Tag Archives: respect

Daily Life, Freedom, Growth, Honesty, Inspiration, self love

Is Today the Day You Love Yourself?

How much can you love yourself?  How good can you be to yourself?  Are you willing to put yourself first?  Are you willing to step into your own greatness?  Can you love yourself as much as you want someone else to love you? Can you say this is my life and it is important? Are you able to do that?

It is hard, to love ourselves. From birth we are taught to put others first.  We are taught that taking the back seat is polite, even honorable.  We are taught to look up to people, to emulate them, to strive to be a carbon copy of someone else.  And we need teachers, and mentors and people who pave the way for us.  We need heroes, we need to look up to people.  But at some point we need to be our own hero.

And maybe for some us that day is today.  Maybe it is time to say I am done sacrificing this one life I have.  Maybe today is the day we break free.  We can release old patterns that hold us back telling us that we come second. I have seen it over and over again.  People give up their lives and take second place.  People in relationships do this. One person becomes the star of their world and the other is supporting cast.  Children want to please their parents, they make life choices that are not theirs. People deny their true beliefs to conform to a party line or a religion or even a job.  All the time, we make adjustment that go against our own true nature.

People settle, everyday people settle. Settle for less than they want, less than they deserve. Why?  So we don’t make waves?  So we keep people happy? When do we make ourselves happy?  Is today the day? Is today the day we say this is my truth, this is who I am, and I love myself.  And nothing on this earth is set above that. Is today the day we say my life is important?  Is today the day we say my dreams matter?  Is today the day we respect our own journey and give it wings?

As close as we are to other humans, we walk alone.  Be it our family, our partner, our best friend, there is a separateness.  When we die we go alone. No one else lives in our brain nor our hearts. Our mind belongs to us. To not respect this is to devalue this beautiful gift of life.

What do you want, do you want respect, do you want love?  Can we really expect that anyone will love or respect if we do not find ourselves worthy of that?  Should not the first person to give us these gifts be ourselves?

Adore yourself, delight in yourself. Find your humor at yourself, be compassionate with yourself.  Praise yourself, truly be a friend to yourself.  Speak well of yourself, take care of yourself.  Appreciate your body and enjoy all the things you do with it. Sing to yourself, comfort yourself. Love yourself, can I say it any louder……Love yourself my dearest one. This is the first step to true living, the step to happiness. Recognizing your value, and treating yourself with respect.  You are as important as anyone being on this planet. You have a right to your breath.  You have a right to your ideas, your dreams, your thoughts. They are as valuable as anyone’s.  Never let anyone make you feel less than.  Simply by being born you have a right to be happy, to be loved, to be respected, to be honored.  It is up to you to exercise those rights.

Let’s do it, let’s make today the day!

Namaste

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Blessings, Daily Life, Growth, Healing, Humanity, kindness, Love

Crossing Paths on the Corner

I am so blessed.  I am simply so blessed.

This happened about a week ago and I can’t shake it from my mind. I was driving down the neighborhood and I see a young lady sitting on a corner. Not doing anything, I just happen to notice her. She kind of looked like a street person but she didn’t have any packs or anything with her. I go home. 5 hours later I am driving down that same street.  She is still sitting there.  Just sitting there on the sidewalk.

I can’t just drive by.  I turn around.  I approach her. I ask her some questions, is she okay, waiting for someone, can I get her anything, is she hungry, thirsty?  Anything, how can I help?  I can tell she is mentally out of balance.   There is no logical process to her thoughts.  I am pretty sure I was talking to multiple personalities.  There was a lot of “we” in her verbiage.  She was polite but definite in not wanting any help and “no police please”.  Over and over “no police please”. I offered her food, no thank you. Can I call someone, no thank you. Can I help you at all, no thank you.

What was I supposed to do?  We do not have good services in this town for mental health.  They closed all that down claiming money issues. Especially on a Saturday night.  If I called the police they were not going to take her to get help anywhere.  Either they would take her in and book her for the night, or just tell her to move along. No real help.  She wasn’t hurting anyone, she wasn’t in immediate danger.She has a right to live as she chooses.

Really, I have to walk away?  I did.  And then I drove away and cried.  Cried because I am so blessed, and she is so lost. Cried because she was someone’s child once upon a time. Cried because my child is safe and loved and blessed and I am grateful. Cried because I am helpless sometimes against the cruelties of the world. Cried because she is another me, and I could not reach her.  This, this is whats stabs my soul, there are humans lost out there.  They started out with the same promise as I did.  To live life and live it well. To love life, to feel joy, to feel safety, to feel loved. But somewhere along the line they became broken and lost.  And no one caught them when they fell.

broken

So I drive on, as she mirrors back to me, all that could have been. But I was lucky because my paths to get to where I am now have been twisted with lots of forks in the roads.  Only I know all the choices I could have made and didn’t.  Somehow Grace saved me.  Over and over, Grace saved me. And I am grateful. It is those of us that have cracks and stood on those edges that know how fragile life can be. How a couple of steps one way or the other can change everything.  No one caught my girl on the corner and she stepped too far.

