How Much Do You Love Yourself?

This thought was inspired by a wonderful blog post written by Qupid, Write A Love Poem To Yourself and my last post about anger, written months and months ago. That post brought up a sludge of memories about my dad, who was consumed with anger all his life and took it out on our family. Near the end of his life, I was visiting him with a niece in the nursing home he was placed in. As we were leaving, we gave him hugs, kissed him goodbye and told him how much we loved him. Pops said he loved us and then angrily spat out, “But I don’t love myself!”

Well, of course, we couldn’t leave then. We stayed and pleaded with him, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t say “I love myself.” We finally left, but on another visit, he apologized to me for all the lousy things he had said and done. I know that he especially felt very bad that I no longer played piano and that it was because of him. I accepted his apology, and asked again about loving himself. He still refused to say that he loved himself. And you know what? I realized that in some areas of my life, I didn’t love myself either. I never truly learned how to fully appreciate myself and carried his and my mom’s burden, who sacrificed her life to a man who never appreciated her.

So when I saw this blog post, I knew that this is something I have to do. It’s funny, putting something in writing gets it out of floating around in your mind and makes it real. And I knew that it would help me tie up a few loose ends.

When parents are flying with their children, in case of emergency, they’re told to put on the oxygen mask on themselves first. If they can’t save themselves, they can’t save their children. This applies to any relationship with someone we love: we must love ourselves first before we can truly love another. So even if you feel you love yourself, maybe you’ve never written a love poem or letter to yourself.

It might be fun to get what’s in your heart about yourself on paper (or a Word doc!), so check out Qupid’s love poem writing tips. And maybe the one you love might want to also do this. It might be interesting to share with each other how you really feel about yourself!

There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. —Martha Graham