…As You Love Yourself.

***Disclaimer: I make references here about Christian beliefs but I am a proponent of acknowledging all religions based on love. The use of the word God may bring up a different image for you and is in no way meant to “push” my belief upon you but to convey my own personal experience. I hope you’ll give me the time to read what I have to say about love.

A few days ago, I heard the saying, “You can't fill the cup of others if you have an empty cup yourself.” It caused me to reflect on the many beliefs that we have in Christianity.

I, personally, had always referred to myself as Christian in the past. But my analysis of what I was being taught as the “Christian” way of living frequently left me feeling like something was off. I couldn’t put my finger on it for years. I felt a stirring conviction in my soul about certain acts that I had witnessed that seemed unkind - both within my Christian community and in my secular community.

In 2017, I began a period of deconstructing my faith. Similar to tearing down a built lego structure, I started picking apart, piece by piece, what I had learned about Christianity and asking huge questions of it.

It wasn’t fun at all.

It felt very lonely, scary, confusing, depressing, and many other emotional attributes that are too long to list. As I broke apart what I thought I knew to be true and real started to become undone. The list of these beliefs is too numerous to name so I’ll spare you the details but what truth emerged as my central focus and stability was that Jesus commanded 2 things: To love God. And love others as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40). Many translations occur for these verses but they all say the same thing. Love God. Love others as you love yourself.

It has taken me 3 years to settle into and clarify what this truth meant for me. This process is still ongoing but the part of the scripture that highlighted a major issue for me was not the “love God” part. It was the part about loving others as you love yourself. That part? That evoked the additional truth that I didn’t really love myself so what could I possibly know about loving others? And if I don’t love myself, how many others are in the same dilemma? Do they even know they have this dilemma?

While I became very angry about the way that I was taught to be a Christian, discovering this truth for myself softened my heart towards the myriad of teachers/pastors/congregants that I learned from. I’m still working on this area as behaviors arise that trigger my irritation. But having the understanding that love expressions can only be conveyed as the reflection of a person’s heart capacity to give love has been illuminating.

In other words, we are showing love to others despite the possibility that we don’t have a humble love for ourselves.

I say humble love because most of us do have, at least, a survival-based love for ourselves. Otherwise, we wouldn’t give ourselves food, water, rest, or engage in relationships. That is a necessary self-love to keep surviving. A person who is not spiritually connected to the self will still try to survive by eating, drinking, and sleeping.

I also say humble because there are some who love the self so much that their actions are patterned to serve the self, and only the self, even at the cost of others’ well-being and safety. I call this an arrogant love for the self. They would be the ones pushing people out of the way in a building fire or taking the last seat in the lifeboat of a sinking ship. This type of attitude towards the self is for preservation and an “every person for their self” mentality.

But a humble love? That’s the golden nugget of them all. A humble love for the self is recognizing your intrinsic worth, valuing your gifts, establishing boundaries to keep yourself safe, recognizing your limitations and negative behavioral patterns with a compassionate approach for self-correction or regulation, and practicing an overall kindness to yourself without destructive criticism. There are certainly other attributes of a humble love of the self but those listed were the highlights that came to my mind.

Imagine treating yourself with this humble love. How easy it would become to naturally project that to others! But, it starts with you.

I recognized in myself that I was not kind to myself, didn’t feel that I had value enough to speak up or out about my own gifts, talents, or even limitations. I did not even trust my own concept of worth and certainly only had limited trust in others. As I observed others through this lens, I was always questioning their motives. I became critical, judgmental, assessing my rank and file among everyone I met or had in my life. “Where is my place in this situation and how can I stand apart,” became the question that was prevailing in my spirit. I was either accepting that I was lower in value than someone or above someone in moral code of conduct. Neither of these is the language of humility. This is not to say that I was necessarily unkind to others in action but I was caught up in the competition realm of existence in my thought life.

As I dissected my understanding of the scriptural phrase, “…love others as well as you love yourself,” (another translation of the verse in The Message), it occurred to me that a love of self for survival or a love of the self with humility would best serve the “others” that verse refers to. Having a love of others for the sake of their survival would be to ensure that they have the basic human needs - food, clothing, and shelter to rest. That love is easier to address if one has money to throw at the cause. But not all do. What is free and can be offered without any money, however; is showing a love of others by seeing them, valuing their presence as a sentient being on this earth, respecting their boundaries, supporting them as they discover the gifts that they have, and accepting them right where they are is an act of love that is humble.

To be clear, there are some that are combative, toxic, unkind, and are of the “arrogant self-lovers” group that would make extending a humble love difficult. In this situation, it is appropriate to distance yourself from them with healthy boundaries. Likely, they are too caught up in their own hurt or self-centeredness to even recognize that they are caught up, to begin with. Does this make sense? A loving extension of humility would be to let them know you can’t engage with them in this pattern and state your availability when they are ready to be open to peace or reconciliation. The key to this is to keep yourself open to reinstating the relationship once the other person has indicated that they are willing to reciprocate a humble extension of love. If their pattern is to be peaceable only for a time before reverting back to their old, grueling ways. Restate the boundary and start all over again. But keeping yourself in a safe and loving mindset is essential to retaining your own ability to love humbly.

In no way do I profess to be formally educated in psychology, sociology, or even theology as a justification to categorize my translation of the different. types of love. I have done this as a way to form my own perspective on how to understand my world and interactions with myself and others. I hope this helps you to reflect on your interactions and gives you a way forward as you navigate the space you are in.

Epilogue:

As I wrote this piece about humility and humble love, someone had opened my gate and my 2 schnauzers escaped. Unbeknownst to me, they were roaming the neighborhood. A person whom I had previously had a minor falling out with pulled up in my driveway with one of my schnauzers in their arms. The other dog was still missing. They spent about an hour with me searching through the cornfields and country roads for my other dog. They didn’t stop until he was found and I was able to call him to me. As my little dude ran towards me from the middle of a 7-acre cornfield, my heart recalled the hurt that I had towards these persons, and the appreciation for what they did for me was that much more pronounced because they absolutely did not have to help me after our difficulty but they did. Even after our issue, they still extended a humble love towards me and I was immediately brought to humility myself.