Advent 1 Loving Yourself; Care for Yourself

The qualities of love proposed by Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving, are giving, care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. What I would like to do is to explore these themes during Advent to see what they mean when applied to loving ourselves.  I believe that we need to love ourselves before we can truly love others.  Today I want to explore ‘care’ as an aspect of loving yourself.

 First, I want to recognize that the first challenge in loving yourself is that it may seem to be selfish and self-centred.   Many of us grew up with the belief, transmitted to us either directly or indirectly, that we should put others first.  We should not put our own wants and needs ahead of others.  We are to love one another forgetting that the rest of this is Jesus loving us.  The question before us today is, how do we care for ourselves as part of loving ourselves?

The first step to do this is to realize in the depth of our being, that to care for ourselves is not selfish.  We might say that we understand that.  However, to understand with our heads, is not the same as understanding in our hearts – in the depth of our beings.  That is not easy and to truly know this in the deepest sense can and probably does not come quickly.  It requires attention over time. 

To be honest, I am not sure what the next step should be – or rather- I think there may be different steps for different people.  One possibility is to find something which resonates with you and tells you that you are cared for by God.  To resonate with you it is likely to be on a non-intellectual level. What comes to mind for me is the hymn, Jesus Loves Me – you know the one:  

Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong;
they are weak, but he is strong.

Refrain:
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.

It can be anything that resonates with you on a deep level and has the message that you are loved and cared for by the person or being that truly matters for you.  This can become your mantra which is repeated as a prayer which you use regularly.  I was going to say daily or even more frequently.  However, that would not be caring for yourself.  An important part of caring for yourself is to cut yourself some slack.  It is okay - and even expected by the creator – that you are not perfect and are not called to be perfect.  Just do it whenever and however, and see what happens.   I guess that is the third step – sorry for not being well organized in laying out the steps, but I’m not perfect either.

Finally, I suggest that we need to create space within ourselves for us to care for ourselves.  I won’t say anything more about that with the hope that it will be addressed in the other aspects of my Advent musings. 

In summary (my attempt to be well-organized) , here are the four steps that I hope will help you to care for yourself.

1.       1. Recognize that caring for yourself is not selfish or self-centred.

2.       2. Find something which resonates with you and tells you that you are truly cared for.

3.       3. Cut yourself some slack.

4.      4.  Create space within yourselves

Have a blessed Advent and take care of yourself on your Advent journey.