Love thy neighbour as thyself

The Biblical commandment that we should love other people as we love ourselves is an excellent guideline. Too often in relationships, one person's needs consistently take priority over the other's. Sometimes this is obvious from the start but sometimes it can take years for those involved to realise what is happening - and the latter case is particularly dangerous.

I have several times found myself in relationships where the other person so took it for granted that I should subordinate my needs to his or hers that I went along with it without having any idea how deeply I was being affected by living like this. One 'boyfriend', for example, was always telling me that I talk too much and that nobody is interested in what I've got to say. Since he never remembered anything I told him, even if it was important to me, I saw there was some truth in his advice and I virtually stopped talking about myself to anybody. Looking back on this now, I'm horrified that I put up with this man for so long (three years!!) but, at the time, my self-esteem was so low that I adapted myself to what he wanted, in the hope he might give me some affirmation.

The only reason for feeling bad about yourself is if you deliberately inflict pain and suffering on others. Otherwise, you should love yourself. If you feel like rubbish because you drink too much alcohol, you eat too much, you smoke too much, you gamble, etc, etc, you've got this the wrong way round. Your low self-esteem is the cause, not the result, of this harmful behaviour. If you start to forgive yourself, to cut yourself some slack and to treat yourself positively - in other words, to love yourself - your need to indulge in the harmful behaviour will diminish and diminish until it finally falls away.

You are not more important than everyone else but you are certainly not less important either. This is why the commandment from the Bible is so good: yes, love your neighbour. But love yourself equally.

Finding a therapist or counsellor

Finding the right therapist or counsellor for you is not always easy. When you’re looking around, feel free to ask lots of questions about the person’s professional background, experience and qualifications. In the end, it’s not pieces of paper that count but wisdom and empathy, but remember that you are the client and it’s essential you find a therapist or counsellor who suits you. Be guided by your gut instinct as well as your cerebral research; you must respect and trust the person if he/she is going to be able to help you.

Some internet exploration may assist you in identifying the sort of therapy/counselling you want (eg, transactional analysis, person-centred, cognitive-behavioural, Gestalt…).

From personal experience, I can recommend transactional analysis - though I went through several therapists before I found the one who really helped me.

Welcome!

Hello everybody and welcome to my new blog. As I've said on Spring Clean Your Life, the website that this blog accompanies, I am in the throes of spring cleaning my life in a major way. I'm closing my business, with a view to working on the internet instead and thus being able to travel more. I'm also moving house, making new friends and sorting out existing relationships. I'm making regular visits to the hospital with skin problems and, during this period of upheaval, I'm struggling to make ends meet. So there's a lot going on for me at the moment!

Sometimes I feel daunted and a bit frightened and other times I feel excited and even elated. It's an education as well as an adventure and I'll record in this blog all the lessons I learn that I think might be useful to other people. If you're embarking on a similar journey, please use the comment facility to share what you learn along the way.