Love Like You Mean It
Here is another great post from our guest blogger Sarah. In case you missed the first blog posted on Monday, here is a little bit about Sarah:
Sarah is a writer and artist who works on celebrating life and making a little bit of progress every day. Some days, that means taking a longer walk, other day it means making an effort to reach out and encourage others to speak their truths.
Love is an interesting emotion, concept and bond. Part of the reason why it's so interesting - at least to me - is just how many different types of love there are.
There's the love that we have for family, a bond passed from generation to generation. There's the love that we have for our friends - for the people who we call when no one else can break through our sadness or can share in our joy. There's the silly schoolgirl crush love that feels amazing but can't really be called love. There's that love we feel for that special someone in our lives - that love that tells us that we are meant to share all that we are with someone, the love that makes us feel like we've finally found the other part of our whole.
Some people love everyone else with all that they have. Some are manipulated by the love that they have for other people, and keep offering chance upon chance.
But what very few of us seem to be able to do is to love ourselves. We get caught up, we think about all the little things that people say and we let those things get under our skin. We start to believe that we're not good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or. . .
It saddens me sometimes when people pretend to love themselves when they don't. It saddens me when people cannot accept themselves for who they are and really love themselves - in the same way it makes me sad when someone pressures another person by saying, "If you loved me, you would."
When we love like we mean it, we love without conditions. We don't use that love to reach some end result. We don't measure that love out and ask others to earn it.
When we love others and really mean it, we do what we can to help them meet their needs.
Can you cut yourself some slack when you make a mistake? Can you love yourself even if you're not exactly who you think you should be? Can you love yourself without conditions? Can you love yourself like you mean it?
Sarah is a writer and artist who works on celebrating life and making a little bit of progress every day. Some days, that means taking a longer walk, other day it means making an effort to reach out and encourage others to speak their truths.
Love is an interesting emotion, concept and bond. Part of the reason why it's so interesting - at least to me - is just how many different types of love there are.
There's the love that we have for family, a bond passed from generation to generation. There's the love that we have for our friends - for the people who we call when no one else can break through our sadness or can share in our joy. There's the silly schoolgirl crush love that feels amazing but can't really be called love. There's that love we feel for that special someone in our lives - that love that tells us that we are meant to share all that we are with someone, the love that makes us feel like we've finally found the other part of our whole.
Some people love everyone else with all that they have. Some are manipulated by the love that they have for other people, and keep offering chance upon chance.
But what very few of us seem to be able to do is to love ourselves. We get caught up, we think about all the little things that people say and we let those things get under our skin. We start to believe that we're not good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or. . .
It saddens me sometimes when people pretend to love themselves when they don't. It saddens me when people cannot accept themselves for who they are and really love themselves - in the same way it makes me sad when someone pressures another person by saying, "If you loved me, you would."
When we love like we mean it, we love without conditions. We don't use that love to reach some end result. We don't measure that love out and ask others to earn it.
When we love others and really mean it, we do what we can to help them meet their needs.
Can you cut yourself some slack when you make a mistake? Can you love yourself even if you're not exactly who you think you should be? Can you love yourself without conditions? Can you love yourself like you mean it?
posted by Jess at 11:44 AM
1 Comments:
You make several good points here. Loving myself is something I struggle with constantly because society trains women to serve the needs of others over the needs of the self -- in other words, to love others before oneself. So if we make mistakes -- if we disappoint someone else -- we tend to feel like we are unworthy of love. How can we learn to allow ourselves the same love we give to others?
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