The Necessity of Learning True Self-Respect

Sep 21, 2018 | Blog, Featured, Featured 2

 

Plumbing the depths of self-love can be a surprising exploration, as you may have discovered. When I feel into the vitality of self-love within me, it feels most essentially composed of self-respect, self-compassion, self-trust, self-forgiveness, and a generous dose of no longer giving a fuck about certain peripheral aspects of life that used to consume my attention.

Granted, these qualities are far easier to string together in a sentence than to truly embody. I’m inspired to try and articulate some of my thoughts on self-respect, specifically. Because I don’t know about you, but for me, true self-respect has been particularly hard-won. It has come with time and grit, vigilance and resolve; an ongoing willingness to intimately face inside myself that which hasn’t been respectable in the least.

Almost two decades ago, my spiritual mother Gangaji said to me: “You must learn true self-respect. You must learn to be as fierce as a mother lion in your own care!” This comment did not come out of the blue. She had been watching me as I was caught in an anguished cycle of suffering with a lover who was not a healthy match for me. I had become oddly addicted to the painful emotional drama this relationship entailed. Somewhat masochistically, I just kept going back for more.

Due to what I now understand must have been some degree of unresolved wounding, at that stage I still lacked the true self-respect necessary to know my own worth, to value my own deep listening about the truth of what I wanted, to speak this clarity and choose to align my life with it, come what may. As I found the courage to break this pattern, the toxic relationship was released once and for all, leaving in its place a wholehearted prayer to fully receive the lessons I had been given so I wouldn’t need to attract them in that way ever again.

In retrospect, I can say that from that point on I was able to stand true to my realization and my prayer to embody deeper self-respect in relationship. I never found the need to attract another partner whose qualities might tempt me to repeat that specific self-destructive pattern again.

However, I would say that every relationship since then has profoundly served to trigger and test my resolve for true self-respect.

What true relationship doesn’t?

It’s such a juggling act—the way relationship asks us to neither abandon nor betray ourselves by catering to another’s needs, while requiring that we surrender bravely to the humbling commands of Love.

One of the most important ways we can foster true self-respect is through active inquiry; through listening to our own heart, and then daring to honor what it is we hear.

When we realize we are accountable to our own living Truth, we stand tall in the self-respect this awards.

When we realize what choices are in alignment with our evolving self, and then line our actions up with that, this tends the garden of self-respect. If instead we choose to ignore or minimize what we know to be true, the cost of this pattern over time is a vitally diminished self-respect, and a lack of trust in our capacity to live from our own holy integrity.

Have you ever noticed how we become trustworthy and respectable to others only in direct proportion to the degree we trust and respect ourselves?

When we do not respect or trust ourselves to live in alignment with our deepest hearts, how can we expect anyone else to trust or respect us? This cycle of self-deceit and self-betrayal feeds an insidious pattern of self-loathing, potentially causing dis-ease on all layers of our being, which then easily translates to dis-ease at all levels of our world.

What does it mean to be “as fierce as a mother lion” in our own care? To me it means that we defend our own integrity, our sacred sovereignty, own tender aliveness, and the sanctity of our soul’s worth.

It means that we treasure our deepest knowing with all the ferocity we can muster.

It means that we love ourselves enough to not betray our own bodies, our health, our heart’s wisdom, or our sacred attention by behaving in ways that diminish our dignity and honor.

It means that when the temptation to follow an addicted or fixated response arises (whether that be to a substance, a person, a behavior, or an emotional/mental tendency), we stop and consider the consequences. We know better. We know from experience what following this temptation will lead to, and we know all too well the cost to our self-respect.

It means that we finally choose the delicious sobriety of self-respect over the tempting familiarity of avoidant distractions, reactivity, or the glory of some fleeting pleasure.

One of the most valuable ways I know of to cultivate self-respect is discovering firsthand our capacity to meet any discomfort and challenge that comes our way. When we discover that we can face whatever it is we dread—boredom, loss, aloneness, shame, rage, futility, despair, illness, failure—and rather than indulge a habitual reaction to this discomfort, instead choose to simply feel the array of feelings rising within us, then we discover the invaluable knowing that we are capable of bearing this life, as it is.

