Self-love Requires Self-discipline
Browse social media for any length of time, and you’ll see it: “self-love.” It’s a word/phrase that seems to be gaining a bit of steam in our culture. That’s not just conjecture, either. The topic of self-love has been trending upward according to Google Trends since 2016.
I would never go as far as to say this is a bad thing, necessarily. I think it’s a great thing that people are becoming more aware of the current state of their mental health, or are at least willing to try. This allows for more open discussions about such topics, which will hopefully lead to more people looking for help. Unfortunately, this is where the gospel of self-love often fails.
If you were to do a quick Twitter search for “#selflove,” what you would find is a lot of the same thing: selfies, people claiming to put themselves first, cutting out “toxic” people, people treating themselves to a nice meal or experience. I’m not here to criticize that. I think being comfortable and confident in your own skin is a great thing. Distancing yourself from people who bring you down can be a healthy practice. Enjoying the blessings that you have been given is absolutely necessary. I encourage all of these things, but only as first steps to true love.
So what’s “true love?” Often times we confuse “true love” with the Hallmark or Disney representation of it. We only focus on the romantic moments, or the good times. How many relationships come to an end when the good times become more scarce? Regardless of your worldview, I think we can all agree that’s not a true love. A true love is a sacrificial love. One that’s willing to be there in the midst of the storm.
I’m not so sure if our culture’s particular brand of self-love leads to that. More often than not, our self-love begins and ends with us. One could argue that isn’t love at all, but what good is criticizing it without a solution? So what is the solution?
Chocolate Pudding.
Let me explain…
One evening, I was having dinner with my family. It was quite a grand meal, as it usually is when my step-mother cooks at home. We had a Filipino dish that’s name I can’t pronounce, let alone spell. As with most Filipino meals, we also had a lot of rice. Before the dinner, my 5-year old sister had a yogurt pouch, but I don’t think that ruined her appetite. In fact, when we finished our meal and made our way to the couch in the living room, my sister made her way to the refrigerator. She wasn’t done.
She’s not quite tall enough to reach the upper levels of the refrigerator where the snacks are stored, but she is still small enough to be able to climb the shelves in the refrigerator. She closed the large stainless steel door, and made her way into the living room, with yogurt pouch and chocolate pudding snack pack in hand.
“You don’t need that,” I said. “You just ate dinner, and were snacking before dinner. You can choose one.” Disappointed, she walked back to the refrigerator to make what seemed like the hardest decision she’s had to make thus far in her life. She could only keep one. She chose the chocolate pudding.
This lit a spark in me. One I’m not sure I’ve ever had. There’s been glimpses of it in my life, but now I felt like I could see the entire picture.
“I am the biggest hypocrite,” I thought. How can I sit here and tell her how to control what she eats, when I don’t abide by those same standards? Whenever I want something, I get it. It can be food, sweets, entertainment, etc. I’ve been like this my entire life. While I don’t blame my parents for it, it definitely stems from the lack of discipline as a child. I don’t mean not being spanked. I got my fair share of those. Even still, I was a pretty well behaved child… for the most part. This instilled a trust in me for my parents, and therefor, they were pretty lenient on me. So I ate, watched, and sort of did whatever I wanted to.
I’m 28 years old now, and I’m finally seeing how that affects me as an independent adult. I’ve been able to take care of myself, but I’ve never really TAKEN CARE of myself. The past 9-10 years of living by myself has been nothing but coddling myself.
A lot of the negative aspects of my life, including my anxiety, depression, and obesity, can be tied back to my lack of self-discipline. You can’t discipline yourself out of anxiety and depression, but you can give yourself a better chance. We all know our diet, activity level, hydration, and sleeping patterns pay a major roll in how we feel, but how many of us actually apply that knowledge to our own lives?
A lot of us feel like this kind of self-discipline feels like torture, but like my sister with the chocolate pudding, even though she hated it, my hope is that she doesn’t see satisfying every want is actually what she needs. We live in a culture of “more.” We want more food, more sugar, more alcohol, more money, more sex, more stuff. Is that what we need, though?
Lately, my life has been about learning how to do more with less. I’m now waking up earlier each morning, scheduling out my days, filling up on water, snacking on veggies instead of sweet or salty things, eating cleaner, controlling the proportions of my food, meditating every morning, reading every night, digging into scripture every day, and more.
When you really lay it out like that, it sure doesn’t look like less. It actually might be a bit overwhelming. It’s more of the things that I know will actually benefit me, not just today, but tomorrow as well. It’s less of the things that the world and our culture tell us will make my life better. It’s simplifying my daily habits, so that way I’m not tempted by excess.
I’m trusting that I don’t need much, and the things that I truly need God will provide.
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
Everything else is a bonus. I’m not saying you can’t treat yourself to something nice, but make sure you have the right perspective of that thing. Don’t confuse something you want for something you need. Just because we want something, doesn’t mean it’s good for us, especially if you have it in excess.
The good news is, when you get that straightened out, those things you want, those special treats you give yourself, become that much better on the other side of obedience. I’m a peanut butter cup snob. I’ve always hated imitations of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. After many days of not having any sort of sweets or deserts, I decided to reward myself. As I got to the store, I saw the Russel Stover sugar free peanut butter cups. I purchased those instead of the Reese’s, because as I said before, I weighed my wants and needs. Also, if I happened to like them enough, that would be my special treat for myself moving forward.
As I got in my car, I opened one of the peanut butter cups and took a small bite. It was an almost euphoric experience. In that moment, I felt so accomplished, and satisfied. Not necessarily because the peanut butter cup was so good (I did love every bite of it), but because immediately, I was so confident that I could truly make these changes in my life, and it wasn’t going to be torturous. I truly appreciated how good that peanut butter cup was, but it didn’t feel like something I needed. The feeling almost verged on guilt, if I’m being completely honest. It was like I didn’t feel worthy of it.
Isn’t that how you want to see the world though? Loving yourself through self-discipline allows you to be in awe of even littlest things. Rather than trying to hoard more stuff, don’t you want to appreciate what you have or what has been provided even more?
Sometimes we need to drop “tough” in the middle of “self-love.” That “self-tough-love” allows us to sacrifice some of those more materialistic or nonessential things, so that way we can make room for more of the good. When we see how blessed we are, and how most of us are given so much more than we need or deserve, it’s easier for us to share that with others. Even if it’s just sharing the joy that you have, or making yourself more available to the people you love.
I’ll leave you with this; my favorite verse is 1 John 4:19. “We love because he first loved us.” That’s the point. We shouldn’t “self-love” because we just want to feel good or feel better. We should “self-love” because we ARE loved. In that realization, we are empowered to love others, and give them what “stuff” can’t offer. That, my friends, is true love.
