A Coaching Power Tool created by Nisha Sharma
(Life Coaching, UNITED KINGDOM)
If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others…
There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday, and the other is called tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, believe, do and mostly Live Dalai Lama
Background:
Through the journey of life, I have seen and found many people who are unhappy and frustrated with their lives. Not to say they are depressed, but they simply don’t do much else except work and they work in a place which gives no fulfilment. These people have forgotten who they are and it made me realise that so many of us are stopping ourselves from doing the things we truly love because of various reasons. And if we make simple changes in our lives and become more loving to ourselves and ‘feed our soul’, then we’d be in a true state of love for ourselves and others.
Ever heard of the quote “love makes the world go around”… as clichéd as it may sound – love really is the true emotion which binds everything in this world together –
It is the ultimate truth at the heart of creation
(Deepak Chopra).
And in a dynamic and ever changing world where we are filled with increasing responsibilities and commitment personally and professionally and everything seems to travel as fast as lightning – how much time do we give to ‘love’; time for ourselves, to love, to nourish ourselves and how much of ‘us’ are we giving to others and this is exactly what this power tool aims to address – the balance of loving yourself vs loving others.
To truly love yourself you must accept all aspects of yourself. Deepak Chopra
By loving others, I refer to all areas of our lives external to us and how much time we give to them. From the moment we wake up each day, without realising we give so much of ourselves to our work, to other people, to social structures, to the ‘rat race’, to politics, to routine. So when do we stop to take a step back and just look at ourselves. Taking a holiday break is simply not enough to do this! Consider, are we doing what is true to our core self and living a life of love internally and externally…
How often do we hold of things to ‘another day’ and have many excuses for not doing things we want to. Moreso, so many of us devote so much time to others in a social environment or being there for friends/family to always resolve their problems or issues in life. It’s great to be there for others but is it to the level we give up the things we love and we give up ourselves as this is very easy to do too without realising. We all have different roles to play, sometimes as a parent, sibling, friend and so forth and these roles can take over from us at times, so at times we need to ensure that there is a balance between the roles we play whilst being true to our core self.
Every single one of us is on our own journey, we cannot live someone else’s journey for them nor can anyone live our journey for us. So those clients who are this side of the spectrum are generally faced with fear of delving deep within themselves and not wanting to accept themselves for who they are – essentially running away from themselves by getting caught up in other areas like work, socialising and so forth.
When this happens, we begin to eventually feel:
- Frustration
- Lack of desire for what we do
- Lack of direction
- Lack of fulfilment
- No inner peace
- No passion
And the above can lead to life remaining static and continuous unhappiness. As the Dalai Lama quotes:
When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.
On the contrary, some may argue that why do we need to love ourselves before loving anything else. Reason being if we haven’t fully accepted ourselves for whom we are, then how can we begin to help others on their journey and be appreciative of the love we receive.
The below case study explains this further…