Loving someone more than you love yourself

[smc]

   

I relate to all this so much! there is inside so many people a primal heartbreak - a severe and chronic damage to our psyches from our child/parent relationships (or lack of) that affects our whole lives

google "CEN" (Childhood Emotional Neglect)

it's good to love and care for others - but never at a cost of allowing hurt/abuse/damage to ourselves but if our family of birth/origin involves love=pain(etc) we replicate this environment until we do work to become conscious of these toxic impulses/patterning and to change our 'norm'

and we can't do others learning for them


what keeps me alive in the face of ongoing total (family) abandonment, isolation from friends, loneliness and nearly completely crushed dreams, is:

self love - self care - self respect


I travelled right up to the point of near-death to discover this

it's the reason I'm still alive

I married myself

I am my own mother, father, best friend, I am my everything (I had to be)

I listen to myself, I take care of myself. I have consolidated my relationship with myself

I am the one person I know I can rely on

if I'm alone for the rest of my life - I'll be treating myself with respect, having fun and happiness and helping others without wearing myself out.

- you can love someone and still let them know what you will and won't tolerate

I also feel that our relationship with ourself sets the 'tone' for how we let other people treat us (and how they actually treat us in the first place...)

we must care for ourselves deeply and be our first and closest best friend - partner

all else in life is a bonus

thank you to the OP Nowheretoday, and Glow and Agua for this thread and sharings!

I hope you may feel my respect being sent to you... you are not alone right now in this