Respect Yourself!

If you have read any of my blogs then you know I’m a big proponent for self-love and treating yourself like someone you love. It seems the saddest state of affairs occurs when people get to the place where they don’t love themselves anymore or live amidst the constant din of negative self-judgments and disapproval. As human beings and individuals we owe it to ourselves to make peace with ourselves. We don’t serve the world by being all defeated and weak. There is nothing noble or pious about thinking ill of yourself. All that happens is you become a lesser version of yourself. You don’t meet people on your own terms. You acquiesce and cower afraid to speak up for yourself. In this you do yourself a grave disservice. Your life matters just as much as anyone else’s life matters. You are neither inferior nor superior to other people. You have just as much right to have as the people that have. At the end of the day, the big question is not do you love yourself, but do you respect yourself? If you respect yourself, your expectations for yourself will increase. You will not feel the need to accept lesser or expect lesser. True love has self-respect because love has respect built into it. If you are going to love yourself, you are going to have to respect yourself. Do you respect yourself?

I think if you could get inside people’s minds, then you would be aghast at what goes on inside there. You would hear all of the awful things people say to themselves. You would have a front row seat to their severe and harsh criticisms of themselves. You would be within earshot of the negative self-judgments and frustrations over not being good enough. It wouldn’t be pretty. But the question is, how do folks get that way? What happens inside their thinking, well hidden from view, that has worked them over in the long years that preceded? The Bible says, no man ever yet hated his own flesh, that is to say of his own accord. Yet a multitude of people do just that. The core issue besides plain ignorance is found in not controlling their thinking and not controlling what they will and will not say to themselves. Think about it. We curtail our tongues for other’s sakes. We withhold criticisms and judgments from them, for their sakes. But, we fail to offer ourselves that same courtesy. Having respect for yourself is about taking charge of your mental unit and making it your ally, not your enemy. It’s about speaking to yourself like someone with whom you have respect. It’s about recognizing those ideas and suggestions that seek to make you less and not make you more. Here is an incredulous thought, everything that runs through your mind did not originate with you. The world, the systems of the world, the wheel of things grinds away day by day selling lies and deceit. Things have been carefully manipulated to present you with the wrong ideas. Much of that negativity would not have been developed by you alone. Well, your job and my job is identify when thoughts are useful and to be on alert when they are not. You don’t require other people’s respect, but you do require your own.

One of the all time shams played out on stages in the city and stages in the country is the games people play in their interactions with other people. We all want people to like us, to approve of us. We all want to be respected as people. Yet, we sell our own self-respect day in and day out. We oblige ourselves. We are polite. We don’t want to make waves or bring discomfort into situations. So we close our mouths when we should open them and we open our mouths when we should be quiet. We agree and laugh and settle and compromise until we have become lost in the process. We crave attention and approval. We need the “likes” and the “shares” and the “LOL’s” and the “follows.” Yet no one seems to have considered what is going on that drives that train? We don’t live our lives from the outside in, but from the inside out. Self-respect says you need to speak up. Self-respect demands that you get honest. Self-respect begs you to let the real you out. The acting is draining, the fake roles, tiring. Respect for yourself means you honor yourself at least as much as you have been honoring other people. It means what you think matters. Your opinions matter. Your likes and dislikes are yours and yours alone. They need neither modification nor revision. Funny isn’t funny if you are the brunt of the joke. Similarly, when you entertain a laugh at your own expense it invites derision. Self-respect demands that you sometimes have to check the situation, not for other’s sakes, but for your own. Your own heart recognizes the betrayal in your silence. No good time is a good time for you if you are somehow made to feel small, even with the crowd’s approval. Your life has it’s own fair share. For goodness sakes be kind, but handle your business. Respect yourself.

Respecting yourself lies at the cornerstone of loving yourself. It begins with your thoughts and remains in your thoughts. You choose. You decide. It is your mind and it should be your biggest supporter. Your heart knows this, but the world may have gotten to your mind. It doesn’t matter. Start today on the journey of respecting yourself. Stop assigning yourself a lower status. Stop putting up with stuff. Stop not saying what you ought to say. When it is all said and done, you have to face that man or that woman in the mirror. You only need to answer for yourself. The height of your aspirations is not the issue. Your success is defined by you, not someone else. Your view of yourself is yours to either encourage or to alter. You make real changes when you begin to have higher expectations for yourself. No one is deciding that but you. Decide now that your life matters and that there is a place for you. Be whoever you want to be. You don’t need political approval or polls or collective opinions. All you need is you, voting for you, rooting for you, working with you. Increase your expectations! Be you, unabashed and transparent. Who doesn’t love a person with a healthy respect for themselves?

Just some good thoughts…