How many times have you given all of your love to anyone else but yourself? How often do you fool yourself that if you show how deep and carrying your love is same will come back to you and fill you? Which person you usually put first - your child, your spouse, your family, etc. ?
Don’t get me wrong - giving love is the best you can do. And for sure the love and kindness you give out will come back to you in some way, share or form. But what you’re looking for outside of yourself will never complete you, will never make you feel the way you’re longing so desperately at times to feel.
There are different kinds of love, although the core feeling is the same. What we miss to acknowledge many times in our lives, especially when we’re young or unexperienced, is that the love we want is only possible to be received from someone or something outside of us. The love that we want has never been and will never be anywhere else but inside of our own Self.
The true ability to love and care about others is first reflected on the ability to love yourself. The way you treat yourself is crucial. We tent to give more than we actually have, emptying our own cup completely dry, giving to those we love from desperation and lack rather than abundance and fulfilment. What happens then? - we need up with a burn out, illness, relationship collapse and satisfaction. We say we did everything for them, we did everything they wanted, but what did we do for ourselves, what did you did for you?
How many times you neglected your own needs to please someone else, even if it’s your own child, to then receive unappreciation that made you feel even emptier? It’s hard to say no and ignore the needs of your loved ones, but you cannot give what you don’t have already. If you try to, and we all have done it, you do both party a disservice - you end up lacking value for them and drying out inside. A so called ‘act of love’ turns into a demonstration of toxic trades, patterns and behaviours.
Even on the plane they say “put your own oxygen mask first” - you can’t help outers if you don’t take care of yourself First. This is not a selfish act, but a necessity. It’s not something to be ashamed about, rather the contrary - showing act of self care is the way to teach your children and loved ones the importance and benefits of self-care, value and potential there is in the act.
So next time you feel tired, want to spent time with yourself, have a desire to nurture yourself in any way - do it! Do it for you, for your inner child and that will reflect on your current relationships. Your children will be happier to spent time with self-fulfiller parent, who let them drink from their overflowing cup.
You deserve it by birth right.
