I’ve been thinking about this whole idea Brene Brown brought to light for me, that you can only love someone else to the extent that you love yourself.
I think it relates to the old adage, we hurt the ones we love the most.
Wayne Dyer says, “When someone puts the pressure on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it’s because that’s what you’ve allowed to be inside. Once you take away all those negative things you don’t want in your life and replace them with love, you’ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.”
When I think about myself under pressure I get irritable and lash out. I always immediately regret it, like within seconds, but it still comes out of me.
I don’t like conflict, so when I’m under pressure from someone else, I will shut down. Once I shut down, it’s not easy to turn around and open back up again.
As a parent I think we would like to think we love our children more than anything, including ourselves. But if we look through our eyes as a child, we can see the places where possibly our parents couldn’t fully love us because they didn’t love themselves there.
I think this is a huge part of the equation of loving someone else as much as you love yourself, but I do feel like there is more.
As I work at figuring it out, I will share it.
In the meantime, if you care to tell me your thoughts on why it’s true, I think it’s a conversation worth having, and I would love to hear what you think.