Love
Find a Conversation
| Fri, 05-04-2007 - 3:26pm |
One of my friends sent me this and I thought it would be good for everyone to get the chance to read it.
Love is not something that happens to us. Love is something we do. It is a verb. Saying "I love you" is a verbal way of reinforcing nonverbal actions such as sacrifice, appreciation, listening, empathizing, and being reliable and trustworthy. All of these actions encourage us to be the best version of ourselves and that is the point of love, of any relationship, of life.
Love is a choice. Feelings change, but the choice to love is one we make everyday. What we tell ourselves manifests in our actions. If we tell ourselves we love ourselves and respond to ourselves with the actions of love – patience, kindness, respect, compassion and understanding – then we become confident, more determined, more aware and more relaxed, open and willing. The essential purpose of any relationship, even the one with ourselves, is to challenge ourselves and each other to grow and to evolve into the best version of ourselves. Negative self talk does not lead us to the best of ourselves, is not an act of love. Fear of failure is a fear that we are not good enough. It is placing the determination of our value in someone else's hands.
Choose that you are valuable and worthy, not in spite of your flaws, but because of them. Your vulnerabilities are the points of your strengths. Your mistakes give you the opportunity to feel humble and feeling humble reminds us to treat ourselves and others with kindness and compassion. Choose to love yourself, in thought, in feeling and in action and reaffirm this choice daily.
Life is a series of small choices that determine our fate. If you make the choice to treat yourself with love and to accept yourself with compassion – and you follow that choice with discipline and the allotment of time this priority deserves, you will find yourself more compassionate and understanding of yourself. You affirm loving yourself as your main priority, your relationship with yourself as primary and you devote the time, energy and discipline required. You make you're only goal in this life to become the best version of yourself and enabling others to become the best version of themselves. You reject any thought or action or person that is not in line with those goals.
Most people are too hard on themselves, never living up the expectations they perceived their parents had for them when they were children. You are no longer a child. The expectations of how you should behave or what you should achieve should be your own.
What we allow into our lives is a reflection of how we love ourselves. People who treat you badly over and over again are a confirmation of both the extent of your self-doubt and the expanse of your compassion. We let ourselves be battered by words and by actions because we long for loving relationships and we believe if we stick to it long enough, this person abusing us will change, will turn around, and will someday see the value in us. It's perseverance gone awry. Instead of steadfastly clinging to our own goals and those dreams that will bring us closer to the best version of ourselves, we stay with people who fail us in every way imaginable.
We do ourselves no favors when we give into this longing for people to change and appreciate our innate worth. Instead of waiting for someone else to love us, for someone else to determine our importance, for someone else to find us valuable, we need first to find all of that within ourselves. Women are taught from the time their born to wait on and serve the purpose of others. Don't be resigned to that. There is certain wisdom in being able to set limits and create boundaries for yourself and for what you allow in your life. Boundaries are internal and external.
Internal boundaries mean being able to control our emotions. It means we do not allow ourselves to cross the line, wherever that line may be. In an argument with a loved one, we do not say that which would cause more hurt than necessary. In an argument with ourselves, we do not indulge in negative self-talk and the harmful behaviors that lead from it – drinking, drugs, food, gambling, or any other device we use to soothe our pain. Internal boundaries are a way to keep ourselves from harming ourselves or others.
External boundaries are about protection. Women are taught to accept any and all form of unbelievable behavior from their loved ones. This is a disservice to us. External boundaries permit you to walk away when someone proves they are not worthy of the gift of our love. Proof isn't about a one-time experience. If someone stands you up once, it's a mistake. If it happens twice, it's a warning. If it happens again, it's done. The same is true of any other negative experience save physical violence (in which case, once is too often). Someone says cutting remarks to you. Someone undermines your self esteem with their doubts about your abilities. Someone treats you as less than the gift of God that you are.
Internal and external boundaries work together. When someone violates the right you have to be treated with dignity and respect, boundaries help you to speak assertively and say what you need to say to acknowledge that violation and protect yourself from future harm. People need to be given chances, they need to be allowed mistakes, but no one has the right to repeatedly and consistently disrespect your feelings and experiences. When that happens, internal and external boundaries work together to allow you to save yourself from future pain.
Loving yourself isn't about glitter and sunbeams. It's about protecting yourself from harm – harm from others and harm from yourself. It's about realizing that no one, not even you, has the right to compromise your value. It's about choice. You either choose to allow people to run over you, hurt you, treat you however they want or you choose that you're worth more than that and demand better treatment. Loving yourself is an act of courage. It takes bravery to stand up to those who harm us, especially when part of us feels we need them so much. Our parents, our lovers, our best friends. I suggest to you that these people have no more right to treat us badly than anyone else. Conversely, they should be held to a higher standard than strangers because they are the ones who claim to love us and whose purpose in our lives is to enable us to become better versions of ourselves. I encourage you to accept nothing less than this.
How do you love yourself? Simple. You choose to and you choose it everyday.

Gal Blondie