Compassion. Start With Yourself. #1000Speak

When I was a kid I hated that saying that you had to love yourself in order to love anyone else.

I don't know why, the idea of self love just never sat right with me.  It seemed weird.  Arrogant.  Conceited.  Or something.



Perhaps that view seems strange, but I reckon there's a gazillionty teenage girls out there who relate to it.  Maybe today's teenagers are different.  More self assured (they sure seem that way).  But deep down?  Deep down, I doubt it.  They're all a ball of insecurity and self doubt, aren't they?  Aren't we?

When I was a teenager it was the height of wrongness to admit to liking yourself.  Even any tiny bit of yourself.  You could like as much as you wanted about anyone else, hair, eyes, clothes, legs, hands, nails, lips - oh yes!  Girls get down to the details.

But if you were talking about your own body, or clothes or life it was only to recite the negatives.  My thighs are too fat, my top is too tight, my parents are the worst.

It's easy to laugh this behaviour off as harmless teenage angst.  But it's safer not to.  Because this behaviour persists, if you let it.  And really?  It's not so harmless at all.

I see that now, now that I have kids.  Now that I have a daughter.  I notice this stuff, and how it hangs about, assumed, unquestioned, like it's okay.  But it's so totally not okay.

Because when someone says "You look nice.  I like you hair.  Your skin is glowing." should the first instinct be to deflect?  Before thought?  Instinct?

No.  No, is the answer to that question.

Because after you deflect.  After you drop your gaze and mumble something self-depreciating and feel uncomfortable and change the subject the next thing you see are the big eyes watching you from the back seat.  The next thing you notice are the little ears pricked.  And she's not judging, this silent audience.  Not at all.  What she's doing is learning.  Learning what it means to be a woman, how to behave, how to react.  How to deflect, and how to make that deflection instinct.

What she's doing is being taught that it's not okay to like yourself, to like the little details of yourself, to like the little details enough to love the greater whole, both inside and out.

We would never talk about our kids the way we talk about (and think about) ourselves.  But what we often don't realise is that our children learn to talk about themselves, not the way we talk about them, but the way we talk about ourselves.

Our children don't learn to look at themselves the way we look at them.  They learn to look at themselves the way we look at ourselves.

THEY LEARN TO LOOK AT THEMSELVES THE WAY WE LOOK AT OURSELVES.

I'm sorry for the caps, but this one's important.  And I'm not yelling at you - I'm trying to imprint it on my own mind.  I don't want to forget it.

It's why I get mad when my kids Grandmother says negative things about her body, refers to her flabby stomach or her wobbly arms or her wibbly thighs.  Because it doesn't matter if she then says something positive about my daughter and how amazing she is or my son and how awesome he is.  What she's already done is shown my kids that it's okay to be critical of yourself, it's normal to think you're not good enough, that it's proper to assume that everyone around you is better than you are.

And that is just not right.  But it is oh, so normal.

And you know what?  This lack of self love, this feeling that it's not okay to be nice about and towards yourself, this ever critical, judgmental way of looking at ourselves, this is the hard work of compassion.

Because if we want to have the resources, the abilities, the instincts to be able to practice compassion towards others, then we must start first with ourselves.

It might seems awkward and narcissistic and weird (it does) but it is necessary.

For as cliched and hokey as it may seem (yes, it does) the notion that you cannot love another until you can love yourself is spot on.

I'm talking about real love, true compassion.  Love and compassion when it's hard, when it bites, when it is uncomfortable.

Not the sort of compassion you can feel scrolling through your Facebook feed looking at worthy causes and people in need and those that suffer.  Not sympathy, not empathy even.  But the deeper feeling of compassion.  And compassion for someone you don't agree with, or someone that is challenging you or someone who is actually wrong.

Because that shit is HARD.

And if you haven't had the practice, if your instinct is judgement and criticism even if that instinct is self judgement and criticism, that makes it even harder.

So here is the lesson, for myself and maybe you'll find it of value too.  Be nice to ourselves first.  It's hard I know.  Because self love feels weird and icky and all sorts of wrong.

But if we let that conditioning go.  Or if we see compassion for ourselves as practice for a greater, outward compassion, then we can start with the real work.  We can start with the real compassion.

Not the easy sort of compassion for the good causes and worthy recipients. But the hard work of compassion.  Compassion for the ones that challenge us, that test us, that maybe even hurt us a bit.  Compassion for the ones that do wrong and are wrong and that we don't like or want to be like.

There's no way we can get to that place, if we can't first start with ourselves.  In fact starting with ourselves might be the hardest part of all.

This post was written as part of the #1000Speak Challenge

How do you feel about self love?  Does it come easily, or does it take a bit of work?

Listen to Sinead O'Connor Take Me To Church