“You complete me!”
“You are the missing piece in my life.”
“I cannot live without you!”
These words have led to many hearts aflutter. Go through the lyrics of love songs, and you would understand how we are conditioned by themes in romantic relationships.
While these lines had countless women falling in love, it ironically also caused some form of co-dependent relationships. How could a supposedly completing relationship be co-dependent? This could happen because for the past decades, we have not talked about self-love in relationships. We were conditioned to give our all and love fully. While these are okay and appropriate, one major ingredient of a loving relationship is overlooked: the concept of self-love.
Experience has taught me well about the importance of self-love, even before I read and learned about it in books. I had my first major breakup during my first year as a working professional. From a relationship of more than two years, I realized these things:
Lesson 1: An authentic relationship is not about giving my all, until it hurts and I have no more.
Lesson 2: A relationship is not about saying yes all the time to what the other person wants to the point of forgetting my own preferences, interests, dreams, and growth as an individual.
Lesson 3: Real love is not about the other person’s welfare all the time. It must be “I and my partner” growing individually, and then together.
On my road to healing at 21, I realized these things about myself and loving relationships. And I still hold on to them in my own marriage:
Insight 1: Being whole is not about anyone else, it is about me, myself, and I. I cannot give my all to someone if I am not whole within me, or else I will be running empty. I must be full and whole within my very self. What I give my spouse and my children is the overflow of the love within me.
Insight 2: In a relationship, I enrich who am I and I must not depend on someone to make choices for me and make me feel that I should depend on him for survival. Real love is enriching my self, my traits, my uniqueness and my values, and ensuring my growth. The best side is what I give to the relationship.
Insight 3: Real love is more about my welfare, my sense of worth, my inner being because that is the basis of my loving relationships. We both must grow individually, then together. It is a give and take. It is supporting my own needs, then helping him fill his needs.
The root of such love for someone is not the other person, because the hard truth is, we cannot be in control of the other person. The root of real love is a healthy sense of self-love. That self-love will help navigate the demands and challenges and experience the real joy in loving relationships.
At 21, lost, broken, and grappling for my sense of who I am, I prayed, “Lord, complete me, as only you can. I pray for a person who will never ever take away my sense of self. Give me a relationship that will make me closer to you.”
This has become my personal “why” on why self-love has become so important for me. In the process of healing, rekindling myself and letting myself be filled by God as my source of self-love, He showed me the hard yet difficult path of real love – His love for me, and my love for my “self.”
Life has taught me well. It has taught me how self-love connected with my source will make me complete, laying a good foundation for future relationships. No relationship, either with a boyfriend, a husband, or even with one’s children, can replace that inward love for self. It is not selfish love wherein all that matters are me, myself, and I. Self-love is finding one’s worth, the way God sees us, and filling ourselves so we can give more love to others.
In the process of healing, I read books, and self-love was defined in my head. Cherry Carter-Scott, Ph.D., said, “A relationship with yourself is the central template from which all relationships are formed. Loving one’s self is the key to a successful union with another.”
From the time I was 21, I guarded my heart, my worth, and my love tank to ensure their health. It was not easy but being conscious and deliberate helped me. I almost lost it somewhere along career, motherhood, and family crisis. Yet, the very thing called self-love that I almost lost is what saved me.
Practicing self-love means taking a pause to gain a deeper understanding of yourself. This is especially true for women approaching mid-life. This is why I personally designed, Martha’s Pause: Re-Defining Mid-Life, a workshop curated to give the midlife experience a new meaning. It aims to help you sift through your issues, realities, and sense of identity so that you can live out the words self-worth, self-love, and self-care through the season of midlife.
Martha’s Pause: Re-Defining Mid-Life takes place us on September 28, 2019, Saturday, 8AM to 5PM, at the Miriam College’s Environmental Studies Institute, Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City. The investment fee is P3,300.00, which includes the workshop fee, workshop kit, token, light snacks, and lunch. Early bird rate will be P3000 + free The Beauty of 40 book (until August 18). Register at: http://bit.ly/MarthasPauseRML or email familygoals77@gmail.com.