Belonging to Ourselves: Step 2 - LOVE
Love is transformative
I'm doing a little series here on belonging to ourselves. This is Part 3 of 5. If you missed the introduction, start here. If you missed part 2 (step 1), you can read it here.
The hardest part about getting to know ourselves is cleaning the dust out of all the corners only to find things you really didn't want to see. Sometimes we come face to face with parts of ourselves we aren't so wild about; things about ourselves we wish were different but don't know how to change them. Or maybe we know how but we just haven't been able to make the change. Faced with these dusty corners, we need LOVE.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Patience, kindness, bearing, enduring - these are the things we need. Notice that love does not say "hurry up and change". Love does not say "I'm here for you, but only after X". Love is there regardless, reminding you that you are worthy of it exactly as you are - dust bunnies and all.
Love, my friends, is transformative. I recently binged read Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. It is a hilarious rom-com about a mess of a man who seeks out a fake boyfriend in order to improve his image. I'm sure you can predict what happens, we all know most rom-coms end up with happily ever after. Anyway, I mention this book because I enjoyed watching the main character develop through the story. The story begins with him in a rather self-defeatist state, making poor choices for himself and having very low self-esteem. As he spends time with his fake boyfriend he is shown regard, patience, and understanding. As he is seen in his messiness and accepted for who he is, he begins to make changes and show more care for himself. I'm a sucker for stories where people are accepted for who they are because I see how it changes them.
Love changes us and we can show it to ourselves. We can show ourselves patience, kindness, compassion. We can bear with ourselves.
Loving Ourselves
It's pretty easy to meet our less than desirable parts with judgement, self-punishment, and shame. There are a lot of messages surrounding us that help us in this direction. Messages from the media that are trying to get us to buy things in order to "better" ourselves. Messages we internalized as children for various reasons. There's a lot out there trying to convince us that we aren't good enough as we are; making it really hard to meet ourselves with love. But the effort is worth it.
As much as I've tried to guilt or punish myself into change, I've had very little success. When I've been successful is when I've shown myself love or been shown love. When I stare something in the face and say "yes, you too are welcome here." It's disarming somehow. It creates movement where there was stuck-ness. Perhaps it's partly due to the settling of my nervous system when I realize that even here I am ok.
What if We Loved the Messy Bits?
So what if we gather up all of those parts of ourselves that we don't like so much and show them a bit of love? What if we told those parts of ourselves that don't feel good enough that they are, in fact, enough. Yes, they are ugly. Sure, they are messy. But they also deserve love. Somewhere at the root, they make sense. Somewhere there is a story they are upholding and perhaps they need a loving new one.
Nadia Bolz-Weber is one of my favorite voices on being loved as we are. Her latest newsletter speaks to the passage I shared above.
Not Releasing Responsibility
Love and acceptance, however, does not mean a release of responsibility. I'm not suggesting that we all give up on growing and carry on with our less than desirable behaviors. I'm suggesting that it's possible to love ourselves despite these things. I'm also suggesting that if you can manage to show yourself love amidst your mess, you may be surprised with how things shift.
Honor Yourself
As you explore this idea of self-love, you might find The Garden of Belonging Podcast Season 2 supportive. It’s all about honoring ourselves, which is another way of saying loving ourselves. In it, I asked my guests the following questions:
what does it look like to honor ourselves on a budget?
what gets in the way of honoring ourselves?
what do we do when honoring ourselves means doing something uncomfortable?
how do we balance short term and long term work of honoring ourselves?
how do you honor yourself, joys and successes, when you are surrounded by people in pain?
You can also find past episodes in your favorite podcast app if you prefer listening outside of Substack.
Over To You
Have you found showing yourself love helpful? What does self-love look like for you? Feel free to share, or perhaps you simply want to share with your journal.
To your inherent worthiness,
So very true. Criticizing myself has never worked, only love works.