Of course in our still-learning, ever-humbling human ways, we inadvertently fail. We fail to be sober in our response each and every time we are triggered. We fail to be unwaveringly vigilant. We fail to be consistently respectful of another’s perspective or psychic space. We fail to be consistently respectful of another’s feelings. Like just a couple of mornings ago, when I lashed out angrily at one of my beloveds from a place of deep internal hurt. Ouch.

And yet, how important to fully turn toward these moments. How important to notice the ways in which each mistake serves to hone our self-awareness, while beckoning an authentic path home towards repair—inside our own hearts and the hearts of those we hold dear.

When we recognize how to balance this fierce sword of discerning self-respect with true respect for others, as well as self-compassion and self-forgiveness for all the human ways we undoubtedly fall short, then we know we can trust ourselves with our life.

What a thing to know: we can be trusted with our own life!

When we trust ourselves with life, this is deep self-love. What a great relief. We can finally let ourselves rest. It’s enough to simply be as we are. As we rest in this love with ourselves, absolutely anything is possible.

 

Facebook Comments

More Blog Posts

Praising Angels

One of the many gifts that came from my early childhood intimacy with traumatizing illness, was the way in which it opened my psychic centers to be able to “see” and “hear” energetic realities that remain elusive for most. While it took me a couple of decades to work...

Stewarding a New Way

As I witness all this outrageous trauma playing out on the global stage between man and woman, one of the most poignant components it illuminates for me is the power we hold in how we choose to steward our daughters and sons in these times. What is our part to play in...

Smoky Grateful Boredom Breakthroughs

My son Ezra and I had a glorious breakthrough about boredom a few days ago, and I’m inspired to share it with you, in case it just might be contagious. (And no, it wasn’t about boredom breeding creativity or genius or whatever it was someone wise once said, though I’m...

A Year of Leaning In

A couple of weeks ago Orionne and I celebrated our one year anniversary! What a meaningful threshold for us to cross. And what a profound year of leaning in it has been. We met (re-met) one year ago in July and immediately bowed in to a most extraordinary love. We...

“Free of Mom”~ Attachment & Surrender

The other morning I was sitting at my desk writing, when suddenly my son Ezra was beside me, tapping me on the shoulder in his fluffy red bathrobe. As I turned to greet his morning brightness, he surprised me by tumbling completely into my arms, so I had to move fast...

“But either way, isn’t Love always the answer?”

“But either way, isn’t Love always the answer?”

“But any way you look at it, isn’t Love always the answer?” That’s what my beloved partner said to me yesterday with fierce truth pouring from moist eyes, devotedly calling me back, in a moment when defense had gotten the better of me, to the common ground of our...

Graduation from a Life Chapter; The Endless Changing of Form

I’ve got some big news to share~ about a large life change in the works for my sweet family. One night, about 6 weeks ago, as I closed my eyes to go to sleep, I was suddenly struck with an unexpected lightning bolt of revelation. It went something like this: “And Now You will Move With The Children Back To Ashland.” It truly felt more like an announcement from my soul, than any kind of choice I was being offered to contemplate. I was shocked, confused, and somewhat triggered. I […]

Being Single~ Yearning, Prayer, Surrender and Fulfillment

Garethrockliffe.com I’m inspired to tell you a story from a recent bedtime conversation I had with my son, on the topic of being single, and the prayer for partnership. It’s a tender topic to personally speak and write about, but one that so many of us share in common. And so I humbly offer my voice to the collective conversation.I’ve been contemplating my own single womanhood and single motherhood a lot lately, in a particularly focused way. It’s interesting to consider the stigm […]

Nurturing Self-Love as Healthy Self-Image~ A Clothes-Shopping Story

Due to the vulnerable nature of this writing, this piece is published with explicit permission and blessings from my brave and generous daughter Arayla, who after reading it shared her hope that our story might serve in some small way~ especially other mothers and daughters, in navigating the steep challenge of healthy self- image and radical self-love in our culture. One of my most treasured delights as the mother of my beloved daughter Arayla, (newly 12 years old,) is the incredibly swee […]

Our World, Our Mirror~ Rupture, Projection, Responsibility & Repair

Our World, Our Mirror~ Rupture, Projection, Responsibility & Repair

It's difficult to know what to say in these times, but I'll give it a try.  While this horrifying drama is playing out on the world stage, I’m finding it useful to notice how this translates in my own privileged life. For it to get this crazy on the outer stage of our...