Excellent post, and further proof you must keep writing, Steve.
Regarding the CSL quotation given by another commented, what CSL seems to miss is that attention to one's own needs must take practical priority in many cases because you know your needs better than those of others. E.g., eating when hungry, going to the loo when you need to. But even beyond basic biology, you know your own mind better than that of others, usually, so you have the primary responsibility for your own mental health.
It can really be an uphill battle, loving one's self. In my case, it seems to be more a question of liking myself. I wish myself the best, but experience a deep dissatisfaction with that same self. At almost 70 I would really like if I and myself got along.
My internal self-worth monologues have sounded a lot like your vicious self-critiques. I picked it up from my father, who was the son of a man who had alcohol problems and verbally chewed on his family.
Dad never did that to us, but I overheard him doing it to himself, programmed by his past. So I did the same, verbalizing in every moment of stressed failure (or percieved failure). Once I started hearing my kids sound like me, I made a concerted effort to reassure the children that no, they should not think or speak that way. It is not fair to them, and it is flatly wrong.
Now, have I gotten out of the rut of vicious self-critique? No. But I have stopped verbalizing it around family and friends. And CBT has helped me contextualize and look at such episodes more objectively, which has blunted the negative process, if not eliminated it.
But does it ever take a lot of time and conscious effort. My prayers and hopes go with you, my brother. I absolutely believe you will get there.
I'd affirm your intuitions on Laura London's comment in your situation and I wouldn't let it bother you. (Pay no attention to other people's opinion of you.) I've thought about this a great deal and I've come to the conclusion that it's a complex issue. There's a healthy form of "self-love", as implied in the Gospels and explicit in Ephesians 5:29. But I think it's also true that some forms of self-hatred are subtle manifestations of pride; at least in my case it was. My past hatred of myself was not because I wished myself harm (as true hatred would be) but rather it was a refusal to accept who I was and my limitations, because I found the truth too humiliating to bear. I wanted to be something I was not (for example, "normal", whatever that means), and it made me unhappy. It took decades and a lot of anguish to work that out, but I eventually learned to embrace the way I am ("Can the pot say to the potter, why did you make me this way?") as something God can use and work with according to his purposes.
Thanks for sharing this. I am so sorry for the pain you are going through. My heart goes out to you. I've passed through similar places in my life and I can say that there is hope. Sometimes we have to be broken before we can be healed.
Don't believe the lies that are going through your head. You are worth a great deal, whether you realize it, or appreciate it right now, or not. You are worthwhile and valued. I wouldn't be praying for you and subscribing if you were not.
Thank you. This is a very interesting topic to me. I agree, I don't think your inner monologue is right. I think that both "love" and "selves" are so complicated that it can be very hard to say anything simple about this topic that, taken to an extreme or in the wrong way, doesn't turn into a disaster.
I wonder what you think of the following passage by CS Lewis? (I'm not even 100% sure what I think of it.)
"Now, the self can be regarded in two ways. On the one hand, it is God’s creature, an occasion of love and rejoicing; now, indeed, hateful in condition, but to be pitied and healed. On the other hand, it is that one self of all others which is called I and me, and which on that ground puts forward an irrational claim to preference. This claim is to be not only hated, but simply killed; ‘never’, as George Mac Donald says, ‘to be allowed a moment’s respite from eternal death’. The Christian must wage endless war against the clamour of the ego as ego; but he loves and approves selves as such, though not their sins. The very self-love which he has to reject is to him a specimen of how he ought to feel to all selves; and he may hope that when he has truly learned (which will hardly be in this life) to love his neighbor as himself, he may then be able to love himself as his neighbor; that is, with charity instead of partiality.
