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Kindess to others..but we have to be kind to ourselves,too..otherwise the equation won´t work. Or what do you think? It´s not always easy to be kind to yourself..not easy at all..and that brings up the question: what comprises the kindness that I give to others? Or does it bring up this question at all?



Oh Humlan, this is precisely where I'm at...I've spent my entire life changing myself in order to please others, in order to be loved. But it never worked. I kept breaking down in despair from the utter futility of trying everything under the sun - including being kind, generous, faithful, caring, patient, etc, etc, etc - but still not feeling loved in return.

Now, this wound that I'm facing requires me to come face to face with the "why" of that lifelong inability to feel loved - it's not earth-shattering to anyone else, but it is and was forever devastating to the child who came to believe, with great despair even before she was 10, that she was intrinsically unlovable and should never have been born. Think about it. If a child believes her own mother doesn't like or love her, how can she ever hope or believe that anyone else ever could either?

I had a hazy inkling that this was at the root, but had always hoped it was just a child's exaggeration. But it wasn't. Adult wisdom and understanding can go back with compassion and forgiveness and repaint history (ie, the abuse) in not-so-painful colours, but the truth that was planted in the young child doesn't just magically disappear - without applying compassion, understanding, wisdom and forgiveness to the spirit-child as well. Which is what we're doing.

One really beautiful thing that happened during one of my prayer sessions last week was hearing God ask me to "go and gather love", make a list of all the people who I KNOW without a doubt loved/love me. The list was much longer than I had anticipated. And the exercise was uplifting and healing. Then when I brought the list back to prayer, God told me to gather all of the love that all of those people had shown me over the years and pour it into my emptiness, fill my emptiness with all of that love. He showed me how He had always made sure that there were people in every patch and chapter of my life who would love me through whatever patch of road I was traveling at the time. It was clear, looking at the list, that He had done exactly that. He had never left me alone. So then He reminded me of a dream I had had a few months ago...I won't share it here, but the last thing He said to me in the dream was "The only person who doesn't love you is YOU". And I knew that I had to put myself on that list...I'm not able to put my name there yet, but that's exactly my journey now...to be the one most significant person to pour my own love into that spirit-child and bring her back to life.

I had an image yesterday, while pondering this, of a beautiful little spirit-child twirling around in a sparkly, bubbly dance. She ran across the dark room, knelt down in the dirt and started brushing the dirt and debris (dead leaves) away from this one spot. Underneath all that crap was a small pile of glowing embers. She looked up at me with a delightedly impish grin and started warming her hands over the embers.

It was in that moment that I knew we were going to be okay.

A long post, all to say that kindness to ourselves (self-love) is perhaps THE KEY to all other love and kindness. If we're not kind and compassionate toward ourselves, our kindness and compassion toward others is incomplete - still important and valid, in part because we continue to learn more kindness and compassion in the giving - but God appears to be very emphatic about us including ourselves in that equation of loving and being loved.
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When you don't like a thing, change it.
If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.

(Maya Angelou)