Am I Loving Myself?
Kindness to oneself is the most important type
Think of a trying time in your life. It could be the death of a loved one, or when someone attacked you, or frustration about not obtaining a goal, or some other form of failure. Anything that taxed you emotionally. Now think about how you responded to that situation. Were you nurturing and loving to yourself? Did you show yourself kindness, love, empathy? Did you respect your body? Or did you harm yourself in some way; emotionally, physically, or spiritually?
These questions presented themselves in a recent book club discussion where we are reading Anam Cara by John O’Donohue. The specific prompt I wrote down was “Is my response to a situation representative of loving myself?” While certainly not a new concept to me, it reinforced the need to be kind to myself, and brought to light how I have not been kind lately.
I have had an almost two-year struggle weight loss. I gradually switched to a vegan diet and began running. At first I did well and was steadily losing weight. Then I reached a point where the weight didn’t want to come off anymore, even though I was still disciplined. I still needed to drop another 20 or 30 pounds. Worse yet, the weight started to come back on.
I was frustrated, angry, and maybe a little disgusted with myself. I was also tired, fatigued with the process of constantly watching what I eat and monitoring my exercise. Tired of trying to ignore hunger. Tired of fighting.
So what have I done? I relaxed my standards. I told myself that as long as I continued to eat healthy foods the weight doesn’t matter. But then I let myself slip even more. Just a small thing here or there. Then bigger slips. The dietary transgressions quickly took their toll.
I put on even more weight. I’m afraid to get on the scale. I feel as if I am a sculpture and the artist is putting thicker and heavier layers of fat around my middle, around my neck. It’s as if I put on a fat suit and I do not like the feeling.
What I thought was being kind to myself — allowing myself to eat more as long as it was “healthy” — in an effort to ease my emotions is in fact not so kind. Continuing on this road will result in higher blood pressure and blood sugar levels, a greater propensity to develop diabetes, and ultimately, heart disease. And of course there is the low self-esteem. No, I am not being kind to myself.
Another example is my intake of alcohol. In September of 2018, I believe, a significant personal event caused me to drop alcohol completely. I did well for a long time, occasionally slipping here or there, but not getting back to problem drinking. That also changed recently.
I have allowed myself the occasional drink. This may seem benign, but not when your brain craves the release obtained from this mind-altering elixir. Soon it was back to trivia night at my local brewpub, where my intention was to have a maximum of two beers. Five beers later I was happily inebriated in my failure of willpower. I also allowed myself to purchase a bottle of Canadian whiskey to keep in the house, as it is my favorite thing to drink. I did not moderate my drinking well, and my body let me know about it.
Drinking feeds my brain, my emotions. It allows me a bit of escapism. For the few hours that I’m drinking my depression is eased, my anxieties lessened, and my frustrations with life seem distant. But the next day my body tells me the truth, that I have poisoned myself. The headaches, sluggishness, and depressed mood that comes after a night of bingeing reminds me that I am doing myself no favors. And, as with overeating, continuing on this path will lead to harming my own health; elevated liver enzymes indicating liver damage, increased triglycerides, and even more weight gain.
Again, I am not being kind to myself.
Think about your own life and how you respond to stress. Do you overeat, drink alcohol, or take drugs? Do you self-harm? Do you beat yourself up figuratively, berating yourself like a bad child? If so, the question must be asked, “is my response to this situation representative of loving myself?” Most assuredly the answer is “no.”
It’s tragic that we can be truly kind individuals, showing love and support to all of those around us, encouraging them to love themselves, yet we don’t do this for ourselves. We are our own worse critic, our own worse enemy, when we should be the person that loves ourselves the most.
I am not going to make any grandiose promises to you or to myself. I’m not going to vow to lose 40 pounds, or train for a marathon. What I am going to try to do instead is to remember to love myself, and to respond to my stressors with kindness to myself. I’m going to try to remember to ask myself if what I am doing, how I’m responding to stress, is showing kindness to myself. It’s that easy, yet it is amazingly difficult.
I hope that you, gentle reader, can take this message to heart. Remember to be kind to yourself. Love yourself. For you are the only person in the world who has the ability to be kind to “you” in a manner that benefits your physical, emotional, and spiritual self.
The most powerful use of love it to turn it inwards, and to love yourself.