I drove back by a couple of hours later and she was gone.  I hope to a place where there was some welcome. A kind voice and some protection.  She is haunting me now, making me look harder at myself and my life.  It was frustrating to not be able to fix it, even a little bit.  But I guess that would be about making myself feel better, less guilty.  Perhaps the lesson is that we are all human, we all walk our own paths. To  respect each other and help as we can along the way. And to be compassionate without overstepping boundaries. It is hard to keep that balance. Maybe my best advice for myself is to think how I want to be treated and act accordingly.

My young woman on the corner, you are in my prayers, sleep peaceful and safe tonight.

Namaste

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Choice, Daily Life, daily practice, Growth, Honesty, Love, Relationships

Loving Myself is a Daily Practice

Yesterday I was having lunch with a friend and she was talking about how she is overworked at her job.  She has been working 6 days a week for months now and is feeling the strain in her body.  Here is the deal, although there must be some kind of pay off it is not financial and she is not trying to advance in her job. So why then?  Only she can answer that, but it got me to thinking…..

“self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”
― Elizabeth Cady Stanton

My response to her it that I will not do for my job.  Maybe a different job at a different time, but not this one. I am clear on my boundaries with my job and I am comfortable with how clean my side of the street is.  But that is just my employment and there is a whole bunch more to my life.  And I do get sucked in.  And why is that?  I guess it changes according to the situation.  In a crisis I step up, no question about that, especially when it is my family. I will set aside my life to help them. If my son called I would set this aside, jump in my truck and go. That is a given.  But I will reclaim my life as soon as possible.

Right now my grandmother is in a convalescent home.  She is improving and right now they say she is going home this week.  I know she would like me to be there every day visiting her.  Not going to happen. She has visitors every day, it does not have to be me.  I love my grandmother so much, but my life is important too.  And I get to take care of myself also.  I think it took me being in my fifties before I could say that comfortably.

Before that I was all about self sacrifice.  I stayed in a marriage too long thinking It was better for him and my son (wrong by the way). I would become over involved in my employment only to see at the end of the day I didn’t own the businesses and everyone can be replaced.  I hung on to friendships past their expiration date thinking I could save something that was over. Even over involvement in volunteering or community becomes draining, stealing the joy from the original intention.  Men, on my gosh, I gave up my life, making theirs the focal point of our relationships. The list goes on…..  If I just loved more, worked harder,  gave everything, well then I would be important, I would be loved, appreciated,  no one would leave me.  It didn’t really work out that way. And now I have learned some lessons from that.

the buddha

At the end of the day no one can bring me happiness beyond myself.  Loving and caring for myself must be first on my list.  To move through life with a full heart, means I have to fill it.  And this is not easy.  It is almost a reflex to say “yes”.  It is how I was raised. My impulse is to set myself aside and take care of you. But is that what is best for me, and in the end you, perhaps not. So I need to be mindful of when and why I say yes.  I need to listen to my body and my heart when it starts saying no. I need to be okay with putting myself first.  And that means unlearning behavior that is years ingrained. Loving myself needs to be a daily practice.

Yes, if you love me, that can make me feel good.  But if you love me and I don’t love myself, I won’t believe you. I won’t trust that love. Because how could you love what I believe to be unlovable?  When I do not value myself what value can you put on me?  If I am so willing to set aside my wants, desires, dreams, time and energy why would you respect them? I want to engage with those people who have a healthy self respect for themselves and their lives.  I want them to love themselves so I can love them back.  Please don’t sacrifice yourself for me, I cannot carry the weight of both of our lives.

This is not about those times when I need help or you need help.  Those are teaching moments in our lives.  Those are moments that give us connection and a sense of belonging outside of ourselves. Those are times when we can almost touch love. It becomes tangible. But to do that without resentment or expecting a return we have to come from a place of love.  And love starts within.  It all comes back to loving yourself.  To loving yourself so much you have love to give others.  You have filled your time and spent your energy so well, you have it to share.

So it is not selfish to say “I love myself first”. It is not wrong to be wise with your time and your energy.  It is okay to say no when something is draining you, taking more than you have to give.  You can put yourself first. This is your day, this is your life. You get to choose how you spend, where you spend and who you spend it with.  Life moves fast and time is precious. Be sure to have time well spent.  And spend that time loving yourself.

Namaste

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