Love Yourself–Including Your True Nature
Other Posts in this Series
- The “I” In “Love”
- Love Yourself–You are Miraculously Conceived
- Love Yourself–Including Your Body
- Love Yourself–Including Your Gifts
- Love Yourself–Including Your True Nature
I’ve been struggling today to find a way to talk about that deeper aspect of who we are, that essence of being that others cannot see. How do I describe this hidden nature that I call “me”? In the last couple of days I’ve talked about the importance of loving our bodies and our abilities. These are the obvious and more tangible characteristics of our being. People can see our body and they can see what we do. A discussion about loving our more nebulous inner character is a much more difficult task.
Help came, however, in a novel I’ve been reading by Tess Uriza Holthe called When the Elephants Dance. It is the moving story of the brutal treatment of Filipino families by the Japanese during WWII. The novel also contains several stories within the larger narrative. Several of the characters take turns telling their personal story–the tale of how they came to be the person they have become.
In one of these stories, the character Tay Frederico, a man who is part Spaniard and part Filipino, shares the events in his life that helped him find his essential character and discover what is most important. As a result, he rejected the lie he had been living and embraced a whole other way of being. This dramatic shift required him to leave behind a life of ease and embrace a life of poverty and conflict. Ultimately, however, the reader discovers Frederico traded a life of meaninglessness for a life of cause and purpose. He found himself.
Toward the end of the novel Holthe shares this passage, words that come from Tay Frederico:
‘God sanctions any life that is true in nature, in here.’ The old Spaniard beats his chest twice with the palm of his hand, as if swearing allegiance. ‘God would not have a man live a lie.’
Those words expressed well what I want to say. Loving ourselves requires us to live a life that is true to the nature God has placed within us. To love ourselves we must live the truth of ourselves. When we live a lie, we are not loving ourselves. The question remains, then, what is the truth of my life? What is the nature God has placed within me?
For the most part, each of us must discover these things for himself or herself. On the other hand, I believe there are parallels for all of us.
Our nature must be in keeping with God’s nature.
Our nature must involve connection with others.
Our nature must find fulfillment in a cause.
Each of us must commit ourselves to finding our way in God, to discover why we were created and what we must give ourselves to. We must find our true nature and live the truth God placed within us. That is love. Conversely, when we choose to live out a lie–the life others want of us or the selfish life we want for ourselves–we discover not joy, but loathing for who we become. Such a life can only result in regret and hatred for self. Love yourself by living what God placed in you to live.
If we love ourselves this way, we can’t help but love others that way as well. We don’t force others into our boxes hoping they will live contrary to their nature. Instead, we encourage the individuality of life as long as it is a true life, one that walks in keeping with God’s nature. We applaud others for standing firm for causes against injustice or speaking out against brutality because we know they are living their God-given truth with courage.
What is the lie you must stop living and the truth you must embrace?
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