As a people pleaser it's no surprise that I am forever friendly. I am however, grateful and blessed to finally be friends with myself.
Years ago I read "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert introducing the notion of being one's own comforter. I filed that profound idea in the "things that will change my life some day" area of my tangled mind with most things that move me one moment and are forgotten the next.
But I never forgot. It kept coming back to me during times of overwhelming emptiness yet I never had enough self worth to love this girl.
A few months ago a perfect storm of tragedies led me to a cross roads, a bottom, the place where I needed to change who I had become. I had no self-love but the people around me loaned me enough to hold me up until I started to believe I was worth fighting for.
This is when Gilberts' words came back to me and I started to see myself as a scared, broken women who needed a friend to love and comfort her unconditionally. I decided to be my own best friend.
I can accept her; as I do my other friends, for who she is, quirks, shortcomings and all. I can sing her praises without feeling boastful. I can comfort her when no one is there and imagine holding my own hand or stroking my own hair when I need a moment of recovery from these rough seas.
I am lucky enough to know my purpose in life is to be a lover; a soft place in a hard world and there is no better place to start than with me. If I feel loved I can love others so much more authentically.
1 comment:
How true and beautifully written. Trials tend to bring us to a place where we finally submit to what we need to understand. We can provide what others cannot to ourselves. The universe, God, whatever name you use, can be the father, mother, lover to us. And then we can share this with others. For we cannot share what we do not have.
Post a Comment