"Why don't you just love yourself some more?" I remember a friend telling me some years ago when I was busy "finding myself", or so I thought.
As you live life, you figure out that life is not about finding yourself, rather it is about creating yourself. You already have what you need right there, wherever you are, within you.
I was dumbfounded - love yourself some more? Why? How is that possible?
Well, this fundamental ability to love yourself unconditionally - wherever you are in life, whatever obstacles you are dealing with, is the most important human skill in life.
Every other skill and ability - however well we may master it, becomes secondary if we can't love ourselves unconditionally. Because guess what - if you can't love yourself without needing to live up to a set of criteria - how can you love anyone else? Love is supposed to be unconditional - what is the point in saying, "Well, darling you know, I'll love you if x, y and z. And don't forget the dishes while you're at it!". That is not love. That is a businesses proposal. Love is a feeling, it is not based on rational nor logic. And it shouldn't be. Emotions are valuable in themselves.
If you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. You may find yourself in various relationships based on vanity and fear. Fear of being alone and thus needing others approval out of vanity. Vanity and fear make for an ugly cocktail. You can't receive and accept love if you have cut yourself off from accepting yourself. And if you don't love anyone else, what value are you adding to the world then?
Eat. Breathe and.. Love. Always love.
And if you find it so hard to do, then get a pet. Yes, I said a pet, because entering a relationship before you love yourself is a disaster. However much another human may love you, if you don't love yourself, you will find a way to destroy that relationship. And when you say, "it is not you, it is me" - which you will undoubtedly say at some point down the road, that will be the exact truth and not an excuse. Simply because you cannot return the love that that person is showing you, as long as you don't know how to love yourself unconditionally. We can only connect to feelings that we ourselves have experienced. Mind you, that doesn't mean that we must have endured the same experiences - no, it is the feelings we must have experienced in order to connect and show empathy.
Getting an animal, and learning how to take care of it, is like taking a baby-step before learning to walk. Watch how that cat or dog loves you unconditionally. Unconditionally is not the same as accepting abuse, however. Putting up with abuse is incompatible with loving yourself, which must come before loving another human being. A cat will leave you, if you don't treat it with the respect that every living creature deserves. That's one thing I love about cats: You set it free to run in the morning when you wake up, and then when you call its name in the evening when you come home - and it comes back to you; then you know, it loves you. Because as the saying goes: when you set something free, and it comes back to you, it is yours.
It is yours because it chooses to be yours.
And I think that is the most amazing thing: That a wild creature, born to run free, chooses to give itself to you completely. Trusts you to take care of it.
You can only truly do that, if you take care of yourself.
As you live life, you figure out that life is not about finding yourself, rather it is about creating yourself. You already have what you need right there, wherever you are, within you.
I was dumbfounded - love yourself some more? Why? How is that possible?
Well, this fundamental ability to love yourself unconditionally - wherever you are in life, whatever obstacles you are dealing with, is the most important human skill in life.
Every other skill and ability - however well we may master it, becomes secondary if we can't love ourselves unconditionally. Because guess what - if you can't love yourself without needing to live up to a set of criteria - how can you love anyone else? Love is supposed to be unconditional - what is the point in saying, "Well, darling you know, I'll love you if x, y and z. And don't forget the dishes while you're at it!". That is not love. That is a businesses proposal. Love is a feeling, it is not based on rational nor logic. And it shouldn't be. Emotions are valuable in themselves.
If you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. You may find yourself in various relationships based on vanity and fear. Fear of being alone and thus needing others approval out of vanity. Vanity and fear make for an ugly cocktail. You can't receive and accept love if you have cut yourself off from accepting yourself. And if you don't love anyone else, what value are you adding to the world then?
Yes, it may seem harsh - but love is the only thing that matters in life.
Eat. Breathe and.. Love. Always love.
And if you find it so hard to do, then get a pet. Yes, I said a pet, because entering a relationship before you love yourself is a disaster. However much another human may love you, if you don't love yourself, you will find a way to destroy that relationship. And when you say, "it is not you, it is me" - which you will undoubtedly say at some point down the road, that will be the exact truth and not an excuse. Simply because you cannot return the love that that person is showing you, as long as you don't know how to love yourself unconditionally. We can only connect to feelings that we ourselves have experienced. Mind you, that doesn't mean that we must have endured the same experiences - no, it is the feelings we must have experienced in order to connect and show empathy.
Getting an animal, and learning how to take care of it, is like taking a baby-step before learning to walk. Watch how that cat or dog loves you unconditionally. Unconditionally is not the same as accepting abuse, however. Putting up with abuse is incompatible with loving yourself, which must come before loving another human being. A cat will leave you, if you don't treat it with the respect that every living creature deserves. That's one thing I love about cats: You set it free to run in the morning when you wake up, and then when you call its name in the evening when you come home - and it comes back to you; then you know, it loves you. Because as the saying goes: when you set something free, and it comes back to you, it is yours.
It is yours because it chooses to be yours.
And I think that is the most amazing thing: That a wild creature, born to run free, chooses to give itself to you completely. Trusts you to take care of it.
You can only truly do that, if you take care of yourself.
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