We had a great holiday break and even managed to enjoy a few memorable, meaningful conversations with our sons…
One of them was around the thought,
“You can’t love others,
until you love yourself.”
I feel like I have hearing this quote in some form since I gained consciousness...
In passing, the idea sounds like apple pie and vanilla ice cream. Makes sense. OK. Got it.
The thought made more sense to me when I heard it expressed recently as…
“A shirtless man cannot give you the shirt off his back.”
I think that may have been Maya Angelou, or some old African saying…
OK
Makes sense
Got it…
But wait… what does “loving yourself” mean?
How do you know when you love yourself?
I have been able to love others quite successfully without really loving myself very much, most of my life…
My son spoke up…
“I don’t think that’s true…” he shared, referíng to the original quote above...
... perhaps for the same reasons that I wasn’t bought in 100%.
I know love is not a shirt…
and,
I don’t believe love is a zero or one and you don’t “LOVE or NOT LOVE… “, thought we often use those words…
“ Idon’t love that.” or
“ I love that!”
When it’s about people...
LOVE is alive and nurtured and grown and harvested and fluid and formless and complex and simple…
AND, importantly, there are intensities, maturities, categories of love… which we lazily often simplify into the single four letter word.
Here is what I know -
about the important concept of
LOVING YOURSELF…
LOVING yourself is being grateful for your self, being compassionate with yourself, respecting yourself, seeing yourself…
...OWNING, being mindful, grateful and deliberate with the GIFT that is uniquely YOU in the world!
And, the reason that “loving” yourself is so very important in our ability to love others is because,
the better you love yourself
the moré you can LOVE
and
not expect anything in return…
I believe thIs concept, that we often define as,
“unconditional love”
is very difficult, and arguably impossible,
if you don’t love yourself first.
WHY?
Because the level to which there is a gap in your own gratitude and pride and mindfulness for your unique gift … there is a gap in your ability to feel “worthy”…
And, when we don’t feel WORTHY -
We
TRANSACT love
instead of
GIVE love!
When we don’t feel worthy, we love expecting something in return…
This plays out not just in romantic love,
but in all types of human connection…
as parents, as friends, as colleagues, as citizens, as human beings…
though
no one relationship touches our worthiness and “gap” with the same intensity and intimacy of a romantic one…
So,
don’t just dismiss the idea of LOVING yourself…
because
great and meaningful JOY comes from the ability to LOVE unconditionally…
the moment
the person
the soul
That which we most seek…
isn’t a zero or a one…
It is obtained, embraced, understood … over time…
You don’t HAVE to love yourself first to love others,
but you have to be in the process of learning how to love yourself as you live and learn to love others...
Do it in parallel, because they both take a lifetime to master...
And the better you love yourself the more unconditionally, graciously you will be able to love others...
LOVE is not a zero or one...
it is alive and infinitely plentiful...
and we learn slowly over time learn how to channel it... own it... experience it...
Love is not a shirt...
Love is IN you...
Let
LOVE
flow…
from you…
and about you…
into the world around you...
It is infinite...
It is YOU!
in harmony,
Nestor