"The other kind of self-hatred, on the contrary, hates selves as such. It begins by accepting the special value of the particular self called me; then, wounded in its pride to find that such a darling object should be so disappointing, it seeks revenge, first upon that self, then on all. Deeply egoistic, but now with an inverted egoism, it uses the revealing argument, ‘I don’t spare myself’—with the implication ‘then a fortiori I need not spare others’—and becomes like the centurion in Tacitus, ‘More relentless because he had endured.’ The wrong asceticism torments the self: the right kind kills the selfness. We must die daily: but it is better to love the self than to love nothing, and to pity the self than to pity no one."
I don't think Lewis here quite avoids the problems I speak of, but the distinction is still interesting.
Fair. It doesn't sit quite right with me either. It feels like he's saying, on the one hand, that we celebrate selves, but on the other hand, saying we have a problem with a fundamental feature of selfhood. In fact, he says, "the right kind [of ascetisim] kills the selfness," and also says we "love and approves selves as such." There seems to be some tension there.
I'm not sure if that's my issue with it, but I have one, I think. I'm still reflecting on whether there's a reading of it I like, though.
Of all that you have written over these many months, Steve, this particular writing struck me right between the eyes.
For years, I have pondered the "Love thyself" part of the equation. It's gotten so bad, if I even hear the words "I love you", I immediately put them in my "what a crock" file.
I know me. And as the years pass, I see myself in a light that shines brightly on every negative aspect of my being. There's just nothing about me to love. Seriously.
So conflicted have I been, especially in light of the spiritual aspects taught for centuries that self-love is to be squelched, the contradiction serves to cause continual anguish.
I have failed miserably in every thing I have undertaken; sinned grievously, and don't get me started on how my "neighbors" aren't loved as myself.
All my life.
I just don't get it.
What is love anyway? Maybe that's the real question.
There are some things religion gets very right. I don't want to live in a society that isn't shaped by Christian virtue, for example.
But the masochistic self-loathing that is pushed by Catholicism (and some of the more puritanical forms of Protestantism) is soul-destroying, in my opinion.
I don't have any answers. I'm writing this from the bottom of a deep, dark well. But I know that if I ever want to climb out, I'm going to have to figure this out.
For the record, while it may be popular in certain Jansenistic circles, "masochistic self-loathing" is not endemic to the Catholic faith. (I have a hard time picturing St. Philip Neri as a masochistic self-loather, or St. Carlo Acutis, or many other saints.) Believers are sons and daughters of God, even Pope Francis has said with "infinite dignity". While there is and always will be an infinite gulf between God and us, necessitating a humility in the way we approach him, the doctrine of deification tells us that we are becoming by grace what Christ is by nature, becoming God in God, and I think that is really cool and not worth loathing at all.
I agree with you, Eric, I don't feel Jesus Christ wants us to hate ourselves. It doesn't matter how much we've messed up and failed and sinned. His mercy and love for each one of us is INFINITE. We have to TRY (to repent, get up and start over again after each fall--via confession) and we have to cooperate with His abundant graces. That was St. Faustina's core message: Divine Mercy is pouring out at each of us from Jesus Christ's Sacred Heart like an overflowing fount of Mercy and Love.
Why believe Faustina when Luminaries like Liguori said God only forgives a finite number of sins?
It would be so much easier if everyone stopped pretending we know anything God actually thinks/wants and accept that everyone — including the Catholic Church — is just guessing.
God only forgives a finite number of sins? I love Liguori, but I don't believe that. I believe God is infinitely powerful, all-knowling, all-loving, all merciful, omnipresent, all just (ah, can one be all merciful and all just at the same time? Yes I think so, if one is God) Sin has a payday--it's called Purgatory and Hell. Sometimes the Purgatory starts on earth. That's one reason one can offer up one's suffering for one's own sins and the sins of the suffering souls in Purgatory. Christ's sacrifice makes it possible for us to achieve Eternal Life, but we must "work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God working it out in us" (St. Paul). One has to REPENT and TRY and cooperate with God's graces and love. So if a murderer repents in his last breath, in my book, he PROBABLY goes to Purgatory, if his repentence is sincere. I can't assign people to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (only God can), but I do believe these states of reward and punishment exist. So how many people get into each place. Here's my estimate (I am pretty good as an estimator, but in this case, I'm probably off a bit). My thinking is 10% of people go straight to Heaven. These are the "saints," which means "early Christians." 10% go straight to Hell. We can't know for sure, but I can imagine the Marquis de Sade going straight to Hell for instance. 80% of us (in my estimation) go to Purgatory, which (my thinking) is "custom-made" Reform School. For some, Purgatory is a slap on the wrist with a wet noodle, for others, 1,000,000 years of Hellfire. God is totally just in His judgment, and weighs all factors warrenting "reduced culpability" (like being a trauma victim, especially a childhood trauma victim).
