Selfless Love: When Sacrifice can be Bloody

If you had met me ten years ago, I would have told you that what I placed above everything was to have that perfect soul mate. My personal Jesus who would save me from everything only because I would be loved unconditionally. It took me a few years to discover that you never ever measure your worth according to the action of others. You have to be your own saviour.  There is a lot of literature that gear towards: "Love thy self so that you can love and have others return that love to you".  But this is not what my post is going to be about.  Love does not stop at romantic connections , nor  it shouldn't. I want to talk about the invisible lines that we have drawn in relationships with others. I was brought up to believe the pinnacle of love is selfless love. I found through my own role model and through  my own practice of this idea, there were damaging effects on our self esteem. So where are the limits? Or are there any?

My father passed away seven months ago with lung failure. He was my model for selfless love. He put himself aside for his parents, siblings, and for us. But it cost him. People took advantage of his kindness to the degree that they would cross lines and he would not defend himself. He carried that with him. I would hear him talking to himself and I think he was reliving those events in his head to somehow correct those situations. His father never acknowledged him and told him that he did "crap" for the family when meanwhile, my grandfather quit his job because my father would send all his money that he scrounged up in Canada, which was very little, to support him back in Portugal. His selfless love for his parents and siblings was destructive.  His example shows that one has to have healthy self love in order to maintain healthy balanced relationships.  My father lucked out with his daughters who never troubled him and showed him how much he was worth. I do not know if that taught him about his worth, but he left this world knowing that his presence was meaningful in our lives.

When I was four years old, I got a Christmas gift of barbie clothes for my doll. I took it to kindergarten and another girl asked if she could borrow them for her doll.  So I exchanged it with her because I wanted to be selfless and nice. I got into trouble by mother over it. I asked for the clothes back and she never gave it back to me. I was being selflless in that moment by sharing and as a four year old, I felt cheated. For years, I asked for them back in grade school and she told me that she gave them to her niece. I felt cheated and berated "myself" for being so trusting. I was the worthless one in that exchange. I did it because I was taught that you were suppose to take the clothes off your back to give to someone else.  I had every right to say no and be selfish. I also had every right to demand them back, but I didn't. I didn't because I felt that I deserved to be cheated out of my gift because of my poor four year old judgement. Perhaps this is not a good example of selflessness in relationships, but it is clear to me that when you become a doormat, people will take full advantage of you because of your own desire for them to love you back. Just like certain animals can smell fear, people can smell low self esteem. And that alone stems from the "lack of self love".

Here are the demarcation points that I have discovered. Selfless does not mean being less of self, but to step out of one's self to help the other.  It may be not be true to your experiences, but has been with mine. You are worth defending yourself. You must set boundaries with people. Stand your ground, but be respectful to others in your relationships. You must respect yourself FIRST (not in an egotistically way, but in a loving accepting way) before others return that respect. Now here is the spin. Empathy is important. "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes." But the shoes are not yours and they are not about you. Empathy is a good tool, but it is not meant for blood self sacrifice. It is a tool that brings peace to people by creating harmony and understanding of the other. The whole idea of selflessness is to understand the "other" and to exercise compassion for the other. In that vein, you step out of yourself for a moment to be that higher love. Higher love does not mean destroying your own healthy self esteem. It is a balance and yes, sometimes, lines have to be drawn. Sometimes, we have to say "no" to our loved ones for the sake of that delicate balance.

In Self-full Love,


Helga

Food Bytes!

As I have mentioned many times before in my past blogs, I have battled with my weight for most of my life. I have never been "thin" by societal standards.  I have gained weight in periods of stress or some challenge that  I subconsciously did not want to deal with. Food has been my saviour since I was a baby. Especially the sweet stuff!  When I was toddler, I was always rewarded with sweets from my parents' friends and neighbours. When I was about four years old, I ate a whole bottle of children's aspirin because I thought it was candy. The doctor said I would be fine because I was a strong girl. Maybe he meant that I was fat girl and that my weight in that instance had saved me.  Anyway, so on a physiological level, there is a positive association with food that goes beyond survival needs.

