The Missing Embrace
How Self-Love heals us
*A shout-out to Dr. Bronce Rice for suggesting I write about Self-Love and it's importance to our own healing and recovery process.
Once upon a time, there was a person who didn't know how to love himself. That person was ME. For years I chased various adventures, jobs here and there, relationships, places I thought would bring me ultimate fulfillment (North Carolina, Vermont)and things. If you had asked me if I loved myself, I would have told you of course I did! I'm motivated, doing things, seeking work. Look at all I am DOING! Sure, I wasn't always happy, but surely, surely I loved myself. Slowly but surely, I learned that what I loved wasn't actually myself, it was a messed up version of myself that I sold as something else to keep the truth at bay. It wasn't until everything fell apart and I found myself on a bus in a foreign country, so numb I couldn't even cry let alone feel, that I realized I had forgotten my first love-Myself. That day I had blown up my life, been called out for being a royal screw up, packed my things, and took a bus to the capital city where I was overseas. I landed there and while waiting for a taxi to my hostel, considered what it would feel like to walk in front of an oncoming bus flying down one of the busy main connectors in the city. At the time, it felt at least for a split second like the only option because I hated myself and what I had become. By the time I arrived at my hostel, I had barely put myself back together to hide my distress. I paid for my hostel stay, went to the hostel bar, and ordered a drink.
I remember the bus I took to the capital had a TV on it that played only Christian movies, and a modernized Evangelical version of Pilgrim's Progress was playing during the first hour of the 5 hour ride. The heavy tone of Good and Sin didn't help the feeling of deep shame that panged inside of me. When I got back to my hostel, I contacted a fellow colleague and we both went to a Rugby Match, knocking back a few beers. My colleague had no idea that my life had self-destructed, and I wasn't about to tell him. I tried to lose myself in the game and then went back to my hostel, feeling numb the minute he left in a taxi headed to his own hostel across town.
Today, as a person who finally loves and cherishes himself, his work with people in Recovery, and his purpose, I find that many people I try to help as a coach seem to have very little love for themselves. They say they were “A piece of S*it when I was using” or “A crappy Dad” or “Screwed up”. The ones who work well with me are those who can shift their self-image from identifying as being a failure to identifying as a good person who has failed before. The fact of the matter is that we beat the snot out of each other verbally,spiritually, and emotionally somehow thinking it's a form of penance. If our “Penance” is good enough, maybe God/Higher Power, our family, our community will magically grant us the things we need to feel good again. What we forget is that Love isn't a commodity to be bartered, begged for, or stolen. Love is a state of being fully known and embraced as we really are. When we practice Self-Love, we embrace our healing with both hands, even if those hands have scars on them.