So there's hope. We have to keep striving to attain "perfection." Our reach must exceed our grasp. We are travelling through St. Teresa of Avila's "Interior Castles". I see these Interior Castles as concentric circles. In the 7th Mansion, the innermost circle is Jesus Christ, waiting for our soul's arrival.
There are several reasons, in my opinion, for my years of struggle with "Love thyself" .
But it has more to do with the gross distortion of what Love is than anything else.
For decades and decades, even among clergy, the notion of love is defined by personal experience and false notions, so much so that no one can say with absolute certainty what the word means absolutely.
I may not be able to say what Love is, but I know what it isn't.
It is not grounded in a feeling nor does it ride the waves of fickle human emotion. It is not here today and gone tomorrow if it be true.
It is not a word to be used with right intention one minute and destroyed the next with verbal bashing and beat downs.
In the case of emotionally abused souls, verbally assaulted throughout their lives, there is the tendency to become jaded and prone to reject any effort on the part of others to offer Love.
The depths of the well which you write from grows deeper for those older than you 😉.
I believe Love is an act of the Will, proven by sheer suffering and sacrifice for the good of another without recompense in this life.
I agree loving others involves suffering and sacrifice at times. We have to keep turning the other cheek and we have to forgive. And then there's invariably some unpleasant tasks associated with child-bearing and child-rearing (like exhaustion). Spouses and children (and other kin) sometimes come down with terrible illnesses or have accidents that require a good deal of time and effort on our part, derailing our life plans (like having an autistic child). We have to bear with one another on more mundane matters that irritate and rankle (like snoring, knuckle-cracking, yelling kin, messy kin, non-reciprocating kin (or friends)). Is it all worth it? Yes. What else matters more than learning to accept and give love? Wasn't that what Jesus Christ did throughout His life? He gave it all, had nothing left to give.
A Crucified God made Man, tortured beyond the comprehension of the darkened minds of His creatures, nailed with gaping wounds and a crown of thorns beaten into His tender skull, to a Cross, there to hang naked until His dying breath.
This He did for all, knowing that all would not accept His sacrifice, His suffering and death which He accepted because He loved us.
The only way to learn the
definition of true Love for our neighbor as ourselves or to heal our wounds, so deep and so painful, inflicted upon us by others, is to look upon the Face of True Love in His unfathomable suffering, that might learn to love as He did...to the death.
There are in this world very, very wounded souls for whom all the spiritual guidance and quotes and advice become as so much empty noise.
I've read countless comments and done my fair share of preaching, but not until I experience the depth of the dark well that Steve spoke of can I even begin to understand what he suffers.
For souls who are enveloped in such darkness, the best thing to do is listen and pray always for them.
I have begged people throughout my darkness to pray for me....stand in my place and say my prayers because I can not pray.
I cannot actually tell you I know what you endure as a mother of a child with autism, for each parent of a child or children with autism deals with it differently.
I am 72 with an 39 year old son with autism as a primary diagnosis.
All I can say is only God knows the sorrow and suffering of not only the parent, but the child.
We lay down our lives that others might live.
Sorry, Steve. I'm off topic. I'll try not to do it again.
