“Love your Neighbor as Yourself” is the Golden rule. How does self love fit in with it? As you begin to love yourself and view yourself more kindly, you become less judgmental and gentler towards others. The more you accept your “authentic self”, including your weaknesses (see part I), the more tolerant you are towards yourself and others and the more fearless you are in life! When you do not love yourself, you stay stuck in “deficit thinking” (Michael Losier).  You expect little out of life, ask for less, settle for crumbs and shrink into yourself. When you do not love your self, you give yourself away to please others, you do not get what you desire and become resentful and often passive aggressive.**When you lack self love, you are more dependent on the opinion of others. Have you ever noticed the impact of a negative opinion on your self image? As you hear unkind words, even when untrue, you begin to believe them and imprint them into your being. You accept the opinions as truth and begin to pass the lies on to others. Every time you believe an unkind word, the truth is seen less clearly. These lies take you away from your authentic self and infect you with the “untruth” virus which can become contagious.  To combat a sense lack of self love, you tend to inflate your self worth through exaggeration or by belittling others through gossip or small white lies.

Gossip and lies help you feel better about yourself because they provide self justification and help you view others as worse off than yourself.  Try to recall a time that you hooked other people and spread a small lie or “stretched the truth”, in order to make your opinion right. When was the last time that you told a “white lie” in order to protect your position? As you become more authentic and accept yourself, you are better able to state the truth and accept the consequences. You are also able to recognize gossip and lies when they appear and resist them.

Earlier this month, I challenged you to “fall in love” with yourself for Valentines Day.  I asked you to list one positive quality each night. Starting today, why don’t you review that list and repeat one quality each day?  Notice that when you focus on your positive traits, you break the spell of negative messages and become more objective with personal criticism and do not have to defend your posture so rigorously.

Suddenly the golden rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself” makes more sense. When you love yourself, you accept yourself and others with more gentleness and compassion. You begin to view imperfections more kindly. You step out of the defensive posture and are able to recognize and praise other people’s accomplishments because you feel less competitive. When you love yourself, you no longer need to gossip or tell small white lies because you are more comfortable speaking the truth and willing to accept the consequences.

** passive aggressive is subtle resistance to following through with expectations in personal or occupational situations.

Blog questions/comments:

Who or what has helped you recognize your strengths?

When have you spoken your truth and risked rejection?

What still hooks you into gossip or telling white lies?

“That’s a white lie that’s the kind you want to tell. A white lie so your Mom won’t have to yell. Everybody does it cuz it feels alright and it’s more polite but a lie’s still a lie even when it’s white.”      Lyrics: White lie by Zachary Pincus-Roth Lie to Me)