I love the voice of the singer Norah Jones. I played her Come Away With Me album so much, I fear that I may have turned the rest of my family off to her. But I think Norah Jones has one of the most gorgeous, soothing, silvery singing voices I have ever heard. The other day I was listening to her sing the remake of the Hank Williams song, “How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart?” It is a great remake and an easy song to sing along to, but then I got to thinking about the lyrics. We are supposed to feel sorry for the singer who has repeatedly been hurt by a straying lover. And you can’t help but feel sorry for the singer, to a point . . . . . . Then, after a while, if you were a good, true, honest friend to the singer, you would probably have to say, “Stop being a victim. Stop being complicit in your own pain. Take back your power. Love yourself.”
That may sound harsh, but it is true. When we stay in victim mode, we give away our power. When we stay with repeatedly abusive people and unchanging abusive situations, we start to fall into the realm of self-abuse. All abuse is wrong. Self-abuse is abuse. Accepting abuse is self-abuse. Again, all abuse is wrong.
We’ve been conditioned to love others, take care of others and to be “selfless.” But the truth is, we can’t give our best love to others without truly loving ourselves first. Hurting people hurt people.
“If the nasty voices in conditioned mind are allowed to be cruel to us, it will follow as the night, the day, that we will be cruel to others. That’s just the way it is. We can’t be with anyone else in ways that we are not with ourselves.” – Cheri Huber
I was discussing the above quote with friends and a few of them didn’t agree with it. They felt that they could be loving and kind to others and still be incredibly harsh to themselves. And that may be true to a point, but if you are unfailingly loving to yourself wouldn’t it all but guarantee that you would only know love as a way of being? If your only way of being is the the way of love, then it follows that it wouldn’t be possible to be anything but loving to yourself and to others. Why should loving yourself not be a part of the equation?
“The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself. And if you have that, any other relationship is a plus and not a must.” – Diane von Furstenberg
If you learn to love yourself the way that you want to be loved, you are fulfilled. In that sense, when you enter into any relationship you are bringing a fulfilled, whole person into the partnership or friendship or relation. There is not neediness or expectation, just the joy of shared love, commonalities and experiences. In healthy relationships you are enhancing each other’s lives, bringing fullness and excitement and mutual interest to each other’s experiences. But you are not dependent on the other person to create that fullness, excitement, and interest. You are multiplying it together.
Charlie Chaplin said, “As I began to love myself, I freed myself of anything that is not good for my health- food, people, things, situations and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is Love of Oneself.”