I think that’s the main theme of the tv show severance, the outside characters are constantly sabotaging the inside characters and the same thing dawned on me while watching that in Art form, it’s the most basic thing but extremely hard, love yourself
You hit the nail on the head. Those are Christ’s own words. A lot of Christians scoff at what they perceive to be “modern psycho-babble,” and sure, some of that can go too far, but loving oneself IS a basic necessity. We’re not supposed to “hate” what was made in God’s own image and likeness, right?! Of course some people have to struggle with a disproportionate consideration of oneself to the detriment of others (and our own good), but that’s not what basic “self love” is.
And I get it; I’m only learning some of these things now, as a grown ass adult. I wish I had learned it sooner. And it’s really hard to change 40 years of ingrained habits, even in how I talk to myself or how I think! No advice; just solidarity.
Loving oneself means wishing oneself well and working toward your own greatest and highest good. It's a conscious act of the will, a plan of action, and can be practiced even in a "bad mood". As Lewis said, "Hang up on your mood when necessary (words to that effect)." There are many ways to ignore one's ill mood and keep working toward your greatest and highest good (which often involves elevating others and helping them in various ways by cleaning, cooking, helping with homework, listening, driving to places to drop things and people off, crossing off items on the "to do" list).
The voices you're hearing in your head are not nice, so they're "from below" in my book. Go ahead and engage that voice if you're in a feisty mood (otherwise just tell it to "shut up" and "I won't listen to you, you're just mad because... (fill in the blank)". Here's a set of replies I use when necessary as an example:
The Accurser: "You're worthless. You never get it right. Do you notice how you always mess things up the first time you attempt them?" Reply: "Oh, shut up, you bad angel. You're just mad because God is helping me get into Heaven, whereas you..." (then go on to return to task. You're allowed to drop off in this conversation when you feel like it without even finishing the retort).
Accuser: "People can't stand you. Why don't you take a hint and just give up?" Answer: "Well, people can't stand YOU, because you never tell the truth about anything, including that last statement about me."
Now if that doesn't work, ignore the voices in your head and try a little music. Lately I've been grooving on "Touch in the Night" by Silent Circle. Attached. Music soothes the savage breast (sometimes reads "savage beast"). And see if you can get a little dance going along with the song, it really lifts the spirit even if one has two left feet. The dance in the video is sort of a mix between Lindy Hop, Hip Hop and Swing.
Who is the song addressed to? I think it's talking to Jesus Christ or hearing from Jesus Christ (by turns, a running dialog), but that's me. Some would say it's not Godly in the least. Still, "If it helps, use it" anyway it helps you.
No one wants the nagging voice. Sometimes it's just there. I've had real people say and do incredibly painful things to me (or seen it done to others). We are living in an age of cancellation, even of KIN. Ive been on receiving end of rudeness from close kin. Thats the worst. So one needs to come up with some personal defenses (out of self love, at a base case of self preservation). I find music helps, prayer helps, exercise helps, reading helps, ticking chores off my "to do" list helps, making new friends helps. I am currently reading "Lathe of Heaven" which was recommended to me by a commenter on another substack. I started with the free youtube movie. It's about a man named Orr who can affect reality with his dreams on occasion. He doesn't want this "gift". His shrink hypnotizes him and starts to exploit the patient Orr so that the shrink can "improve the world". So where am I going with this? Be nice to yourself when others aren't. For you that may be more writing time carved out or reading time or internet research time.
You are talking about boundaries. Guarding your heart so that authentic love can come in. As someone who has been walked all over and allowed it to happen, the risk is that I swing in the opposite direction and put a brick wall up thus blocking God. This is my current struggle. I am having to relearn 45 years of wrong messaging in my head. The last 24 years being the worst.
Excellent post, and further proof you must keep writing, Steve.
Regarding the CSL quotation given by another commented, what CSL seems to miss is that attention to one's own needs must take practical priority in many cases because you know your needs better than those of others. E.g., eating when hungry, going to the loo when you need to. But even beyond basic biology, you know your own mind better than that of others, usually, so you have the primary responsibility for your own mental health.
