Hi 4C Women,
It's Labor Day and I'm thinking about self-care being a labor of love. While some of you might have the day off from work or not, learning to love others and knowing that we are loved is a job I highly recommend. For me, it took a lot of work to believe I was lovable. For many, our idea of love started with our families and then extended to the adults throughout our youth. Add to that, friendships that inspired us or hurt us if we felt left out, unaccepted. For some, these were painful times. Not everyone has the same experiences growing up yet there is a commonality that we chose alcohol or drugs to cope with life as an adult. That adds up to a lot of healing work.
As a young adult, I narrowly defined love as only romantic love. That left the door wide open to rejection which I had no coping skills to deal with it. I became full of self-loathing, feeling worthless and devastated. It took me a long time to realize that love is experienced in many ways and each is as valuable as any other. WFS has taught me to take the risk of loving others, embracing love in all its many ways, letting go of the fear of rejection and accepting that I am loved. I believe that turn around happened when I finally learned to love myself and not depend on others to continually build my self-esteem. I felt a huge burden lifted from my shoulders when I finally understood that. I was in charge of loving myself enough to set boundaries, build healthy relationships and love me! This is another one of those times that I connect Statement #3, Happiness is created, not waited for and this Statement #10. I've also heard and believe that hurt caused by others tends to be more about them and how they see the world. We unfortunately are the recipients of their unhealed and unresolved pain. That is another lesson I learned. We all bring our history into relationships and fortunately for us, we have the WFS program to teach us how to heal and bring a healthy person to the table.
Bonded in understanding all the ways to give and receive love and learning to believe we are loved, your 4C sister