I have also been on a lot of diets for many years. So my body has gone through the calorie deficits, the overexercising, the vomiting, and the binging for nearly three decades. I wasn't conscious about the need to diet probably until I was in my teens.  I was once told by an ex that I must be eating cakes all day because he thought I should be weighing less with all my exercising. As much as those words were hurtful, he had a point. I was overexercising, but the body did not transform. The paleo folks would say the reason why I gain weight is because I have too much carbs or processed sugars still in my diet. Other health enthusiasts would say is because I eat too much. The gluten free people would say it is gluten. The whole foods people would say it is too much processed food. I am actually very careful with my diet. For many years, I ate low fat mostly and lots of vegetables. I never overdone too much except the occasional binge.

I am reading now Gary Taubes' book "Why do we get fat?".  He has made some interesting points that there is growing obesity amongst poorer populations which may tie back to low food quality. I noticed this when I assisted at an art show at our school. I looked in to the audience and I was astounded by how many overweight people there were. I also know that this population is a low income population and work their butts off to earn that money. Most of them are not white collar workers and do physical labour and work long hours. So ideally they should be skinny people. The work conditions have not changed, but the access to better nutrition has become more out of reach since good food is far more expensive. That part, I fully understand and I am amazed by seeing this connection. However, I do not work in the same conditions as these folks and I live fairly comfortably. I stay away from fast food and mostly processed foods. So why am I not a size 2?

 My only schtick that I have with all the nutrition enthusiasts is that I represent the population that does not use food as  fuel. All our basic needs are met. Food is actually something else. I have discovered that unless I do not snap the root of my food addiction relationship, no diet of any form will matter. I will overeat eventually. I will also pick sugary foods eventually. It happens when I am not even aware of it. I am hard wired for it. It happens when I am stressed, overwhelmed with work, bored, lonely,angry and sad. It is a saviour in times of uneasiness and discomfort. It goes back to infancy! What I am trying to say  is that having a clean diet is not the issue for me nor is exercise. There is a much more underlying layer that I don't think has been publicly addressed well.

Solution?  I think it is finding a way to get to the root of this problem. One solution presented to me was   replace it with something else. At one point, I considered smoking since it would satisfy the addiction at some level. But again, not good for my body.  I don't know yet, but when I will find it, I will let you know. I am just going to be happy with my body. Eat when I am hungry and never ever deprive myself again for the sake of fitting in!

Until next time,

Helga

Newton's Third Law: With every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

A funny thing happened since my last post.  I had someone with a particular label follow me on twitter (see my last post). The same thing happened to me before when I tweeted about MLMs and my beef about them. My guesstimate is that I was being followed because I may pose as a challenge and will be an excellent convert or they are waiting to see what slander I may splash on the walls.  But, hey at least I am getting some response.

The only thing that may irk me about it is that to me it "says" censorship. Just because I do not share someone's views and may oppose them, does not mean that I do not have the same and equal right to express myself. Can we agree to disagree???

 Nope.

That's okay. Thanks for reading anyways and let's move on!

Self Help and Motivational Seminars: Who are they motivating?

I would be a huge hypocrite if I told you that I never attended personal growth seminars, never read a multitude of self help books, and never spent thousands of dollars trying to fix myself. We are an era of "self aware", but at the same token, it sometimes feels like "the big me". What's wrong with me? What are my issues? How I have been conditioned? What are my hopes and dreams? What about me? Why have I been so unhappy with me life? Me or I, me or I, me or I?  I am at a space where I keep hearing about people talking about what's wrong with themselves and that the people in their lives should take the same courses and read the same material. It feels like an old record that keeps playing unskipped. Why don't we just change the record?

I want to tell everyone that there is nothing wrong with them. To leave the people in their lives "be" and not try to preach their new found religion of self. Our world seems pretty upside down, but are we really willing to risk our comfy lives and lay them on the line to attack these global and social problems? The honest answer is no. So what makes "self petting" a solution to making the world a better place? I am sorry, I don't buy it. Not one last dollar of it!