Agreed. I found that Lewis quote a bit jarring.
It can really be an uphill battle, loving one's self. In my case, it seems to be more a question of liking myself. I wish myself the best, but experience a deep dissatisfaction with that same self. At almost 70 I would really like if I and myself got along.
My internal self-worth monologues have sounded a lot like your vicious self-critiques. I picked it up from my father, who was the son of a man who had alcohol problems and verbally chewed on his family.
Dad never did that to us, but I overheard him doing it to himself, programmed by his past. So I did the same, verbalizing in every moment of stressed failure (or percieved failure). Once I started hearing my kids sound like me, I made a concerted effort to reassure the children that no, they should not think or speak that way. It is not fair to them, and it is flatly wrong.
Now, have I gotten out of the rut of vicious self-critique? No. But I have stopped verbalizing it around family and friends. And CBT has helped me contextualize and look at such episodes more objectively, which has blunted the negative process, if not eliminated it.
But does it ever take a lot of time and conscious effort. My prayers and hopes go with you, my brother. I absolutely believe you will get there.
I'd affirm your intuitions on Laura London's comment in your situation and I wouldn't let it bother you. (Pay no attention to other people's opinion of you.) I've thought about this a great deal and I've come to the conclusion that it's a complex issue. There's a healthy form of "self-love", as implied in the Gospels and explicit in Ephesians 5:29. But I think it's also true that some forms of self-hatred are subtle manifestations of pride; at least in my case it was. My past hatred of myself was not because I wished myself harm (as true hatred would be) but rather it was a refusal to accept who I was and my limitations, because I found the truth too humiliating to bear. I wanted to be something I was not (for example, "normal", whatever that means), and it made me unhappy. It took decades and a lot of anguish to work that out, but I eventually learned to embrace the way I am ("Can the pot say to the potter, why did you make me this way?") as something God can use and work with according to his purposes.
Thanks for sharing this. I am so sorry for the pain you are going through. My heart goes out to you. I've passed through similar places in my life and I can say that there is hope. Sometimes we have to be broken before we can be healed.
Don't believe the lies that are going through your head. You are worth a great deal, whether you realize it, or appreciate it right now, or not. You are worthwhile and valued. I wouldn't be praying for you and subscribing if you were not.
I encourage you to read this quick post: https://frcharbelabernethy.substack.com/?r=1ecjzj&utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web
Thank you. This is a very interesting topic to me. I agree, I don't think your inner monologue is right. I think that both "love" and "selves" are so complicated that it can be very hard to say anything simple about this topic that, taken to an extreme or in the wrong way, doesn't turn into a disaster.
I wonder what you think of the following passage by CS Lewis? (I'm not even 100% sure what I think of it.)
"Now, the self can be regarded in two ways. On the one hand, it is God’s creature, an occasion of love and rejoicing; now, indeed, hateful in condition, but to be pitied and healed. On the other hand, it is that one self of all others which is called I and me, and which on that ground puts forward an irrational claim to preference. This claim is to be not only hated, but simply killed; ‘never’, as George Mac Donald says, ‘to be allowed a moment’s respite from eternal death’. The Christian must wage endless war against the clamour of the ego as ego; but he loves and approves selves as such, though not their sins. The very self-love which he has to reject is to him a specimen of how he ought to feel to all selves; and he may hope that when he has truly learned (which will hardly be in this life) to love his neighbor as himself, he may then be able to love himself as his neighbor; that is, with charity instead of partiality.
"The other kind of self-hatred, on the contrary, hates selves as such. It begins by accepting the special value of the particular self called me; then, wounded in its pride to find that such a darling object should be so disappointing, it seeks revenge, first upon that self, then on all. Deeply egoistic, but now with an inverted egoism, it uses the revealing argument, ‘I don’t spare myself’—with the implication ‘then a fortiori I need not spare others’—and becomes like the centurion in Tacitus, ‘More relentless because he had endured.’ The wrong asceticism torments the self: the right kind kills the selfness. We must die daily: but it is better to love the self than to love nothing, and to pity the self than to pity no one."
