Lately I have been meditating on the word "taking cause of yourself" and thinking a great deal about what that really means. When I was a kid I went through some experiences that made me feel like I was ignored and no one cared about me. Many of us in fact have had this. Sometimes I think that is why some of us become artists. We were sad and felt alone and we loved drawing and creating and expressing our selves and people applauded our work and it made us feel good and it was just a way to really escape. But the thing I also don't realize is that the life of an artist is one where a great deal of hours of your life is spent away from people and isolated in your own world.
That is ok for some but an artist also needs to feel love and affection and all these other things so you have to change your thoughts and be able to go out and meet loving affectionate people. When I felt like no one cared about me as a child I also decided I wasn't good enough to be cared about and I have noticed now that that decision to not care for myself also gave others permission not to care. It is like a weird cycle. How can an individual that does not take care of themselves or respect themselves or love themselves bring that same love and respect they desire into their life? Even if it is standing in front of their face they would be blind to it cause they don’t think they are worth loving.
You stand in a mirror in the morning before school and say you hate yourself and you are ugly and then you go to school and someone spits in your face or calls you fat. The question is, did they spit in your face because they hate and don’t care about you or is it the reverse, cause you don’t care about yourself the other person saw you as a target for taking out their own anger and self-hatred.
I had an experience once as a kid where a bully was teasing me calling me names and honestly the stuff they were saying was so ridiculous that I just started laughing!! Not the reaction they were looking for. I laughed so hard they walked away and that person never bothered me again. Thing is I didn’t believe any of the stuff they were saying was true or let it hurt me. But what if I had, would they have come back for more teasing and downgrading? Positivity can be disarming in a negative situation.
So, now the question I am asking myself is what does it really mean to take care of myself. Does it mean I tell myself how much I love myself and made other people love me as I deserve to be cared for. What are the actions I take that allow me to prove to myself I care. I know one thing I would do. Stop punishing myself with food. I would say Arie you deserve more than a night of binge eating in from of a TV by yourself. And my action in return would be choosing to do something that would make me feel good instead of eating garbage.
Changing that thought would allow me to make a better decision. I might say hey I love dancing lets go dance instead. I think that taking care of yourself means recognizing your own destructive behavior and deciding you deserve better and them choosing to do something loving and nurturing for your self.
So what if you are feeling lonely and unloved cause the person you thought loved you did something you didn’t like. All you really want after that experience is to feel loved and accepted and maybe even be hugged by some loving arms. But what if there are no loving arms around. Well who is to say that someone else giving you that embrace would truly make you feel better. You might get 1000 hugs from 1000 different people, but until you accept that you deserve better than the mistreatment you received and in a since embrace yourself and pamper and love you, you will always feel hurt. ALWAYS!!! You can’t change another person’s thoughts on who they think you are and how they treat you but you can very well change your own and until a person makes a personal decision to do so they will not be able to receive the love they are seeking. I really think life is as simple as that. Doing a good deed is not simply enough you have to do good things for both yourself and other. When I say good things for yourself I mean making yourself look nice cause you like looking nice, taking a walk cause you want to do good things for your body, making healthy food choices and letting go of bad experiences and sadness cause you deserve positivity and to be cheerful and happy.
Stand in front of a mirror and instead of putting yourself down tell yourself how much you love yourself. It isn’t about being vain it is about true self-respect. Cause love really starts with number 1. The old saying that you should treat others as you want to be treated has never been truer. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and do unto yourself as you would have other do unto you.
Ask yourself this question today If I was my friend would I like the treatment I am receiving from my friend. Would you do and say the same things you say to yourself on a daily bases to other people you love and care about.
~Arie
