The Paradox Of Selfish Self-Love

In this short talk, Michelle Medrano asks the question, how can we reconcile the concept of self-love with our duty to love and serve others? Please enjoy Dr. Michelle's thoughts and insights on this topic!

Transcript

So I love Pot Shots by Ashley Brilliant and one of the ones that I love best is who causes more problems in the world?

People with too much self-esteem or people with too little?

And I open with that quote because today I want to talk about self-love and how having selfish self-love can support us in the world and in our lives.

Some people say it might be the lodestone of everything that to the degree that we love and revere ourselves,

Honor ourselves,

Respect ourselves with our thoughts,

Our words,

And our actions,

To that degree we set the law of attraction in motion on our behalf.

In other words,

We're putting out an energy,

A vibration,

A sense of who we are and how we expect to be treated because we're treating ourselves a certain way.

Indeed,

I've heard many self-help gurus say that we are constantly training other people how to to treat us by the way we treat ourselves and we are just experiencing greater peace and well-being as we choose to love and honor ourselves.

I know this isn't always easy because by and large we've been taught conditional love by the world.

It's just the way the system is set up right now.

It doesn't mean it's true,

But we've been taught by by other people the feeling of if I don't do things their way I might lose their love or respect.

If I don't be who they need me to be they might not love me.

If I make a mistake or I do something wrong,

Love might be withdrawn from me.

And so it makes sense how we've fallen into a belief that the best way to get through our life is to constantly check ourselves and question ourselves,

Even criticize ourselves or or speak to ourselves in in ways that are disrespectful.

And yet I don't think it's really working.

I don't think that way of managing ourselves is working.

It doesn't work when we manage children.

I know that I have had a lot of experience with the children and my own inner child.

I was a child at one point and I just don't see how trying to intimidate anyone to do something actually fosters greater love and peace and self-reliance.

It seems like if we are trying to motivate through intimidation all we get are people who are afraid of us and then when they're afraid of us they're acting on fear and not being their authentic self and then being upset with themselves at some degree or another.

So we know it doesn't work in managing other people.

So why would we think it would work in managing ourselves?

Well it's a habit.

It's a habit that we have indulged in sometimes far too long.

Lucille Ball says love yourself first and everything else falls into place.

You really have to love yourself to get anything done in the world.

I wrote that down and wanted to look at it and get it just right because I love Lucille Ball and it's a great quote.

So today I'm here issuing an invitation for a deeper sense of self-love,

A selfish sense of self-love.

And so the basic things of what I'm inviting us to do to garner greater self-love I've already kind of mentioned.

The first one and we might want to take these one at a time depending on if we know we have a problem in one area or another.

The first one is how we think about ourselves.

It would be really important for someone who wants to have a greater degree of self-love to reflect upon their own self-talk.

This is an area that no one else can get into,

Can see or sense necessarily because it's completely interior.

Sometimes people who know us well can tell you've got that self-criticizing look on your face but by and large what's going on in here in the cabeza only we know.

And so it's important for us to consider that and to pay attention for a period of time at the places we go,

The people were with,

At the moments were in our lives all alone and consider the general direction of our thought processes.

Are we generally thinking fairly happy about ourselves?

Now let me just stop right here and say in any of these things I'm going to suggest this is not to say that we don't have moments of self-correction or moments where we acknowledge I could have done that better.

I could have said that so much better.

I wish that I would have done that instead of that or whatever it might be.

It's not that we don't have those because we do.

A person who loves themselves does.

Just like two people who love each other can say gosh I really love you and that the way that this is happening it's just not working for me.

Let's talk about it.

It's never that we we don't do that kind of questioning of ourselves but it's how.

There's a vast difference energetically,

Chemically and in terms of setting that law of attraction in motion between saying to myself I wish that I would have done better on that.

I think I probably neglected to prepare as well as I would have liked.

There's a difference between that and you stupid idiot.

Why didn't you prepare more?

What is wrong with you that you didn't take the time to prepare?

Big difference.

Big difference.

Maybe the same intention to do better next time but done differently.

And so what I'm inviting us to look at specifically when thinking about ourselves and reflecting on our self talk when it's unloving it's usually in make-wrong mode.

It's usually in criticism mode.

It's usually in intensity mode and by and large most of the things that we're about,

The conversations we have,

The choices we're making,

Yes can be very important and vital in our life but often aren't life and death situations.

The majority of the conversations we're having in our head about ourselves and our life,

There may be some along the way but probably a good eighty percent of our life the things we're doing,

The things that are happening are not as intense as we make that when we have self talk about ourselves.

So it really helps to take on a demeanor when talking to myself inside myself that is respectful,

That is clear,

That is kind.

And then the next step would be what I say about myself to other people.

What I say about myself.

How I say what I say about myself.

I can joke about myself.

I was in a meeting earlier today where I had to receive feedback from the facilitator and they mentioned that there was something I could have done better and I kind of joked around about you know she points right out that I made a mistake.

And we kind of laughed about it and I was kind of sensitive but not extremely sensitive about it but I noticed that sometimes when I make a mistake I can be a little bit more self-deprecating.

I can be a little hard on myself.

Now again there's still something to be said for absolute self-responsibility and accountability.

To go to someone,

A co-worker,

A partner,

A friend and say another human being on the planet I'm sorry I just did not do that very well.

I apologize in an authentic way.

That is self-love.

But going to someone and saying I'm a horrible human being because I treated you badly and I can't believe I messed up on that question and what's wrong with me that I didn't get it right and that kind of energy.

Again we can feel how we're launching chemistry into our system.

We're using our words to set things in motion that aren't about self-love.

Selfish self-love is a diligence that says I'm going to be accountable and responsible but I'm going to do it in a loving way.

I'm going to own up when I've made a mistake but I'm going to do it in a loving way.

I'm going to be centered and be real and I'm going to make amends and I'm going to fix anything that I can fix if I've made a mistake but I don't need to spend time berating myself,

Criticizing myself,

Making fun of myself with other people.

It's how I speak about myself.

And then the last one which is very vast is how I treat myself.

How I treat myself.

And so it's about the important acts of everyday self-care.

Sometimes I walk out of the house or used to anyway planning to be gone for the whole day and never think about what am I going to have for lunch or how am I going to feed myself today.

Just don't think about it.

Just don't think about it at all.

That's not self-love.

That is not self-respect.

So taking care of myself.

Little things that we can do and I know that some of those choices are born out of the thoughts and the deeper awarenesses that we have but we also can work from the outside in when I start to take more care of myself,

Of my body,

Of my life,

Of my time,

Of my energy and manage myself with greater love and respect.

I might appear to be selfish to other people but I'm experiencing self-love.

This week,

Love yourself.

You're worth it.

I know you are.

Thanks for tuning in.

Reviews

Wow. Thank you for this talk. It affirms that I'm on the right path and to keep going as how I treat myself (currently, my time!) benefits others, as well. 💖