I don't think Lewis here quite avoids the problems I speak of, but the distinction is still interesting.
Not a fan of Lewis's thinking here, but I also don't feel composed enough to respond to it cogently.
Fair. It doesn't sit quite right with me either. It feels like he's saying, on the one hand, that we celebrate selves, but on the other hand, saying we have a problem with a fundamental feature of selfhood. In fact, he says, "the right kind [of ascetisim] kills the selfness," and also says we "love and approves selves as such." There seems to be some tension there.
I'm not sure if that's my issue with it, but I have one, I think. I'm still reflecting on whether there's a reading of it I like, though.
You are greater in value than the entire cosmos to God (St. Augustine, closely paraphrased, On the Greatness of the Soul 34).
Of all that you have written over these many months, Steve, this particular writing struck me right between the eyes.
For years, I have pondered the "Love thyself" part of the equation. It's gotten so bad, if I even hear the words "I love you", I immediately put them in my "what a crock" file.
I know me. And as the years pass, I see myself in a light that shines brightly on every negative aspect of my being. There's just nothing about me to love. Seriously.
So conflicted have I been, especially in light of the spiritual aspects taught for centuries that self-love is to be squelched, the contradiction serves to cause continual anguish.
I have failed miserably in every thing I have undertaken; sinned grievously, and don't get me started on how my "neighbors" aren't loved as myself.
All my life.
I just don't get it.
What is love anyway? Maybe that's the real question.
There are some things religion gets very right. I don't want to live in a society that isn't shaped by Christian virtue, for example.
But the masochistic self-loathing that is pushed by Catholicism (and some of the more puritanical forms of Protestantism) is soul-destroying, in my opinion.
I don't have any answers. I'm writing this from the bottom of a deep, dark well. But I know that if I ever want to climb out, I'm going to have to figure this out.
For the record, while it may be popular in certain Jansenistic circles, "masochistic self-loathing" is not endemic to the Catholic faith. (I have a hard time picturing St. Philip Neri as a masochistic self-loather, or St. Carlo Acutis, or many other saints.) Believers are sons and daughters of God, even Pope Francis has said with "infinite dignity". While there is and always will be an infinite gulf between God and us, necessitating a humility in the way we approach him, the doctrine of deification tells us that we are becoming by grace what Christ is by nature, becoming God in God, and I think that is really cool and not worth loathing at all.
I agree with you, Eric, I don't feel Jesus Christ wants us to hate ourselves. It doesn't matter how much we've messed up and failed and sinned. His mercy and love for each one of us is INFINITE. We have to TRY (to repent, get up and start over again after each fall--via confession) and we have to cooperate with His abundant graces. That was St. Faustina's core message: Divine Mercy is pouring out at each of us from Jesus Christ's Sacred Heart like an overflowing fount of Mercy and Love.
Why believe Faustina when Luminaries like Liguori said God only forgives a finite number of sins?
It would be so much easier if everyone stopped pretending we know anything God actually thinks/wants and accept that everyone — including the Catholic Church — is just guessing.
God only forgives a finite number of sins? I love Liguori, but I don't believe that. I believe God is infinitely powerful, all-knowling, all-loving, all merciful, omnipresent, all just (ah, can one be all merciful and all just at the same time? Yes I think so, if one is God) Sin has a payday--it's called Purgatory and Hell. Sometimes the Purgatory starts on earth. That's one reason one can offer up one's suffering for one's own sins and the sins of the suffering souls in Purgatory. Christ's sacrifice makes it possible for us to achieve Eternal Life, but we must "work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God working it out in us" (St. Paul). One has to REPENT and TRY and cooperate with God's graces and love. So if a murderer repents in his last breath, in my book, he PROBABLY goes to Purgatory, if his repentence is sincere. I can't assign people to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (only God can), but I do believe these states of reward and punishment exist. So how many people get into each place. Here's my estimate (I am pretty good as an estimator, but in this case, I'm probably off a bit). My thinking is 10% of people go straight to Heaven. These are the "saints," which means "early Christians." 10% go straight to Hell. We can't know for sure, but I can imagine the Marquis de Sade going straight to Hell for instance. 80% of us (in my estimation) go to Purgatory, which (my thinking) is "custom-made" Reform School. For some, Purgatory is a slap on the wrist with a wet noodle, for others, 1,000,000 years of Hellfire. God is totally just in His judgment, and weighs all factors warrenting "reduced culpability" (like being a trauma victim, especially a childhood trauma victim).
