10/01/2013 11:02
By Shivani
You shall love your neighbor as yourself! Indeed, we must love our neighbors, but the real problem starts when you forget the last two words of that verse, “as yourself.” If you treat yourself shabbily, well, your neighbor doesn’t stand a chance.
Here are a few things to know.
1) Love yourself: Do I put everyone else first, overlooking the great creation of God that I see in the mirror each morning? Of course, the biblical writers may have assumed that we naturally love ourselves. But self-hatred is rampart in this world and it manifests in all kinds of unhealthy behavior such as addictions, bulimia, self-mutilation and suicide. And then there are the smaller but just as damaging daily ways you may deny your magnificence without meaning to.
2) Respect yourself: Do I respect myself? Some of us think we honor ourselves and yet we work at jobs on which we are never paid our worth—and we are afraid to ask for a raise. Or we do not demand that each person speaks to use with dignity or acknowledge our humanness. Indeed, some people may fall short, or even be incapable of meeting our demands. Yet that is no reason to not know and demand our worth as creations made in the image God. We teach people our worth by demanding we be treated with godliness.
3) Stop victimizing yourself: Do I act like a victim? Victims have advocated their power to whatever human being or situation they believe has more power than them. Victims blame others and as long as they stay rooted in that blame, they can’t acknowledge they have the power to change their state of being. It’s harder for victims to find reasons to love themselves because they’re blinded by the shadow of the person they think has or did have control over them. Someone may have harmed you, but that was in the past. You can say, “It stops today,” and choose to love yourself unabashedly.
4) Take responsibility: Do I take responsibility for my mistakes? This may not sound like a tenant of love. But you have to love yourself enough to know that a mistake can’t define you, that you are much greater than some error. Lovingly allow yourself to make mistakes just as you would allow a child to do so. You are still growing! When you are clear about the magnificence of your creation, you will be able to separate the real You from any possible mistake.
5) Stop worrying: Do I worry? First, if you are a worrier, you are putting undue stress on your body and health. Then, you are denying yourself the opportunity to allow faith to grow in your life. Not a very loving way to treat yourself, right? Faith affirms your belief that you were created capable to handle any challenge and acknowledges your belief in a Divine Spirit that has your back.
6) Trust your judgment: Do I trust my own judgment? You have to walk the walk and talk the talk, as the adage goes. If you believe you are created in the image of God and that God imbues you with a spirit that can fill you with wisdom and intuition, then you must learn to trust your judgment. We often admire other people because we believe they are smarter or wiser than we are. Good judgment on some days may mean asking for advice. But on others, it means knowing you have the answer. There is a process by which we can all learn: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2). Trust the process!
7) Spend your energy wisely: Do I spend my energy wisely? You may think you love yourself and put yourself first and yet on any given day you are complaining about not having time to do the things you really want to do. Where are you spending your energy? If you expect to be of service to God, you have to take care of yourself and that means knowing where to invest your energy. You have a right to say “yes” or “no” to every request. And you can do so without explanation. It is, after all, your life.
8) Take care of your health and wellbeing: Do I make decisions that put my life and well-being at risk? I could easily answer this when I was a drug abuser, hanging with people in similar states of mind. I jeopardized my one precious life by placing myself in wrong places and with wrong people. Even thought that part of my life is over, this is still an important question. Risking our well-being may mean overspending, over indulging on unhealthy foods or driving at a fast speed because you should have left home sooner. The issue is your state of mind, which generally points to a pattern. Love yourself enough to recognize when you are risking your health.
9) Understand that you can't save everybody: Do I try to save everybody? So many people suffer from this that it deserves to be a question we sincerely ask ourselves. People get confused about “being a good Christian” and honoring the fact that everyone has a journey of their own. People are challenged, even to the point of suffering from health problems, because they believe they have to spend themselves trying to save someone else. When we try to save people we are playing God. We are also saying, “I know God is looking out for me, but God may not help this person.” Rubbish! You can offer advice when asked, show encouragement and share information, but the truth is you can’t save anybody. Again, there’s a wonderful process already established by which each of us has an opportunity to make choices that can change our lives. Respect that process and the Holy Spirit that created it.
10) Forgive: Do I forgive myself? It’s easy to know you have forgiven yourself for those major “mistakes.” We usually deal with those because they can’t be ignored. But how about the nagging doubts and ways in which we undermine our power because we’ve developed a grudge against ourselves that comes from blaming ourselves for one “small” thing after another, for being our harshest critic. I’m talking about things that accumulate until they become a major criticism of you. It’s these incidents that make you believe “I am not a good cook (because I always burn everything),” “I am a bad daughter (because I didn’t take my mother to her doctor’s appointment),” “I’m stupid (because everyone in the office knows I made that mistake on that report),” and on and on… Stop it! God is love—and you deserve to experience that every day of your life.
Team Ghery
