Self-Love

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SELF-LOVE

First, some personal joy to share. We welcomed another grandchild this week. Witnessing your own children growing their families, one-by-one, is both a surreal and spiritual awakening. It's one of these things in life that can't be explained. Only felt. And in a world with perhaps too much debate, arguments, and disagreements, these experiences are a very welcomed and blessed message of love, hope, and deep meaning.

This week, I will try a slightly different "approach". I will be very brief and introduce two ideas. Big ideas. I will also link to one talk based on the first idea and then wait until next week to give you content for the second idea.

Why the wait? I’m mirroring the experience of attending the TED conference. You are exposed to many ideas. Some of them grab you and move you. Others might simply just register. And for life reasons, as well as TED's own prioritization in releasing the talks, many months can pass before you are able to revisit ideas that you were exposed to a long time ago.

So, without further ado, two ideas that I have been thinking about lately are:

First, the notion of Self-Love and what that entails. Is it possible that much of the anger and division we experience actually can be traced to people not showing sufficient respect and love for themselves? Can we love others if we don't love ourselves?

Second, the illusion of continuity. I will discuss this more next week, but the headline is this. As humans, we are willing and able to recognize that we have changed when looking back, but we are more reluctant to appreciate how much we will change going forward. It’s a fascinating human truth that none of us properly factor in when we make decisions about our future. At our peril! More on that next week.

But back to self-love. This is not about a more egocentric world. No, thanks. We don’t need that; we have plenty of it already. And it is also not about necessarily making more room for individuality and self-expression, even though we, of course, should welcome that. This is more about truly being ok with our own blemishes and welcoming, appreciating, and learning from our own regrets.

None of us are perfect. Many of us beat ourselves up way too much for our mistakes and our shortcomings. And because we don’t cope so well with our own disappointments, we don't extend sufficient compassion and empathy toward others, either.

We are no strangers to supporting people we love. We see remarkable acts of love in our communities all the time. Look at when we have natural disasters, the recent pandemic or even watching people with their pets. We see it all the time. But do we include ourselves in the category of people we love. Are we the target audience? I am not so sure.

If you double-click on the reports of increasing levels of anxiety and mental illnesses, you can often find a level of self-doubt, self-apprehension, and self-uncertainty. When the world around us is changing, and poses new and unfamiliar challenges, it is easy to lose confidence in your place in it. That’s when we need a commitment to self-love more than ever.

Again, this is not at all about a “rah-rah” or “think positive” kind of attitude. Absolutely and positively not. It’s about just being kinder to yourself and allowing for more vulnerability. When we do, I think we become more open-minded and also more interested and willing to listen to other people’s stories and extend the same kind of love to them. That’s exactly what we need today. Love is not a zero-sum resource where there is a finite level of love units. No, love is a regenerative, compounding, and exponential type of energy. And love is not easily stored and therefore isn’t shelf-stable, it needs to be given away. So, the more we generate, the more we will share.

I can’t do this justice the way Dan Harris did in his remarkable TED talk from April of this year. His journey started with a panic attack on primetime TV. But that moment did not define him. Rather, with meditation, therapy, and a lot of commitment, he opened the door to insights around self-love that ultimately changed him and how he shows up in this world. I found it compelling, inspiring, important, and very culturally relevant. Please watch it here.

And, I guess, I’ll end with a cliffhanger of sorts for next week: None of us will be the same as we are today in 10 or 20 years. The question is: With what intention do we approach our own future? In what way do we wish to be different? Who do we want our future self to be?

Have a great week.