I’m part of a small group reading “The Gift of Our Compulsions” by Mary O’Malley. The conversation has led me to think about the quest to love oneself… and what that means to me.
It’s a concept that I’ve resisted for years. It’s actually made me cringe any time someone has said, “Love yourself.” But this time, something in the conversation encouraged me to look with curiosity for language that I could accept and follow.
This morning I thought about 1 Corinthians 13 and re-imagined it in this way.
If I weigh and measure my food but do not have love, the nourishment is empty.
And if I have the gift of sponsoring and comprehend all benefits of abstinence; if I have all faith so as to change my life but do not have love, I am not as well as I could be.
If I give away all my extra pounds, and if I hand my will over so that I may boast how virtuous I am, I gain nothing.
When I am love… when I have love for my self equally to the love I have for others… then…
I am patient and I am kind to myself. I do not compare myself to others as either better than or less than.
I am not punishing to myself. I do not indulge myself in unhealthy eating or drinking. I am not rigid with myself, nor dogmatic. I do not hold on to anger with myself or resentments against myself.
I recognize when I am in denial. I celebrate clarity and honesty in myself.
I am resilient and hopeful.
I don’t fail myself.
Wishes, expectations and catastrophizing bring me nothing. (If wishes were horses then beggars would ride and I would have been thin my whole life.)
I only know a part of who I am and what is going on in my life. I am still indistinct.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; now that I am growing up, it’s time for me to put aside childish things.
Faith, hope and love will take me to a place where I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
All of this tells me to continue weighing and measuring my food, sponsoring, seeking an abstinent-enough life, changing, staying in a right-size body, and giving up willfulness.
It tells me to accompany these practices with patience, kindness, non-comparing, non-punishing, and non-indulging; to let rigidity, dogma, anger and resentment go as temporary states; to ask myself if I am in denial or being dishonest with myself; to be hopeful; to let go of wishes, expectations and catastrophizing; and to understand that I am still growing… and have a long way to go.
Love & Light,
Valerie
Image: Detail from “The Rutland Psalter”, medieval (c1260), British Library
Beautiful!
Thank you, Em.
You have such a way with words. I love you my friend.
Dearest Terri,
I love you, too. You are a beautiful person.
Love & Light,
Valerie
I was pondering what you had said last week about it feeling weird when people say you should,”Love yourself”. If we think of that in terms of the small self, me, my personality, my talents, my intelligence, my looks… it IS a bit uncomfortable to find that part of ourselves, the ego part, worthy of praise. But if you see it as Love your Self, then it makes sense. Self with the capital “S” is that place of silence deep within us, the place of perfection that some might call God. That perfection is in everyone and everything, so if we love that place in ourselves, we are better able to see that holy place in others and love it in them as well.
Hope that makes sense. I’m still working on this, so don’t think because I preach it, I’ve mastered it.
Dear Shez,
Your Deep Wisdom is a balm to me.
I also love what you shared with me yesterday, “All Love Flows to the Self. (It’s the title of a book of eternal stories from the Upanishads.)”
Thank you.
Love & Light,
Valerie
“Shez Balm”— I wonder if I can market it!
Hee-hee!