So there's hope. We have to keep striving to attain "perfection." Our reach must exceed our grasp. We are travelling through St. Teresa of Avila's "Interior Castles". I see these Interior Castles as concentric circles. In the 7th Mansion, the innermost circle is Jesus Christ, waiting for our soul's arrival.
There are several reasons, in my opinion, for my years of struggle with "Love thyself" .
But it has more to do with the gross distortion of what Love is than anything else.
For decades and decades, even among clergy, the notion of love is defined by personal experience and false notions, so much so that no one can say with absolute certainty what the word means absolutely.
I may not be able to say what Love is, but I know what it isn't.
It is not grounded in a feeling nor does it ride the waves of fickle human emotion. It is not here today and gone tomorrow if it be true.
It is not a word to be used with right intention one minute and destroyed the next with verbal bashing and beat downs.
In the case of emotionally abused souls, verbally assaulted throughout their lives, there is the tendency to become jaded and prone to reject any effort on the part of others to offer Love.
The depths of the well which you write from grows deeper for those older than you 😉.
I believe Love is an act of the Will, proven by sheer suffering and sacrifice for the good of another without recompense in this life.
Anything else is fluff.
I agree loving others involves suffering and sacrifice at times. We have to keep turning the other cheek and we have to forgive. And then there's invariably some unpleasant tasks associated with child-bearing and child-rearing (like exhaustion). Spouses and children (and other kin) sometimes come down with terrible illnesses or have accidents that require a good deal of time and effort on our part, derailing our life plans (like having an autistic child). We have to bear with one another on more mundane matters that irritate and rankle (like snoring, knuckle-cracking, yelling kin, messy kin, non-reciprocating kin (or friends)). Is it all worth it? Yes. What else matters more than learning to accept and give love? Wasn't that what Jesus Christ did throughout His life? He gave it all, had nothing left to give.
Exactly, Anne.
He gave it all...
A Crucified God made Man, tortured beyond the comprehension of the darkened minds of His creatures, nailed with gaping wounds and a crown of thorns beaten into His tender skull, to a Cross, there to hang naked until His dying breath.
This He did for all, knowing that all would not accept His sacrifice, His suffering and death which He accepted because He loved us.
The only way to learn the
definition of true Love for our neighbor as ourselves or to heal our wounds, so deep and so painful, inflicted upon us by others, is to look upon the Face of True Love in His unfathomable suffering, that might learn to love as He did...to the death.
One more thing, Anne.
There are in this world very, very wounded souls for whom all the spiritual guidance and quotes and advice become as so much empty noise.
I've read countless comments and done my fair share of preaching, but not until I experience the depth of the dark well that Steve spoke of can I even begin to understand what he suffers.
For souls who are enveloped in such darkness, the best thing to do is listen and pray always for them.
I have begged people throughout my darkness to pray for me....stand in my place and say my prayers because I can not pray.
I still ask that of others to this very day.
Yes. Well said.
And one more thing, Anne:)
I cannot actually tell you I know what you endure as a mother of a child with autism, for each parent of a child or children with autism deals with it differently.
I am 72 with an 39 year old son with autism as a primary diagnosis.
All I can say is only God knows the sorrow and suffering of not only the parent, but the child.
We lay down our lives that others might live.
Sorry, Steve. I'm off topic. I'll try not to do it again.
