Monday, April 19, 2010

A hug for you and one for me.....

Self love. Two small words with enormous meaning. They can be filled with false hope, false confidence even false promises if they are not sincere. Everyone wants them, few people have them, and even fewer will attain them. I used to think self love is when all the planets aligned and you had everything. Looks, money, fame, love......and all those magical things together made you happy. WRONG!!!!!! Self love has nothing to do with those things, but it can provide happiness if you can achieve it. All my life I was busy chasing rainbows. Empty promise after empty promise. I think I was one of the "unfortunates, I was born that way". If you examine my home life there should not have been a need for gratification. I came from a loving home, good parents, brothers, had everything I could have ever wanted and yet there was always this little hole in my heart. Tiny at first, then when I became a teenager it started to grow. I always thought the latest fashions, or the newest boyfriend, or the best party would bring me happiness. I was on a quest, I would fill up that hole or die trying. The year I was married my husband and I had a brand new home, a huge wedding, and then 11 months after we were married a beautiful baby boy. It still wasn't enough! More, I needed more...this hole kept getting bigger you see, and no matter how much I put into it, it just got emptier and emptier. I went back to college, earned my degree, had two more children, acccumulated tons of debt, pushed away my husband, pushed away those that loved me, put on a facade and the hole was still empty. But wait, somewhere in all of this I did find something. Alcohol, it made me not care if the hole was still empty. There, now I could keep searching, and be numb at the same time. Sooner or later I would find the key to happiness........I did, I just didn't expect it to be a dingy, smoke smelling old church, with swinging doors and people who could hand me my life back. I could finally rest, give up my quest to fill the hole and stop the caos my world had become. I started to fill that hole without even knowing it. By the simple act of self acceptance, self love. I started to examine past choices, started to see them for what they are, just past choices, not to be repeated again, and to move on. I started to take care of myself because I am worthy of loving, and giving, and celebrating this thing called life. Some days even though I have so long to go, the learning will never end, the changing and growth, but I can have moments of such joy and it's because I allow myself to love myself. I wish there was a little bottle of "self-love" and I could run around giving everyone I meet a tsp. of that magic. The world would surely be a better place to be, because when you love yourself, you stop focusing on yourself, you allow yourself to love, to be loved, to understand, to be understood, to forgive, and to be forgiven. The key to happiness lies in each of us, if only we venture in that darkness and look for it...for you see there is a light at the end of the tunnel, its our inner light and may it always be an eternal flame for all of us........

4 comments:

  1. By George I think you got it! By loving yourself, you are able to love others. By loving others you are helping them to love themselves.

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  2. good stuff :-) It has taken me a long time to love myself again. I still mess that up at times but I am better. It's a life-long process for this alcoholic. I am glad to see you're on that path :-)

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  3. Self love is something that I have had to work hard on. But I put myself at the top of my amends list and that has helped. I wrote out a letter to myself, making amends for how I hadn't cared for me over the years. It felt good.

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  4. Thank you so much for this. This has been an enormous area of focus for me with the program. It never really occurred to me much before, but now I know that I can't really extend myself to others unless I've dealt first with my own issues.

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