Rethinking self-love.

"We love because he first loved us." --1 John 4:19

A while back, I had what the previous pastor at my church used to call a "BFO" -- Blinding Flash of the Obvious, for those who aren't familiar with the term. And it had to do with loving yourself, and why that maybe isn't such a horrible thing. (And by that I mean, maybe is actually one of the best things you can do for yourself and others.) I have a lot of thoughts surrounding this topic, so I'll try my best to make sense of them.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, and I discovered that we had coincidentally both happened on the same thought around the same time. And it's this: Maybe the reason that so many of us have a problem loving our neighbors as ourselves is because... we don't actually love ourselves. And not only do we not love ourselves, we also have the tendency to hate and lash out against ourselves. So what does it really mean when you say to someone who behaves this way, "Treat others in the same manner you treat yourself"? Granted, human beings are generally self-centered by nature, but I don't believe that selfishness and self-love are the same thing. You can be incredibly selfish and still despise yourself at the same time. Not a good combination. Maybe the phrase "self-love" makes you flinch, but I think it's been severely misrepresented.

(P.S. I apologize right now for the amount of "selfs" I have been and will be using in this blog post. Please don't hate me. Remember? Love your neighbors as yourself?? ...Okay, sorry, moving on.)

A guy named Brennan Manning kind of touched on this idea in his book Abba's Child. The entire first chapter, "Come Out of Hiding," deals with it and there are many wise things he writes that I could quote, but I'll take this part:

"One of the most shocking contradictions in the American church is the intense dislike many disciples of Jesus have for themselves. They are more displeased with their own shortcomings than they would ever dream of being with someone else's. They are sick of their own mediocrity and disgusted by their own inconsistency. (...) In my experience, self-hatred is the dominant malaise crippling Christians and stifling their growth in the Holy Spirit."

He then quotes Henri Nouwen, who says:

"Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the 'Beloved.' Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence."

There probably aren't many people more guilty of this than me. Okay, maybe there are, but in all seriousness... it has become my M.O. It permeates how I think, what I say, what I do, how I respond to others and in more ways than I could probably list. And I know so many people who are the same way. Hating yourself is very easy, isn't it? It's a knee-jerk response. But loving and being gentle to yourself? That's a whole different story.

The interesting thing is how this behavior seems to be even more prevalent among followers of Christ. It's an unspoken belief a lot of us have fallen prey to: that it's almost sinful or wrong to really accept grace and let yourself go; that somehow it's more justified and righteous to punish yourself. (Maybe that's where the idea of Purgatory came from?) I know it sounds really simple just saying that, but it's so hard to recognize in ourselves when we're doing it. It becomes our natural way of thinking if we let it get that far.

My mother, wise woman that she is, always says, "You have to be gentle with yourself. If you're not, who else will be? The world is harsh enough as it is without you heaping more burning coals on your own head." We are not our shortcomings or our perceived faults. Our identity is found in being the beloved of God -- how awesome of a truth is that?

I'm not promoting the idea of only being concerned about yourself. But I honestly believe that our care for others will benefit from our care for ourselves. As Manning says in Abba's Child, "The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others." We're in this together, after all. If we learn to let God forgive us and free us from all our anxiety about ourselves, that huge chunk of consciousness will be freed to devote itself to other things. And in learning to love ourselves as God loves us, we will have refined ability in extending the same grace and love to others.

Coming out of hiding.

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.”
--Marianne Williamson

Okay, so another thing I've met with when it comes to this whole writing publicly thing is the fear of letting people see into my thoughts, and the fear that someone will read them and go, "Wow... lame." So there's a creative part of me that thrives on expressing those thoughts and sharing them with other people, and yet there's also the larger, very real part of me that is completely terrified of that same thing.

