Monday, September 19, 2011

Nurturing Me

I read a poster recently which went like this :  

Be yourself - truthfully.  
Accept yourself - gracefully.  
Value yourself - joyfully.  
Forgive yourself - completely.  
Treat yourself - generously.  
Balance yourself - harmoniously.  
Bless yourself - abundantly.  
Trust yourself - confidently.  
Love yourself - wholeheartedly.  
Empower yourself - prayerfully.  
Give yourself - enthusiastically.  
Express yourself - radiantly.  

It is curious how frequently we devalue ourselves, thinking that our self-deprecation shows we are not totally self-absorbed, arrogant and insufferable human beings.  Plus it's been my experience that people who undervalue themselves tend to have a hard time valuing other people... I know - I used to BE one.  Sometimes I still AM one.  

The journey of inner healing can be described a journey of three relationships.  First is a relationship with God; second is a relationship with the self; last and just as important is a relationship with others.  If they are not in that order, the balance is off, and life is off-kilter.  

The relationships need to be nurtured.  It's not enough to make these into tick-boxes and say, "Yep, got that, got that, and got that.  Now what?" - it misses the point entirely.  They aren't badges on a cub scout or a girl guide sash.  

Relationship with God is an ongoing thing.  It requires feeding, nurturing.

So is relationship with the self.  

I found myself thinking earlier today about how I've defined self-nurture in the past and how I see it now.  Before, I used to see self-care or self-nurturing in the most negative or superficial of ways: anything from narcissism to spoiling myself with things that aren't good for me and calling THAT looking out for myself.  

Where does that come from?  I think part of it might come from the culture prevalent after the people who grew up during the Second World War got old enough to have children of their own.  They'd had so little that they vowed that their kids would never have it so hard.  And when they had kids, they made sure there was always more than enough to eat, that they never wanted for anything: toys, clothes, food.  The whole mentality behind that "things equals love" generation was that if you had it and you never had it growing up, it was great to give to your children, just lavish it on them - but it really ended up teaching a good many of us that how much stuff you owned (even if you had to go into debt to get it) was how you measured success; special dinners were how you communicated caring, and how you looked was more important than who you were inside.  

Now, I see self-care a little differently, and it is evolving as I continue on that adventure of healing.  It's developed into an acknowledgement that I am worth looking after - but lately I am starting to question exactly what that self-nurturing looks like.  Platitudes I've told myself to make myself feel better about my life and my choices no longer hold up against this newly-emerging sense of what it means to look after me.  

I think that I'm starting to grow up!  (Horrors!!  How did THAT happen?!?)  A lot of my time in recovery from codependency has been spent like someone who all his or her life had lived in a 6-foot x 8-foot bedroom with no room to move around - suddenly being granted a king-sized bedroom : 25 feet by 25 feet.  That is, running around, flailing my arms, screaming "I'm freeeee!" while I run round and round the bed.  But lately I have been doing some more thinking about what it means to look after myself.  It's surprising me what I'm coming up with that at one time, I would have rejected out of hand with a whole lot of labels that made me feel better about staying where I was, about not rocking the boat, about doing things that to me were (and are) "too hard."  

I don't know where all of this is going or even how to get there.  I do know, though, that in another couple of years (in spite of and perhaps because of all that has already changed in my life) I might not even recognize the person I am today.  I do know that I'm not alone in this journey. And I get the feeling that as scary as change is, someday I'll be able to look back at today and wonder why I never started to grow up sooner.

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