The last few weeks… they have felt very familiar. I’d like to think I’ve grown wiser since 2016, and 2020. My former therapist often said that in times of crisis, people tend to either overfunction or underfunction. She correctly observed that I am an overfunctioner.
For much of my life I had used achievement, workaholism, and over-attending to relationships as a way to feel in control when my environment was unsteady. I used to think that because my “work” was ultimately geared towards supporting others, this wasn’t a problem. What I didn’t realize was that I was measuring my worth by what I could do for other people, and I did not offer myself the same care.
Those of you who have been reading here for a while know the story of what happened next. I experienced a traumatic life event that highlighted just how “not in control” I was, and radically shook my unconscious beliefs about who I was supposed to be.
I did know that self-love was key to being of service to others: you can’t give from an empty cup. But I was still practicing these kinds of care in order to offer it to others. It turns out the unconscious is very smart, and unconvinced by this sleight of hand. In other words, I was practicing a form of conditional self-love.
Which is how I’ve arrived at this place of shouting from the mountaintop, that unconditional self-love is the foundation for empathy and collective care. And I believe it needs to be approached sincerely, without asking for anything in return.
For many of us it takes a very long time for the tide to shift, when the instinct to push through yields to a tenderness towards those parts we’d rather avoid.
Self-love can nourish or merely satiate in the same ways the love between others can. It can be superficial or deep, fragile or resilient, intentional or reflexive, inconsistent or reliable.
If you were to imagine your relationship to yourself, as one between two people, how would you describe that love?
How do you respond to yourself when you believe you are not good enough? Or when you fail to meet others expectations?
Can you receive praise, or do you ruminate over negative feedback?
How do you allocate your time— do you create space to “take the call” when you are in need, or do you hit decline and get back to work?
In times of urgency and crisis, it is tempting to think we can skip tending to the foundation. Because this approach of pushing through can work for a period of time. Many of us can do it for quite a while before burning out. But our energy is not infinite, and eventually we will collapse.
Furthermore, the work we do from this heightened state of nervous system activation is often a very similar frequency to the heightened state of those we are seeking to help. This might be adaptive in the short-term, such as a discrete crisis where we benefit from the hive mind of unified reaction. But in a long-term experience the body deteriorates under the onslaught of stress. And the mind, and spirit, becomes depleted and unfocused.
When burnout occurs, it is like the cell phone that has completely died and can’t be used again until it’s been plugged in for some time. And the timing is not in our control.
Whereas when we start listening to the body who tells us when we are under duress; when we observe the mind and recognize when rigidity is developing; and when we feel the call of our spirit, who tells us when we need to return to center and remember who we are, we can plug in before we collapse.
I often think about this line from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet: “Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from the same cup.”
When we give directly of ourselves, we give with attachment, and we give from a finite source. When we are nourishing ourselves from a space of being an expression of that light that we all carry within us, connected to everything and everyone— vibrating in the frequency of love, we connect to something that is infinite. Taking the time to be present with that deepest experience of Self fortifies us from the inside out, and from this space of resource we can’t help but infuse all that we do with love (including fierce love).
We begin to support others as a natural extension of our own care.
This kind of love is not rooted in scarcity, which tells us we need to first take for ourselves because there might not be enough. And it doesn’t dictate that we must always come last either. It is right-sized, dynamic, and wise. We become students of a type of lifeforce which helps us distinguish between self-care and self-centeredness.
It’s a lofty goal, one that is not always within our grasp, but it sets the stage for something beautiful to happen.
Would you like to be guided to that space within yourself that needs tending? Take a journey towards the heartspace with this practice from last year’s cultivating Self-Love workshop 🎧.
This is one of my favorite meditations, one that I channeled during a powerful self-led Yoga Nidra last January 2024, which I have used myself on many occasions. I hope you enjoy it ❤️
Inward Vision 