You Love You Live

My Challenge Today:

You love, you live …

By Bernadette Kathryn, LMT, IHLC

To love yourself right now, just as you are,

is to give yourself heaven.

Don’t wait until you die.

If you wait, you die now.

If you love, you live now.

~ Alan Cohen

You love, you live — don’t wait until you die. Learning to love one’s self can be a life long journey. The idea of self-love may have been tainted for you by your family of origin, your childhood education, possibly even your religious upbringing. I know in my house the idea of self-love was somewhat scorned upon. The communication of self-love was frowned upon because it was believed that we are here to love others, not ourself. We are here to serve others, not ourself. We are here to offer up our life for the benefit of others and to love one’s self is to be selfish, narcissistic and living without integrity.

I always go to a few different memories to understand this concept wholly.

One –> If we as humans spend our entire life in the service to others without taking care of our own self, we will run out of gas much faster than if we were to actually take time to refill our own tank periodically and responsibly. You cannot drive a car endlessly without refueling, it will simply run out of gas and stop.

Two –> If we as humans want to feed and care for everyone to the exclusion of ourself, our refrigerator and pantry will become bare at some point and we will need to replenish the supply. The same is true of ourself, we need to refuel our spirit, our body and our mind to be able to serve. We must love and care for ourself first and then give to others in a responsible way.

Three –> That message we hear on the airplane during the safety briefing … “if you are traveling with a small child, put he oxygen mask on yourself first securely and then your child”. You will be of no help to your child or anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself!

When we pay attention to our own physical, mental and spiritual needs we are in fact honoring our purpose for life. We are here to share our gifts with the world and we can best do that when we are physically, mentally and spiritually fit. I have seen people give and give and give until they are so tired and angry that the giving is not their best. Their heart is in the right place with their generous spirit but they have neglected their spirit so much that they are worn out, resentful and just plain tired. The best gift we can give the world is our own personal self-care so that we are able to shine! When you love, you live and when you love yourself you are better able to live, give and celebrate the romance of life.