Flowers…
Greeting dear friends & fellow navigators, & welcome to my world this week. Last week I wrote on Honesty & Virtues. This week I have been reflecting on what I consider the next step. There are days when it feels easier to love the world than to love the person staring back at you in the mirror.
To hold this quiet stare & understand the silence between the breaths, to give whispers of understanding of what is going on inside of you. To care for others, to give them warmth, to be gentle with their stories, this comes naturally. But turning this same softness inward? This requires a different kind of courage.
I was watching someone do a simple sketch the other day; a hand holding a heart, & from it, little branches & wildflowers rising upward, as if self-love itself were trying to bloom. The shape was delicate, almost hesitant. The flowers looking like they were learning how to grow inside a space, once felt abandoned. Maybe this is what loving yourself feels like at first.
Not the instant feeling of peace, just a quiet, almost shy attempt to bloom inside your own hands.
Then I read these words to gave me another way of understanding love for yourself:
To love someone else is easy, but to love what you are, yourself, is just as if you were embracing a glowing red-hot iron: it burns into you, & this is very painful. Therefore, to love somebody else in the first place is always an escape… You cannot stay away from yourself forever; you must return… to know whether you really can love. This is the question: whether you can love yourself, & this will be the test. 1
The honesty of these lines really awoke me. Like the way you try to do things for yourself every day to make yourself feel better with every attempt. Because loving yourself is not a cute quote, or a warm
bath, or a weekend ritual, at least not at first. It is a full experiment.
A test you return to, & a decision to stop escaping yourself; most escape without even realizing it. We bury ourselves in helping others. We get lost in their stories, chaos, dreams. We become experts at giving comfort to every heart except our own. Loving them feels easier but loving yourself requires you to sit with your own truths, fears, insecurities, disappointments & soft spots.
It asks you to see your whole self without turning away. This is exactly why self-love matters. Because in this life, you are the first home you will ever live in. You are the person who walks with you through every age, every failure, & every joy. You are the one witnessing every version of yourself quietly, faithfully, continuously.
You are the one who believes in yourself until the end, & whatever happens, everything is gonna work out for you. You let yourself rest without guilt. You forgive yourself for the days you could not carry everything. You speak gently to yourself instead of harshly.
You allow yourself to outgrow old versions of who you thought you had to be & honour your emotions without calling them “too much.” Like those flowers growing from the heart in the drawing, not forcing, or rushing, just quietly reaching for light.
So, love yourself fiercely & honestly. Take care of yourself. Because in this life, you are the one who has been there for yourself all your life. Yes, people are there for you, support you, love you, & it is most important you do all these things for yourself well enough. You will know what you are & what you want.
Loving yourself will hurt sometimes. It will feel uncomfortable & unfamiliar. But slowly, it becomes the most honest love you will ever know, & one day, you will realize the flowers inside you bloomed not because someone watered them for you, but because you finally learned to hold your own heart with both hands.
Just few observations again dear friends & provide an opinion in my world. Thank you for stopping by, I appreciate your being here. If my journey encourages you also, all is well with my soul. Looking forward to next week; this is Kenn Butler in Paradise, Nelson with best wishes.
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