A couple of the bloggers in the Talk Thursday circle posted comments on my TT post from Thursday, which sparked an angry fire in me. Now, this is no reflection on JulieAnn or Sideon, it is merely a fact of my life. The comment, "When you love yourself, Ang, it will happen," just really pisses me off.
For two reasons:
1) All that I want for my life, all I desire to have, all that I long to be... all that is hinged on that statement. Ang, if you want to have desire back in your life, you've gotta love yourself. Ang, if you want to have a healthy partnership, ya gotta love yourself first. If you want to be successful, you're gonna have to love yourself.
Okay, I hear the messages loud and clear, people. Every time you and you and you have said that to me, I have heard it. What is, is... the statement is absolute Greek to me. Which leads me to item number two...
2) If I knew how to do that, I would be doing it. Judging by the obvious results and the feedback as of late, I apparently am lacking the know how in this department.
I feel afraid about that because I completely understand the theory of "If you don't love you, no one can love you." However, people have loved me in the past. Some people still do. Does that mean that, at one point, I knew how to love me? Or does that mean that I just attracted people who were as broken as me so we made one whole? (My guess would be the latter.)
I asked my mother this question in a blurting fury one day, "Good god, Mom. Everyone keeps telling me that I need to love myself. What the fuck does that mean? How do I do that???!"
She answered me with equal intensity, slamming her book shut and looking at me like I had momentarily gone insane, "Angie, perhaps you aren't recognizing that you do love yourself. Look at all you do for yourself, Ang. These classes. The personal inner work. The new business. All of that. Perhaps you already are loving yourself and you just don't realize it. Perhaps you need to do what you tell me to do: look at it differently!"
Okay... so... could it be? Could it be that I do love myself? I mean, I am alive still so I know that I love myself enough to choose life when I could have chosen death. However, perhaps I love myself more than just enough. Perhaps I do love myself and I can have what all I want, be what all I want.
Hmmmmm... perhaps...
4 comments:
One of the hallmark signs, I've found, that I love myself is, I'm comfortable in my own skin. I'm not trying to be something for someone else or some organization. I'm being me for me and everyone else can go fuck themselves.
Seriously.
Part of that is living a life that is genuine, authentic, and unapologetic. Of course, only you can determine whether the first two are operative in your life. The last one is a function of accepting and loving you for you and finally looking at everyone else around you and saying, "If you have a problem with who I am, that's you're problem. Not mine. And I'm not sorry any longer."
My two cents...
Janet
No offense or criticism was meant by my comment, directly or indirectly. Admittedly, one of my inherent remnants of Mormonism is passive-agressive behavior, but my comment in this case was meant as a universal observation. You can take it or leave it, nothing more or less, because frankly we don't know each other. Neither of us needs to be overly concerned with tip-toeing around your feelings or my one feeling. We either speak our mutual truths or we don't. We either listen or we don't. Neither of us can be more or less invested than that, netiquettely speaking.
As for this specific post, I hope you find that you're on the side of "love me" versus "love me not" as the post-title suggests. I wish you well on whatever path you choose to travel.
Jay~
Thank you, dear. I appreciate that feedback and another way to look at it. As I have asked this question of several different people, as you can imagine, I have received many different answers. I am taking what feels good for me and leaving the rest. I am trying yours on. Thank you.
Sid,
No offense was taken, actually, from the original comments. You just happened to say the very right thing that I needed to hear which went straight into my heart/gut. You were only, like, the sixth person to say something similar so I figured it was time to take a look.
Thank you for your comments. I welcome them at any time - especially if they go to my gut because that is where I need to look more often.
With love to both of you,
Angie
Abgue, I think Tewkes said it very well. It is seeing that you are a good and worthy person without having to be validated by someone else. When you are happy in your skin like that, being validated by someone else is frosting on the cake.
Sadly we are trained from our earliest days to please others, it isn't until those traits are far instilled into us that we need to realize we are as important as they are...in fact we are more important internally than they are and it is we that we have to live with (borrowing the victorian we in this case.)
It is the same as me wishing you peace, it isn't peace in your life as much as it is peace for you within.
Sith
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