Wise words, Judith. If you don't love yourself, you find it hard to love others. If you are searching for perfection in yourself before you can love yourself, then you will also search for perfection in others and always be disappointed.
I am very fortunate in that I DID grow up in a family with unconditional love. I have always felt good about who I was as a person. Of course, there have been times I didn't like myself for something I did that could have been handled better. But I believe I've never consciously hurt someone. However, there was a period of time, from about age 16 to age 25, that I would not have been able to truthfully say I loved myself unconditionally.
During that time I was experiencing a lot of illness and had a hard time regulating and loving my physical self. I felt ugly for a number of reasons–mostly having to do with my perceptions of physical perfection. During that time there was a huge separation between my outside self (how I looked and how fit I was) and the inside self (what I like to call the "true" self). I thought I didn't love myself because of things that were going on with me physically–illness, weight gain, even things like surgical scars, or things the illness had taken from me (like not being able to have children).
I had this idealized picture in my head of what a lovable woman looked like and what she was capable of doing. Of course, the perfect woman always looked like movie stars.And she was a kind of WonderWoman, or what I would call the June Cleaver perfect woman. She was beautiful, wore a dress and pearls while cleaning the house and cooking delicious meals. She had children who appreciated her and only got into minor scraps that anyone could handle, and a husband who adored her and thought she set the moon in the sky 🙂 In other words, nothing like me.
It took me some time to realize that my outside could change for better or worse but I would still be me, the true self, on the inside. It took me a while to realize that what was portrayed on TV or in the movies was an idealized version of womanhood for that era and that 99% of the women in the world didn't meet those standards yet lived a happy life. When I finally realized that was when I learned to love myself unconditionally.
I've heard my mother say it a lot: "It's what is inside that really counts." Believing that was really important to me.
I really appreciate your sharing your thoughts and experiences, Maggie. As a society I believe we need to follow your mother's saying because who we are inside is more important than how we look. I've never been that concerned about my appearance beyond the basics of being clean and neat. I know since I started writing my Sacred Women's Circle series at the turn of the century, I've changed as my own spiritual path deepened with each book.
Judith is the author of The Sacred Women
Wise words, Judith. If you don't love yourself, you find it hard to love others. If you are searching for perfection in yourself before you can love yourself, then you will also search for perfection in others and always be disappointed.
I am very fortunate in that I DID grow up in a family with unconditional love. I have always felt good about who I was as a person. Of course, there have been times I didn't like myself for something I did that could have been handled better. But I believe I've never consciously hurt someone. However, there was a period of time, from about age 16 to age 25, that I would not have been able to truthfully say I loved myself unconditionally.
During that time I was experiencing a lot of illness and had a hard time regulating and loving my physical self. I felt ugly for a number of reasons–mostly having to do with my perceptions of physical perfection. During that time there was a huge separation between my outside self (how I looked and how fit I was) and the inside self (what I like to call the "true" self). I thought I didn't love myself because of things that were going on with me physically–illness, weight gain, even things like surgical scars, or things the illness had taken from me (like not being able to have children).
I had this idealized picture in my head of what a lovable woman looked like and what she was capable of doing. Of course, the perfect woman always looked like movie stars.And she was a kind of WonderWoman, or what I would call the June Cleaver perfect woman. She was beautiful, wore a dress and pearls while cleaning the house and cooking delicious meals. She had children who appreciated her and only got into minor scraps that anyone could handle, and a husband who adored her and thought she set the moon in the sky 🙂 In other words, nothing like me.
It took me some time to realize that my outside could change for better or worse but I would still be me, the true self, on the inside. It took me a while to realize that what was portrayed on TV or in the movies was an idealized version of womanhood for that era and that 99% of the women in the world didn't meet those standards yet lived a happy life. When I finally realized that was when I learned to love myself unconditionally.
I've heard my mother say it a lot: "It's what is inside that really counts." Believing that was really important to me.
I really appreciate your sharing your thoughts and experiences, Maggie. As a society I believe we need to follow your mother's saying because who we are inside is more important than how we look. I've never been that concerned about my appearance beyond the basics of being clean and neat. I know since I started writing my Sacred Women's Circle series at the turn of the century, I've changed as my own spiritual path deepened with each book.