Love Yourself
Lydia Mulkey
September 21, 2021
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
~Matthew 22:39b
How are you loving yourself right now? Are you treating yourself with the same kindness and compassion that you would your neighbor?
I heard a therapist on television yesterday talking about what she’s noticing in her practice. She talked about how so many of us are very tender right now. That makes it difficult to go very deep or process the last 18 months in any meaningful way. Maybe you’re feeling some of that. Maybe you’re just taking the days as they come; just trying to get through. There are days I feel frustrated with myself that I am not growing more, doing more, or being more. I want to be 100%, but the truth is, I’m not. I’m 100% more likely to forget something at the store or lose my keys, but I am certainly not functioning at 100%.
Here are some things you might be experiencing right now that are not uncommon:
- Heightened anxiety or fear
- Irritability or restlessness
- Feelings of numbness or detachment
- Feelings of estrangement from others
- Hypervigilance
- Difficulty concentrating
- Feeling confused or distracted, or processing thoughts more slowly thought than normal
- Fatigue
These are all normal reactions after a big, life-changing event, and many of us have experienced multiple big life-changing events over the last 18 months. It’s difficult to process it all right now, so what do we do? Well, I can tell you that getting frustrated and annoyed with yourself will only make it worse. A better route might be to love ourselves. I’m working on saying “Oh, you’re feeling anxiety. That’s ok. You won’t feel this way forever.” “Oh, you forgot milk. That’s ok. You can come up with a plan B.” “Oh, you’re not 100% today. That’s ok, no one is 100% every day. You’re allowed to have a hard day too.”
God, help me to love myself the way I love my neighbor. Give me patience for myself. Make the voice inside my head kinder and more loving. Teach me to speak to myself the way you would speak to me. Amen.
