“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” ~Oscar Wilde
“Choose me!” I heard the voice clearly as I sat across from my therapist one day in her office.
It was my fourth visit, and we were working through this feeling I had, like I was crying on the inside but nothing was coming out on the outside. I was explaining how this feeling had been recurring quite frequently lately and how my response was to ignore it and push through it.
In response to this, my therapist asked me, “What would happen if you attended to this feeling instead of pushing through?”
And that’s when it happened. A voice as clear as the greatest truth you’ve ever heard called out from my crying heart: “Choose me!” All the tears I had been crying on the inside began to fall down my cheeks.
From a young age, we are taught to consider others and put their needs above our own. Especially if we are raised in certain religious or cultural settings, this message can be prevalent from the beginning.
As babies, when we needed something, we’d cry, and our needs would be met. However, as we grew older, we started to receive messaging around being polite, not being selfish, or treating others as we wanted to be treated. Slowly, our needs became less important than the needs of those around us, and we learned to become more attuned to their needs than our own.
We learned that we were responsible for the well-being and happiness of others. Putting ourselves first became selfish and irresponsible and was met with resistance.
It’s a message we have been receiving for generations, which is why it is so hard to imagine choosing ourselves over others. It’s especially hard for women, who are often taught to put the needs of their family and community before
love
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voice
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Oscar Wilde