“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:31
Dearest Chloe and Phoebe,
There is probably no other Bible verse more commonly heard than this one. And yet it contains one of the most neglected word in the bible: yourself.
I have heard countless sermons on how to love others. Not a single one on how to love yourself.
Human beings are naturally inclined to love ourselves. We often love ourselves too much, but that doesn’t mean we automatically know how best to love ourselves. Much the way we sometimes treat those we love most the worst, mere intention alone doesn’t garner worthy expression.
Indulging in an impulse is a terrible way to treat ourselves, but we often do this anyway. Defining our worth through career, social standing, peer approval, or looks is also a terrible way to treat ourselves, but we do this too. It takes practice and conscious effort to learn to love those in our lives. And learning to love ourselves well is no exception.
Before talking about how to love ourselves, I think it’s important to address why it’s important to love ourselves. It’s important to love yourself because you matter. You matter to me. You matter to your father. You matter to each other. You matter to your extended family. You matter to your friends. But most importantly, you matter to God. God doesn’t want you to neglect yourself. Sharing and loving others does not mean you should neglect yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself, he said after all. Not more, not less; but as yourself.
Another reason why it’s important to love yourself well is because it’s the precursor to loving others well. Loving yourself and others is not mutually exclusive; they go hand in hand. The best and healthiest place to give is from a place of restoration. When we give from a place of emptiness, resentment brews. Even Jesus did not do this. He often retreated after a long day of preaching and healing others to pray and be replenished. If Jesus needed a recharge, and God a sabbath, why do we think we can circumvent rest and self-care?
I’m reminded of those harrowing days as a new mother. I used to get so with your father. Here I was, barely sleeping, eating, or even showering. So when I saw your father go out to dinner with his friends, exercise, or even sleep, I would seethe with anger. I was martyring myself. Why wasn’t he? He was obviously much better at taking care of himself than I was. And this started to appear very selfish to me.
It wasn’t until I started take better care of myself, that I had room in my heart to be happy for your father when he did the things that made him feel restored and happy. He needed a break too. But as a deprived and exhausted new mom, I did not have room in my heart to grant him this.
That’s because we can’t give from a place of emptiness. Women are particularly guilty of this. As caretakers, we think of everyone before we think of ourselves. But the price of this kind of martyring is anger, resentment and even hate. It is the very antithesis of love. So learn to love yourself well because you matter, and because it is wellspring from love for others will overflow.
Here are some ways to love yourself well.
1. Maintain your physical health. The zeitgeist of working out brings images of sleek women at Soul Cycle or a businessman on a Peloton. But physical exercise is much more than merely a lifestyle and affects so much more than your physical appearance. It infiltrates the very fiber of your mental and spiritual well-being. When you aren’t well physically, you’re more prone to depression and you’re more spiritually vulnerable. The Catch-22 when it comes to exercise, however, is that the more down you feel, the harder it is to get moving. But you have to find a way. Start small. Take a walk or a stroll. Because there are countless stories of people whose first step out of depression was physical exercise.
When life gets busy with work, child-rearing, and other responsibilities, it’s easy to eat terrible, retreat into isolation, be sedentary, or deprive yourself of adequate sleep. But these things are essential to your mental, spiritual and physical well-being. When you put work ahead of your health, you will, in the end, lose both, your health first, then your work. Your health is absolutely pivotal to everything you do. So take care of your body. Get adequate sleep. Eat healthy. And exercise.
2. Do something that makes you happy each day. Whether it’s eating a delicious bite of something, playing tennis, carving out time to read something for pure enjoyment, or attending your garden, it’s important to whet your appetite for life each day. Doing something for yourself everyday doesn’t need to be a grandiose gesture that consumes gobs of money. It probably shouldn’t. It’s more about breeding a habit where you don’t neglect yourself in the name of martyrdom. There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t find a little bit of time, or spare a small percentage of your resources to do something for yourself. Yesterday, I bought flowers from Trader Joes. Not because I was going to have visitors this week. But because it makes me happy to see flowers throughout the day.
3. Invest in your healing. You can’t get through life unscathed. We all go through life bandaged. Even the best of intentions can amount to a great deal of hurt in your relationships with people. So it’s important to invest in your healing from past hurts. Healing can take on many forms. Many people find healing through therapy, going to the spa, taking vacations, exercising, listening to music, journaling or just having lunch with a friend you can confide in. It can also mean building up the strategy and energy to confront someone who has hurt you and gaining closure and opening the path to forgiveness. And of course, there is no better healer than God. Spending time with God is perhaps the best way to restoration.
4. Take a break. Isn’t the sabbath a profound concept. Why did God need a respite on the seventh day? I used to think that the very notion God needed a break negated his deity. But without space there is no perspective. If you don’t incorporate a rhythm of work and rest, you’ll get swallowed up in the busyness of life and miss the big picture.
One of my favorite historical figures, John Wanamaker, once said, “People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness.”
About five years ago, I started to observe a sabbath of sorts. Every Monday, I give myself the day off. Maybe not the whole day, but for four to five hours, I’ll eat something I want, maybe do a little shopping, read, watch a movie, go to the spa or my favorite thing to do of all: lie down and just stare at the ceiling while I zone in and out of sleep. In doing this, I have become a better mom and wife.
5. Form a healthy community. Spend time with people who understand you and appreciate you. I have people in my life who truly understand and appreciate me. It’s important to find a healthy community of people who value you.
6. It’s okay to say no. Once you understand what’s important in life, it becomes easy to say no to things that don’t align with your big picture goals. Your energy, time and resources are finite. It is not your job to make everyone happy. While you certainly should help others, especially when you feel God moving you, you should never acquiesce to a favor ingratiatingly.
7. Start a gratitude journal. One of God’s purpose for your life is for you to be grateful. Remaining thankful might seem like a dutiful thing to do, but it has enormous benefits. For one, it opens the door to optimism and makes you feel more confident. Not to mention the incredible health benefits like more restored sleep, a boosted immune system, etc.
8. Find your worth in God. This is perhaps one of the best ways to treat yourself well. Every other metric in life will demand performance. Even the affection of a parent is tainted by a child’s performance, whether they behave well, or work hard, or is helpful to the family. Not God. His arms are open just as wide for the prodigal son as for the dutiful servant.
Jesus didn’t say love your neighbor. He said, “love your neighbor as yourself.” So don’t neglect yourselves.