Love First

I was reading an interesting thread on BlueSky, where I often go to check out what Americans are saying about the daily news as gathered by professional journalists.

See what I did there?

Even at that I mostly stick to what their sister and brother journalists have to add.

This morning I realized the why factor doesn't matter with regard to what the Republican Party is doing to Americans because the effect is the same.

Trillions of dollars are being disappeared from the US economy while public servants are being fired and the rule of law ignored without consequence.

It's a heist behind a maelstrom of chaos.

So while Americans work on sorting it out, I'm on a mission to build back self love because I realized - just yesterday - it got worn away over the years.

How did I not notice?

The penny dropped when I was talking to an old friend - out of the blue - from university days. He's been a quiet Facebook friend for years, the only one from back in the day, and he asked for my phone number. Then he called and we had a catch up. He's received help with childhood trauma. During the call I mentioned the nausea attacks I was having and the therapy I was lucky to get with a young woman who specialized in eating disorders.

And while we were talking, a thought started percolating as to the why of what most better adjusted people would view as disordered behaviour over the decades and what I recognize now as saying yes when I wanted to say no and no when I wanted to say yes.

I wasn't following reason but I wasn't paying attention to gut instincts either.

But then there were those few cosy love nest years when I was at home with my children, healthy, wealthy and wise. Love, love, love and more love.

Later in the day one of those Lewis Howe sessions came up on my Facebook page. The man he was interviewing was talking about the real problem in our society, which is that of adults not loving ourselves, or even being aware we don't love ourselves.

He said to think about your children and how you love them.

I suppose if you don't have children, think about yourself as a child, and how your parents loved you, or how you would have wanted your parents to love you.

Or use a pet as the love test. No judgement. Love is love.

Now, if someone were to ask why, why do you love your children, you wouldn't have an answer. I wouldn't have an answer. We don't know why we love our children. We just do.

It's unconditional, a given. There's even a time, a friend calls them the real golden years, golden years parents are left to remember, but children move on to forget, when the love flows back and forth between us, it's all there is, an impenetrable love bubble.

Then this man said something revelatory, to me at least, and I think this is what I heard, which is that we should love ourselves that same way, like we're our own dear precious child, our party of one impenetrable love bubble.

This was when I realized how far off the rails I'd been knocked by this self loathing society we all cling to like grim death. And as we know to say now, it's no one's fault, it goes back to the first time we put competition over cooperation, but it's all our responsibility now.

We know better.

Anyway, my friend had kept saying how lucky I was to get the young woman who specialized in eating disorders to help me with my nausea attacks, which I found vaguely annoying at the time, but later, after we'd hung up, I got it - what could be more symptomatic of a lack of self love than denying myself sustenance?😀

So, where to start? Well, what are my values? Then, live them as best I can - for myself - with a default setting of compassion and forgiveness and extra love on top when I miss the mark.

Because there's no failing at life. That's just such a terrible lie.

The truth is, there should only be love.