Self Care -- a Gross Transgression??

I waited for the familiar flip of my stomach, the increase in my heart rate, the reddening of my face.  I anticipated it.  It was an old friend whose company had long been accepted and adjusted to.  He had made himself at home at my dinner table more times than I could count when this thought arose, so I had already set his place.

But this time, homeboy stood me up.

For the first time since Kindergarten when my affections fell on the cutest boy in my class, the familiar physiological cues of anxiety surrounding a boy a.k.a. man did not make an appearance.

I was confused.  Surely I'm still the same little girl whose worth depends upon whether the flavor of the month likes her or not.  Surely, at 42, this hasn't changed.  Perhaps my body didn't get the cues right and is simply delayed in its response.

I waited five minutes and thought about the boy a.k.a. man again.  Still nothing, Jesus.

It settled on me with a heaviness mixed with relief and joy.  I had broken my body's response to what I used to categorize as fear.  I had said enough times in the midst of my unwelcome dinner guest things to combat his presence.

"You are enough."
"You are beautiful."
"You are kind."
"You are intelligent."
"You deserve more."
"You are honest."
"You are worthy."
"You are amazing."
"You are a catch."
"Any man would be lucky to have you."
"You are funny."
"You are successful."

My brain had been programmed for so long to believe the opposite.  When a thought about a man arose, my brain immediately went into protection mode.  My body cleared the way for anxiety to settle in with its physical responses to my negative thoughts.  They went something like this:

"You are not good enough for him."
"Of course he doesn't like you."
"You're too fat for him."
"You're not successful enough."
"You don't work out enough."
"You're not pretty enough."
"You're too much."
"You drink too much."
"You laugh too loudly."
"Your nose is too big."
"You're not clever enough."
"You're too clingy."
"You're not funny."
"He's too good for you."

and so on...

After my two week stint of anticipating news of cancer, I suppose my brain was finally done with the bullshit.  It finally got the clue that my time belonged only to me and to waste it would be foolish.  It finally flipped the script and joined the "We Love Rebekah" camp of positive thoughts.

I had successfully changed my brain.

Our responses to life are controlled by what we have taught our brain to believe.  If we believe that we are worthy, our brain will look for things to reinforce that belief.  If we believe the opposite, it will do the same.

But we are in control of this phenomenon.  We are the ones steering our thoughts.  We are the ones controlling our beliefs.  We, alone, hold the power to changing ourselves.

Along with this beautiful acceptance of myself came the desire to be alone.

I'm not afraid of spending time alone.  I never have been.  I am usually very happily singing to very loud music and cleaning.  I play the piano.  I paint.  I garden.  I cook.  I am not the girl who can't be alone.  But this sense of aloneness that I now crave is different.  I'm always aware of myself and the joy I find in being me.  I'm alone in crowds, just me and my thoughts having interesting conversations.  I'm alone when I work, though I work alongside a helper and the occasional client.

I'm the coolest person I know, so being alone now has this extra edge of beauty and mystery to it.

Growing up in a Southern Baptist environment, the theme was to die to yourself.  Anything about self-love was considered mystical and sinful.  I have first hand experience with this faulty thinking.   (This conversation requires Chopin...please hold while I play the Chopin Pandora station to get the creative juices turned on.)

But if we are to truly love others, we must love ourselves first.  We are incapable of wholly loving if we loathe who we are.  I'm no expert on the Bible anymore, but I vaguely remember a verse about loving others as we love ourselves.  This assumes that we do, in fact, love ourselves.

So where is the disconnect?  Why did the church assume that loving yourself was sinful and evil?  Why is self-care a "mystical" and "Eastern" idea to good, Baptist folk?

I clearly remember sitting in a Sunday School class as an adult when a woman began talking about how she meditates and does Yoga to help her with her anxiety.  The response from the teacher was less than tasteful...it was something like "those practices are not godly because they are self-centered."

John Calvin said, "Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God."

I agree heartily with this statement.

Our parents' generation has resisted loving themselves.  They have resisted self-care and self-awareness.  They have hidden from it, like it was a secret holocaust ready to implode.  I have been scoffed at many times for doing things to take care of myself as a mother.  The unspoken words were that they didn't do all of these things and were able to raise us just fine.  The subtle message is that they are stronger than we are because they didn't need such frivolities. 

But the truth was they were stressed out, unhappy mothers who were hanging on by a thread.

What a disservice they suffered...largely the fault of the church and its not-so-subtle message that self-care was wrong.  They must have stayed in high-anxiety mode because the solutions were not only considered selfish and wrong, but considered a gross transgression against God.  Their brains must have stayed stressed out.  They must have been tired.  They were definitely unappreciated.  They must have been alone and fearful.  When perhaps the solution to all their anxiety and stress and exhaustion was just a damn trip to Target by themselves with their favorite coffee.

I believe that we are so convoluted in our ideas of strength that we have shut off the tap that would otherwise freely flow God's love and care.  If strength was instead wholly loving yourself, which would be proven by your acts of self-care, then the world would be a lot less stressed out and much more loving.

If I had not been on a mission to love myself, my brain would have continued on its erroneous path of self-destructive messages.  These thoughts become actions.  And actions have consequences.

I can say without doubt that my actions are mostly the actions of a woman who wholly loves herself.  There are those moments when I eat too much ice cream or drink too much, but I'm in process, okay?????  And Blue Bell and vodka was made to be enjoyed.  I'm just a girl standing in front of a freezer asking it to feed me frozen, creamy goodness.

Thanks to my journey to love myself, my brain and I are now on a positive upswing (Bluebell and vodka are also present).  I no longer have anxiety responses to boys not liking me.  I could care less.  I have more than enough love for myself...men no longer hold the key to the delightful kingdom of Rebekah.