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.