hardship, and we will find ourselves coping or faring much better. Yes, embracing our pain and loss is the way to experience more freedom and peace in the long run.