Today's
Meditation:
It took me a very long time to not only learn about
the value of self-love, but to actually love myself-- who I
am, what I do, how I live. I grew up being highly
critical of myself, and that trait hurt me more in my
younger years than I like to remember. I sabotaged
many opportunities because I constantly was down on
myself, because I didn't treat myself better and respect
myself more. And because of this tendency, my
relationships were very unhealthy because I looked at them
with a sense of desperation, focused on what I could get
out of them rather than what I could contribute to them.
It's very hard to give money when you're poor. It's
difficult to give food when you have none of your
own. We can't really give advice when we have little
knowledge of a situation (though most people do so
anyway!). How, then, can we give love to others when
we don't love ourselves? How can we share water when
we're dying of thirst ourselves? The water we give,
we'll give grudgingly because we know that we need it
desperately, too. And if we give too much, we're no
longer able to give more of it because we're simply going
to perish or completely run out of water, and we'll be
able to give to no one else at all.
I love myself. I make mistakes and I have fears and
I sometimes lose my patience and I don't always act in the
ways that I think I should (or wish I could). But I
do the best I can with the hand that I've been dealt, and
I do my best to help others and harm no one-- and as long
as I'm doing my best, then what's not to love? And
from this position of loving myself, which took me many
years to reach, I notice that I'm able to give much more
effectively and in a much healthier manner than I ever was
before.
Love yourself. You deserve it. The other
people in your life deserve to be loved by someone who
loves from a position of being loved, and you can
definitely be that person. Their lives, and yours,
will be richer when you have a healthy love of yourself.
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