Love Yourself As You Love Others

Along the side of Estero beach in Santa Catalina, Panama, at the base of the Rancho Estero hostel, is a stretch of plywood painted blue, on which is written the Hebrew phrase

V’ahavta L’reyacha k’mocha Halleluyah.

Love your friend as yourself. Halleluyah.

A Universal Precept

The precept to love your neighbor as yourself is, of course, not restricted to Judaism. It’s a universal value.

Of course, it’s not always universally adopted. And that’s in no small part due to the fact that it’s hard to love others as you love yourself if you don’t love yourself. This is a topic they didn’t teach in school when I was growing up.

Beyond that challenge is another challenge, with the same root cause.

As I consider it, it occurs to me that we don’t apply equal billing to the inverse of this precept.

What about loving yourself as you love others?

Many of us readily give our love and care to others. If you’re motivated by contribution, it’s likely that you spend much of your time helping others. When someone is in need, you jump to help, perhaps at expense to your own well-being.

A common trend among service professionals — and if you’re a parent, that includes you — is that self-care, which is a piece of self-love, often takes a back seat to caring for others.

Self-Care Is Not Just a Spa Day

We have a cultural perception that self-care is indulgent, even selfish.

Perhaps that stems from a misunderstanding of what self-care even is. If self-care conjures up images of spa days and mani/pedis with a cocktail in hand, I encourage you to widen your perspective.

Self-care and self-love involve nourishing and nurturing yourself the way you nourish and nurture the people you serve. They entail self-compassion, positive self-talk, listening to your body, and allowing yourself time and space to rest and recharge.

They require the willingness to receive care from yourself.

This can feel uncomfortable, because most of us were not raised with this value. We were raised to give to others and contribute. The value system we know says “it’s better to give than to receive.”

I invite you to consider the merits of self-care and self-love. The various elements of self-love are proven to improve your health and boost productivity.

Self-Care is Not Selfish

Service to others is a beautiful thing. Unless and until it comes at expense to your health and well-being.

If you’re struggling to wrap your head around the absolute necessity of self-care, consider the people in your care, the ones you rush to serve. The ones who need you so desperately that you must tend to their every need.

Who will care for these people when you’ve reached your limits and are forced to the sidelines with burnout, exhaustion, or worse?

Far from being selfish, self-care is necessary if you care for others.

If we are to live by the maxim “love your neighbor as yourself” then it stands to reason that we must learn to cultivate a deep self-love.

My grandpa once advised me,

Never do less for yourself than you would do for a client.

Wise words.

What would it look like to love yourself as you love others?

Today is Valentine’s Day.

Perhaps as good a day as any to turn some of that love inward.

You deserve it.

❤️