How can you help others grow if you won't grow yourself?
How can you want the best for someone else when you can't or won't give the best to yourself?
And, honestly, how can you love another if you don't love yourself?
What I've discovered along my journey is that when I was finally daring enough to face who I was warts and all, I found this deep sense of happiness and peace, and I tell you, when you feel that happiness and peace, you can't help but want to spread it around like wildfire!
You can't help but want others to feel it too, because life is just so much easier and nicer and more peaceful in that space.
But getting to that space takes commitment, it takes dedication, it takes discipline and, it's something you will have to work on every.single.day of your life. It's kind of like deciding to become vegan, you choose your ingredients carefully, you check the labels out, you do your research, it's a day to day commitment.
Loving yourself is kind of like that too.
It takes a lot of work on your part, a lot of facing truths head on, a lot of questioning yourself, working on the shadow side of you, delving in to the parts that pop up and cause you to get angry, sad, hurt or whatever emotions that part of you keeps bringing up.
It's so much easier to be judgmental and blame and point fingers, or to play the victim. It's so much easier to not talk about the elephant in the room and pretend that everything is ok, or blame everyone else, or hide how you feel by stuffing your face with more food or going out and buying more shit that you don't need, or having another cigarette or drink, all those vices to try and numb that pain. It's so much easier to do things for others and then get bitterly disappointed by their lack of "gratitude" or lack of "appreciation."
I've been there and done all of that, and even though it seems easier to stay in that place, it's actually not. Being in that place is actually harder work, it's miserable and it's like being stuck in Ground Hog day, nothing ever changes despite you wishing and hoping for it to, there will be no miracle or knight in shining armor to come save you if you don't change things, if you don't start taking action, if you don't start doing things differently and thinking differently, if you don't start saying no when you mean no or start saying yes to the things you really want.
I figured all of this out the hard way when I finally realized that I am the common denominator in my life, and that nothing would change unless I did. I started taking action and making different choices and I found that peaceful happy place! Don't get me wrong though, finding that place isn't void of feeling emotions or shit happening, it just means that you won't get stuck there, you can feel them for a short time and deal with it all from a better space.
Change comes from making different and sometimes daring choices. Change means stepping into the unknown (a place where we seem to fear the most and which I will talk about another day).
As they say, life is an inside job, and you have the freedom to choose every single day how you want to live it, despite what is going on around you.
So for today, when you catch yourself pointing the finger at someone else, or blaming someone else, or reaching for that vice, ask yourself, do I really want to do this for the rest of my life? Is this it? Because I can guarantee that if you dare to choose differently each time you act out of habit, things will start changing for the better, and before you know it, you will want to spread that love, happiness and peace around like there is no tomorrow!
Help yourself first and then you can truly help others.
And just to throw this in to lighten shit up, I've been singing the following lyrics today "let's be love, share love, make love" but I have no idea where it came from, I kind of think it's a cross between a Barry White song and a Bob Marley song. Any ideas or did I just make that shit up?? Maybe I have a career as a future singer songwriter?
I offer spiritual mentoring packages to women who are ready to delve into those places and who want to step out as their true selves, if you have any questions, feel free to send me an email! I'd love to hear from you. http://www.keyonbayani.com/about-2/