This past week I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Anita Moorjani, best selling author of “Dying to Be Me”. She just wrote a new book entitled “What if THIS is Heaven” which I am in the middle of reading. There were many things that she said that stood out for me during her lecture and I will be sharing more about that later.
One of the most profound insights was that there was a small part of her that was happy she was diagnosed with Cancer because she could now take care of herself.. This authentic statement hit home because I, so many of my clients and friends sacrifice their own self-care in order to take care of others.
As a society we are taught that it isn’t OK to take care of yourself first, in fact, it is selfish. The truth is that we all want love, when we put others first it is because we love them and want love back. We all want to be seen as worthy. We look outside of ourselves for evidence of our worthiness, but it is never enough.
The truth is that we teach others how to treat us by how we treat ourselves. As we take care of ourselves, say “no” when we really don’t want to do something, and honor our boundaries only then will we feel worthy. By our actions we are showing others and ourselves that our needs are important and that we are worthy.
People pleasing fosters resentment to ourselves and to others. We are angry at ourselves for not saying no and angry at others for expecting us to sacrifice.
So the question I ask myself is how can I really put myself first and love myself? How can I remember that I am worthy and how can my actions be motivated out of love instead of fear? This is a process I have been working on for a long time and will continue to work on. Empowering others to do the same is my purpose, but I don’t have to completely deplete myself in order to take care of others.
How can you commit to taking care of yourself? Loving yourself? For many of us this is hard to do or even think of, and you have to start somewhere. Challenge yourself this week to make decisions from a place of love.
If you would like support in learning how to let go of fear and come from a place of love, Contact me for a complimentary Clarity session
