Love Thyself

The other week I heard something that made me unsettled: “if bad things are crippling us, is normal, but when something so beautiful and pure as love is crippling us, is bad”. Have you ever felt yourself wondering if you are selfish? I have...and speaking of selfishness I have to say that this bible verse always made me feel somewhat stirred up, even uncomfortable a little bit: “love your neighbor as you love yourself “...the reason I struggled with it so much, it was because of the second part...how does one love thyself and not be selfish...it sounds easier said than done...and I think because I struggled for so long to love myself as well...somehow I always thought that selfish folks or narcissistic people are like how they are, because they love themselves so much... I thought looking into what is the meaning of self~love and the relationship between self~ love and selfishness...it was shocking what I found...Jesus knew after all what He was taking about it... We all know that we live in a culture that places so much meaning and value on exterior appearances and wealth, but I think this is nothing new, actually this was a problem even back in the day...I think this is why is so easy to mistaken self~love with selfishness . So I dug into the meaning of selfishness and narcissism…psychological definition is: “selfishness or narcissism, is an excess which leads to an unhealthy self-absorption”. I think we all knew this... Wikipedia defines selfishness:” is being concerned excessively for oneself or one’s own advantage, pleasure, welfare, regardless of others” We could say that selfishness actually leads us down to a rabbit hole of a never-ending quest for fulfillment, where selfishness tells us that we can find achievements through vanity, greed or any other exterior thing, just around the corner. But which corner?... Instead of believing that real fulfillment can actually come from a place of peace, love, joy, appreciation and gratitude, the same place in which self~love comes from. So next I looked into what is really the meaning of “loving yourself” or self~love, what I found is that loving yourself is appreciating yourself for who you are as a person, it is our ability to see ourselves from an internal place rather than basing our own worth on exterior values or opinions ...I think most of us are familiar with such a description.

What I’ve learned is that self~love is about knowing the deep depths of ourselves aka knowing who we are, accepting who we are, knowing who we are not and accepting who we are not, being grateful for who we are and who we aren't. This self~love is also allowing us to be able to take criticism constructively from others and use it to better ourselves rather than blame our emotions, actions and shortcomings on others. When we love ourselves, it is much easier to take responsibility for our own actions, moods and emotions, we are satisfied and content, and we can give love because we have love. When we practice self~love we simply recognize our needs no matter what they might be, but we also nourish the important relationships and the important things in our lives, relationships and things that matter. In other words we self-nurture while we keep a close eye toward nurturing and nourishing the important relationships and connections in our lives. Self-love allows us to more deeply connect with others and also to the world around us. Slef~love nurtures our emotional, psychological, and physical health. Now here is where I got shocked, what I found by researching is that selfishness or narcissism steals a person's ability to love themselves. What? I asked myself, so definitely selfishness is not too much self~love. I never thought of this, because I believed that when I am selfish I love myself way too much, it did not occur to me that when I am selfish I actually lack the ability to love myself… When we are selfish or narcissistic we are unfulfilled as a person. We are on a constant search, we feel like we need to take everything for ourselves but the underlining issue is really that we don’t have what we actually deeply need or even desire.. . Selfishness leads us to a lack of a healthy sense of self~love and we will work ourselves for external validation, while actively we use anyone and anything to get to our desired reward, leaving us empty , searching and unfulfilled. My conclusion , if we cannot have self~love, love ourselves and appreciate the depths of ourselves through self~love, we will certainly will not be able to love and appreciate the depths of beauty in the people or the world around us. Self~love it's about vitality, love and creativity. I finally understand that loving yourself is getting and finding that sweet internal design , where you can be yourself and be happy with who you are, with who God had designed you to be, where you find your purpose and your gifts. We could say that self-love is a constant voyage that is thriving instead of striving, love and joy, faith, appreciation, care and grace,  while selfishness or narcissism a constant journey towards an empty and lonely pit. Coming back to the bible verse, now I understand that the more we embrace self~love, the more aware we become of both ourselves and others. The more comfortable we become within ourselves, the more we practice self~love, the less we will be about us and more about the good of everyone around us. From now on when the question will pop in my mind of somebody acting selfish, I will be able to look with a different set of lenses, instead of being condescending or hurt by folks’ selfishness, I will be able to look beyond and understand that they have no self~love, they are hurting themselves more than they are hurting me, because they are looking for satisfaction in all the wrong places. And this also goes for myself as well...When it comes to selfishness I have to be honest, I am guilty as charged .

With self~love, we organically build a climate and ambiance of love. We have love and we give love..self~ love sounds like a 2 way street: I have so I can give and I can also receive, while selfishness is a one way street: I want, I take and I am still lonely...