I think that’s the main theme of the tv show severance, the outside characters are constantly sabotaging the inside characters and the same thing dawned on me while watching that in Art form, it’s the most basic thing but extremely hard, love yourself
You hit the nail on the head. Those are Christ’s own words. A lot of Christians scoff at what they perceive to be “modern psycho-babble,” and sure, some of that can go too far, but loving oneself IS a basic necessity. We’re not supposed to “hate” what was made in God’s own image and likeness, right?! Of course some people have to struggle with a disproportionate consideration of oneself to the detriment of others (and our own good), but that’s not what basic “self love” is.
And I get it; I’m only learning some of these things now, as a grown ass adult. I wish I had learned it sooner. And it’s really hard to change 40 years of ingrained habits, even in how I talk to myself or how I think! No advice; just solidarity.
Loving oneself means wishing oneself well and working toward your own greatest and highest good. It's a conscious act of the will, a plan of action, and can be practiced even in a "bad mood". As Lewis said, "Hang up on your mood when necessary (words to that effect)." There are many ways to ignore one's ill mood and keep working toward your greatest and highest good (which often involves elevating others and helping them in various ways by cleaning, cooking, helping with homework, listening, driving to places to drop things and people off, crossing off items on the "to do" list).
The voices you're hearing in your head are not nice, so they're "from below" in my book. Go ahead and engage that voice if you're in a feisty mood (otherwise just tell it to "shut up" and "I won't listen to you, you're just mad because... (fill in the blank)". Here's a set of replies I use when necessary as an example:
The Accurser: "You're worthless. You never get it right. Do you notice how you always mess things up the first time you attempt them?" Reply: "Oh, shut up, you bad angel. You're just mad because God is helping me get into Heaven, whereas you..." (then go on to return to task. You're allowed to drop off in this conversation when you feel like it without even finishing the retort).
Accuser: "People can't stand you. Why don't you take a hint and just give up?" Answer: "Well, people can't stand YOU, because you never tell the truth about anything, including that last statement about me."
Now if that doesn't work, ignore the voices in your head and try a little music. Lately I've been grooving on "Touch in the Night" by Silent Circle. Attached. Music soothes the savage breast (sometimes reads "savage beast"). And see if you can get a little dance going along with the song, it really lifts the spirit even if one has two left feet. The dance in the video is sort of a mix between Lindy Hop, Hip Hop and Swing.
Who is the song addressed to? I think it's talking to Jesus Christ or hearing from Jesus Christ (by turns, a running dialog), but that's me. Some would say it's not Godly in the least. Still, "If it helps, use it" anyway it helps you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT02E9yP_4U
I don't need some ephemeral accuser. I have a lifetime of real ones who put these thoughts into my head.
It's time I stood up for myself. Nobody else will. Hell, nobody else even can.
No one wants the nagging voice. Sometimes it's just there. I've had real people say and do incredibly painful things to me (or seen it done to others). We are living in an age of cancellation, even of KIN. Ive been on receiving end of rudeness from close kin. Thats the worst. So one needs to come up with some personal defenses (out of self love, at a base case of self preservation). I find music helps, prayer helps, exercise helps, reading helps, ticking chores off my "to do" list helps, making new friends helps. I am currently reading "Lathe of Heaven" which was recommended to me by a commenter on another substack. I started with the free youtube movie. It's about a man named Orr who can affect reality with his dreams on occasion. He doesn't want this "gift". His shrink hypnotizes him and starts to exploit the patient Orr so that the shrink can "improve the world". So where am I going with this? Be nice to yourself when others aren't. For you that may be more writing time carved out or reading time or internet research time.
You are talking about boundaries. Guarding your heart so that authentic love can come in. As someone who has been walked all over and allowed it to happen, the risk is that I swing in the opposite direction and put a brick wall up thus blocking God. This is my current struggle. I am having to relearn 45 years of wrong messaging in my head. The last 24 years being the worst.