“You have to love yourself first to love other people”. Have you heard this before?
Do you think it’s true? Well, if you are like me, you’ve heard it before and cringe. Or wonder how to do this because you love other people SO much and to turn that towards yourself feels strange and selfish.
It’s partially true, but needs further explanation.
❤️ Loving yourself DOES help relationships. It might be one of the most important things you can do to become more balanced, more forgiving of yourself, more rested and nourished.
❤️ Loving yourself first avoids being a martyr and feeling resentful while making everyone else feel guilty.
❤️ Loving yourself first helps you to bring your best self forward and this, in turn makes others feel better. In fact, it is far more important that doing everything for them in the long run.
Your truly loving relationships want to see you thrive, expand and share that light with them.
AND, we are all loving, giving people here who prioritize our relationships and want them to thrive. We WANT to give to them, want to help them and see them be happy. Right?
That is beautiful and if we just focussed on ourselves it would feel icky.
🌹 The middle ground is this: to focus on the true connection with yourself in any given moment, to feed your own soul and at the same time love the connection you have with others.
Feeling connected involves letting others be who they are as well and when you feel good, it’s much easier to do that. Develop your own supports, your own friendships and hobbies so you do not put the responsibility on your people to make you feel good. That is a recipe for disaster and at the same time, it’s normal to feel bad when you are in conflict or your kids say mean things to you.
🔑 Go easy on yourself. You are doing your best. And when you accept all parts of yourself this gets more and more clear.
🔑 A key for me has been letting go of the conditioning that is hard on me, that tells me I’m not a good mother or I need to fit into a mold that someone else created.
➡️ If you are ready to shake loose that mold and really dive deep into all parts of yourself to find true freedom (yes, it is inside you), then join me next week for Choose Yourself: Awaken Your Aliveness. It will shake loose the conditioning that keeps you striving and feeling not-good-enough. Uggh, it’s a terrible way to feel and certainly does not help your relationships).
Find out more here: Choose Yourself.
I am SO looking forward to it. I will cover the content of my book that will be coming out in a month (or so!) and it has been a game-changer for me and many women who have taken my course Breaking the Feminine Codes.
This is your chance for the mini-version.
Ok, I have a flight to catch!
Madeleine
