“…‘You must love your friend in the same way you love yourself.’” Matthew 22:39 TPT
Let’s flip that verse…
When you don’t love yourself, you sometimes hurt others in return.
Social media has taken the self-love thing so far that if the action isn’t selfish, then it’s not self-love. The mantra “me against the world” is basically what drives what we call self-love today, when in fact, self-love is inclusive of others.
What does it mean to love yourself?
1. Recognise Your Feelings
For a long time, I never understood empathy. To be more exact, if my body, soul and spirit were separate entities, then I can say I didn’t have empathy for myself.
How do you then understand the feelings of another when you disregard those feelings yourself?
For example; admitting to being tired in the middle of a busy workday was a taboo. So when a coworker feels like the whole world owes him a delicious break time just because he worked for 4 hours on a project, I couldn’t relate.
We push down feelings that we interpret as weakness just so we feel strong. Then we forcefully do the same to others.
Recognising your feelings is to understand that it’s human to feel sad, hurt, tired, depressed and afraid. Embracing them helps us ask the right questions and builds our empathy for others. The last time I checked, workaholics didn’t arrive on earth in UFOs.
2. Respect Your Feelings
“Stupid! You just slept for a whole 30mins.”
It was 1 pm and I was super tired. With just 4 hours of sleep the night before, I felt wasted. I didn’t know when I put my head on my desk after nodding several times in front of my PC.
I jolted awake and almost jumped out of my chair when I realized I actually slept.
I had no looming deadlines, no meetings, and when I checked my phone, no missed calls or urgent notifications.
So what exactly was my problem?
This happened last week and I had to snap back and quickly remind myself that it was okay to rest when I felt too tired to keep working.
Sometimes listening isn’t complete without action. When you feel afraid, how do you respect that feeling?
When you feel like being unserious, how do you respect it?
Respecting our feelings helps us be more dynamic instead of acting like programmed robots. This minute, you playing a prank on your colleague and the next minute, you’re fully focused on your work, just because you respected the feeling of playfulness. In just a few minutes, you’ve created an experience that you and your colleague will never forget.
That’s what it means to be human.
As you work super hard today, remember to love yourself and those around you. I’m trying to do the same, it’s just so damn hard.
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