Selfishness, Selflessness and Self-compassion

We experience peace when we learn to fully love ourselves so that we can then radiate that love to others. When we care only about achieving, earning, or having more than others, we do not find true peace. When are not content when we are either comparing ourselves with those whom we believe are above us or ridiculing those whom we consider beneath us. Selfishness does not promotes genuine serenity for true love gives as well as receives love.

Although helping and serving others can provide peace, if we love others instead of loving ourselves we can become dependent on others for our happiness instead of trusting in God as the Source of all peace and joy. The account of the Prodigal Son describes a father who loved his son perfectly without becoming codependent on his son for his own happiness. When the son rebelled from his father, the father allowed the son to suffer the consequences for his unwise decisions yet enthusiastically welcomed his son back after the son repented and returned. If the father had tried to rescue his son, his son would not have learned from his bad choices. If the father had been consumed with self-loathing because of his son's self-defeating choices, he might have lacked the strength to forgive his repentent child and receive him when he returned. When we become obsessively selfless, we may be effective at giving love but not at receiving it.

When we trust completely in God, we allow Him to fill our hearts with peace even when life is difficult and unfair. When we feast on God's infinite love for us, we can then give and receive His love freely. Self-compassion, a gift from God, enhances our ability to love ourselves and to love others. We learn to love ourselves because God first loved us. Then, filled with His love, we can love others in healthy ways that promote happiness and peace.

© Carol Brown

15 Ways to Increase Your Feelings of Self-worth

God asks us to love others as we love ourselves. We need to fill our own cups with kindness and compassion so that we can share that love with others, yet sometimes we put ourselves last on our to-do lists. So here are some ways that will help you love yourself more so that you can love others better.

1. Discover God's perfect love for you by reading the Scriptures. Psalms is a good place to start. Consider this verse: "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well (Psalm 139:14).

2. Write down a list of all your talents, gifts, and abilities. Ask your friends and family to add to your list. Then, if you're feeling unworthy or less than whole, read your list. (In our family, we celebrate Christmas Eve by creating a love box for each family member. We write down those things we love about each family member and then place it in a box. It's one of our most cherished possessions!)

3. Each morning, ask God to help you feel His infinite love for you and then find at least one way to share that love with someone else.

4. Stop the negative self-talk that says you are worthless or less than wonderful.

5. Choose friends that build you up.

6. Forgive yourself for being human and imperfect.

7. Do not allow the words or actions of others to determine your self-worth.

8. Memorize some positive affirmations that remind you of your worth. Here's one: I am loveable, and I am loved. As I child of God, I have divine qualities and gifts. When I ask for His help, God gives me the power to use these gifts to bless myself and others.

9. At the end of each day, thank God for creating you and for using you as His instrument to make the world a better place.

10. Do one loving thing for yourself each day. Spend a few minutes meditating. Read something that inspires you. Take a walk. Call a friend.

11. Find someone who needs your love and do one loving thing each day. That will radically increase your feelings of self-worth.

12. Set healthy boundaries. You cannot be all things for all people and maintain healthy balance in your lifetime. Sometimes the most loving thing you can say is "no."

13. Trust that the Lord is working in your life, even during the difficult times. Commit to memory these words from Proverbs: "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

14. Do not compare yourself with others. (If you haven't already, read the previous post.)

15. Allow God to show you how much He loves you. Consider these words: "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:1-3).

Allow God to hold you in the arms of His love today. He loves you infinitely and will teach you how to love yourself more completely. As we ask for His help, He will reveal His love to you.

© Carol Brown

Pornography and Peace

So many people don't truly love themselves. Women can be especially hard on themselves--comparing themselves with the air-brushed images of size-2 women that confront them in check-out lines, billboards, and malls. These images bombard them on television, at movies, and in store fronts. And somehow these fake images convince some women that they aren't thin enough, beautiful enough, or glamourous enough, when in reality no one looks as perfect as these advertisements and magazine covers pretend.

Hugh Hefner made soft-core pornography acceptable to the main-stream public, and woman have become dehumanized and demoralized in the process. If you doubt the influence of soft- and hard-core porn on women and girls, read the book "Pornified," written by a journalist who wanted to objectively determined the effect--either good or bad--that porn was having in America. (Her findings would be true for other countries as well.) Her observations are alarming, for she discovered (among other things) that the porn industry would convince women that they are nothing more than a sexual commodity and would have men treat them as such.

I have spend hundreds of hours researching the effects of porn on self-esteem, and I also speak widely about porn addiction and recovery. Each month porn becomes more prolific in our culture as sexting, cell phone porn, media and entertainment porn become more widely available and acceptable. Millions of people are addicted to porn in the United States and many more millions are addicted world-wide. And millions of women are feeling worthless and less than whole because of the messages and images that bombard them each day.

Tomorrow study the magazines you see at the check-out stand or the headlines you read in major magazines. Notice what they say about the value of womanhood. Notice how the voices and images in our cultures are dehumanizing women.

Pornography can destroy the peace in families, hearts, and homes. We can start today to speak up politely in behalf of virtue and decency. And, we can refuse to allow air-brushed images determine our self-worth.
© Carol Brown