What if I say something that makes total sense to me, but it's nothing but a jumble of mishmash to someone else? What if I pose a question that sounds completely idiotic? Do I really want to expose and let people see that part of me? And... what if I say something that makes someone reject me as a person? Those are the kinds of doubts that inevitably rear their ugly heads when I write with the knowledge that what I'm writing will be seen by someone else.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that another purpose of this blog is to try to conquer that fear. I remember even having that fear when I was about eight years old, the time when I thought that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. In my eight-year-old mind, when I thought about the kinds of books that I would someday write, I always had it figured out that I would use a pen name. After all, if you used a pen name, then you were totally protected from judgment. If people were going to judge harshly, I reasoned, at least they'd be judging a person who did not actually exist. None of it would fall directly on my shoulders. No one would know it was me. I could essentially bare my soul and remain safe and anonymous at the same time.

And now that I think about it, I think that it's pretty tough to be a good writer and also be "safe." Writing kind of comes with a certain rule -- that when you allow others to see your work, you open yourself up to criticism, both good and bad. Because doesn't it stand to reason that, if you are protected from people insulting you, you are also barred from truly enjoying success? I mean, what if J.K. Rowling -- or any other famous author, for that matter -- had used a pen name and no one knew who she actually was? No one would have been able to tell her directly, "I love your writing" or "Your books are so fantastic!" or anything like that. Because they wouldn't have known who she was.

A pen name is kind of like hiding. I think you can write good books and remain unknown -- I could name a few who have -- but I guess it sort of comes down to your intent. I don't want to be a professional writer anymore, but when I had that ambition, mine would have been to hide my identity to escape from people -- more so the people I knew personally -- realizing it was me and criticizing me based on my writing.

So I'm writing all of this now, and I'm just... me. (Granted, this isn't exactly a novel, but maybe that's a good thing.) And I guess all I'm hoping for is that eventually, with time, prayer, and a little work, the fear of failure and of judgment will be diminished.

"There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love."
--1 John 4:18 (The Message)

Hello, world!

Yes, I know... I started a blog. But before I get going, just to clear things up: I didn't do it just because it's kind of a hot trend lately or because a few friends of mine have them. I've been considering it for quite a while, mainly because -- as an introspective person by nature -- there are lots of ideas constantly simmering in my brain, and expressing them actually helps me process them myself. So that's the basic purpose of my doing this.

Another is that, well... I just find a huge enjoyment in writing. I have since I was little. (I believe I still have some ancient beginnings of short stories and novels lying around in my house somewhere.) And there's nothing quite like a brand new notebook, which is something I always looked forward to when I was in school at the beginning of every new class. Just another simple bit of life that I treasure.

My mother and sister also love writing and are very talented at it. One of my favorite things that my sister has ever said to me on the subject is, "I love filling out paperwork!" When I asked her why, she replied, "Because getting it done gives me the joy of accomplishing something." And I admire her hugely for that statement, because that's not how I function at all. This is the same reason why, in every honors course I ever took in school, I always dreaded the inevitable research papers. (Side note: I also had an annual musical analysis paper to write for choir. Yes, choir. But with that one, I loved that it broke the stereotype of choir being an "easy class." So not true, and it was definitely better for it.) In fact, there is only one paper I ever wrote that I remember with fondness, and that is the one where I decided to analyze Shakespeare's 116th sonnet for my college English class in the 11th grade. Other than that, I don't actually recall enjoying any of them.

I never liked research papers because they always seemed to come with too many rules. Do this. Don't do that. Write in rigidly proper grammar. Never start a sentence with And or But. Remember the format: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. State your thesis this way, but not that way. Make it at least 5 pages, but no longer than 7. Rules, rules, rules. There were just too many of them for my liking. So when I took a creative writing class my junior year of high school, I suddenly felt that I was able to write -- and breathe -- much more easily and freely. There were still some rules, of course, but they were fewer and considerably less constraining than those attached to research papers. I think it's kind of like that part in Amadeus when the Emperor tells Mozart, "There are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect." There are simply too many rules.

So, that's why this comes in handy. Not so many rules and restrictions to adhere to. (Even right there, I had a debate with myself about whether I should phrase that in the grammatically correct way: to which to adhere. And I didn't. Oh well, so sue me.) I've already got some thoughts cooking in my brain, and hopefully those will come out in the next couple weeks or so. This could turn out very bad, but it could also turn out very good. I'm pulling for the latter.