Love yourself to love others - Barbara Steingas

        

    I used to think that if I took time to care for my needs, that I was being selfish.  So I would give of myself to a fault to others. I people pleased in lieu of listening to what I needed or wanted. As a result, this depleted my energy and contributed to me developing an autoimmune disease.

            Women, especially in our society, are looked at as the caretakers, causing many wives and mothers to use all their energy, focus and resources fulfilling the needs of their family and neglect to properly take care of themselves.

            This can cause underlying resentment and family dysfunction. I found this to be true for myself.  I would take that resentment and internalize it, beating myself up and causing further stress and dis-ease to myself physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. As I began to put the pieces of my health back together, I slowly learned how to unravel this self-sabotaging behavior by attending courses and reading self-improvement books.

            Along the way I discovered that I deserved to take care of myself and that it’s okay to sometimes say “no” rather than self-sacrifice just to people please. Now that I’ve learned to listen to my own needs, I find I am even better at helping people both professionally and personally. I can be more present in the moment by responding rather than reacting out of past issues or fear of future ones. However, during times of stress, I can get into reactionary mode which causes discourse for myself and others I am interacting with, but I catch myself more often and have learned not to beat myself up for it. Instead, I realize I can shift the way I am feeling and expressing myself to a more loving way. We are all human and can’t always be perfect, but the more we stay in a loving space with ourselves the more love we can bestow on others. In turn, this decreases the criticism and judgement we feel for ourselves and deflect onto others.

            When you feel mad, sad, etc. take a moment to reflect and ask yourself what’s causing you to feel this way. By doing this you can better discern what need is not being met and then you can rectify the situation by empowering yourself rather than blaming someone else for not meeting your needs. Remember that by loving yourself and taking care of what you need you will be much more at peace and happy. And if you’re happy, everyone else around you can happier too.

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