Dec 25 2007
The Greatest Gift
I write a lot about love and looking for the good.
I write about love and seeing the good in life because I have seen how the lack of both creates such damage.
I write of love and focusing on the beauty in life because of my mom.
My mom lives in a scary place. Her place is dark and filled with pain.
No matter where I take her, she lives in that place. It’s her mind.
When she feels very, very low, she calls me. These calls fill me with dread and the urge to run away.
She is empty and she wants me to fill her.
I can’t. All I can do is provide the guidance for her to fill herself up with love and peace.
I tried to guide my mom through affirmations and she could not do it. She resisted on so many levels.
I said, “Mom, you’re resisting me…PLEASE just say, ‘I love myself. I deserve love.’”
She said, “I can’t! I can’t! I don’t believe it! I can’t!”
When I’m with her, she is pointing out all the bad in her life and how she expects things to get worse.
Life scares her. If I expected life to punish me, I’d be scared, too.
I tell her I love her all the time and do my best to make her feel safe.
I urge her to replace all her negative thoughts with ones of love.
When I’m on the phone with her or spending time with her, mom feels happy. She feels safe because for those moments, I am filling her empty spaces. When I leave, she is empty once more.
I’m not sure how to help her to fill those spaces, all I know is that only she can fill them.
Give yourself the gift of love. You deserve it. You may think that loving yourself is selfish but you would be wrong. When you love yourself and believe in your good, you do not look for others to give you your good. You already have it. Loving yourself is self-less.
When you love yourself you’ll find that you have an abundance of love to give the world.
When you love yourself, there is always enough love.
When you love yourself, you never run out.
When you love yourself you are never empty.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
More Keb’ Mo’ lyrics for you -
My baby she wrote me a letter
She didn’t call me on the phone
Five little words was all she wrote
See ya later I’m gone
She had no explanation
About why she had to go
Well I can’t take a joke,
But I can take a hint
She don’t love me no more
(Chorus:)
But if nobody loves you
And you feel like dust
On an empty shelve
Just remember
You can love yourself
My mother says
She loves me
But you know
She could be jivin’ too
And everybody’s always criticizing
Everything that I do
I work 9 to 5, do the best I can
Try to please the boss
I bought a big ol’ house,
And a brand new car
And then he laid me off
But if nobody loves you
And you feel like dust
On an empty shelve
Just remember
You can love yourself
Everytime I meet a lady
I wanna try to get to know
Either I’m too small
Or she’s too tall
She’s rich and I’m po’
So I called my old friend
Hazel Mae
Asked her out for a little date
She said: “I’m married now
And I got three little kids,
Boy ya just a little too late“
But if nobody loves you
And you feel like dust
On an empty shelve
Just remember
You can love yourself
But if nobody loves you
And you feel like dust
On an empty shelve
Just remember
You can love yourself
This makes a ton of sense. I needed this post today. Thank you for sharing, Ms. Q.
You are always on time Ms. Q.
I know someone who is going through a similar situation.
I can only say so much to them. I hope at some point they find the love they desire by first finding the love within themselves.
Jill: Your knowledge of music and lyrics is astounding! Those are some freakin’ good lyrics! Thanks so much for sharing.
Sue: I’m glad the post helped out - I know that things have been a bit rough for you.
Sometimes I feel angry at how needy my mom is - I’ve been taking care of her in some form since the age of 5. I love her and want nothing but the best for her but sometimes….I wish I had a mom - not a sister, not a child, not a friend, a mom. She’s had Mom Moments but (sigh) …
When it comes to difficulties and even difficult people, I ask myself, “What am I supposed to learn?”
What I have learned so far is that there is truth to the observation that what we dislike in others is what we dislike in ourselves. It may not seem obvious but I’ve learned that this has proven true for me. I just have to let go of ego to see it.
I have also learned that many of those “nasty mean” people are incredibly wounded emotionally. This doesn’t mean I want to hang around them but it makes me feel more compassionate. If anything, I don’t want to add to the nastiness.
UT: You and I seem to be in synch in some way - at least based on how many times I have written about something that touches on what is going on in your life at that moment.
You can’t change people that is for sure. All you can do is provide the environment for change and perhaps open someone’s mind to the possibility of change.
Self-love isn’t encouraged - it’s considered “selfish.” What I am becoming to believe is that it’s a vicious cycle - we are taught that self-love and appreciation is selfish because most people don’t love themselves so they are looking to be filled from the outside. Our current role models aren’t generally self-affirming and well-adjusted. Happy doesn’t make the front page. Happy doesn’t sell. Happy ain’t sexy.
Empty people keep looking to be filled and since the seem to be the majority , they want to create more “fillers” - more people who fill their needs and they do this by trying to create guilt.
Guilt isn’t the gift that keeps on giving…love is. I see you write about looking for the good. I write about looking for the good and the more of us who see it and show it…the more we will create.
I am amazed at your compassion and empathy. I know many who have run from parents such as your mom, yet you continue to try and help. I too try to find the lessons we are to learn from others such as your mom - is it only to learn that we don’t like to be like them or is it the compassion that is our lesson?
Even when it seems that there is no point in healing words, love is a powerful tool to nourish the soul. Bless you MsQ, for being the light in your mom’s darkness
You help her more than you know.
Beth: Thank you for your very kind words as well as your own thoughts about what lessons we are supposed to learn from dealing with those who are difficult.
I have heard of people who have abandoned their parents. I don’t blame them at all - those parents sounded very unhealthy. One friend thinks of such people (negative, needy, hateful) as “nuclear reactors” where you don’t want to be around them because they will poison you.
My mom tries to improve herself but I think that her improvements are less about loving herself as trying to be “good” for me. So much of her validation is external - when you’ve been appreciated for your intelligence and beauty and not for who you are…when those fade away, what have you got?
Yes, I strive to not be like my mom - needy and negative. I have slowly seen that I went too far away - I am not that accepting of weakness in myself or others and that’s bad. “Weakness” can be interpreted in any action.
Maybe the lesson we are supposed to learn is not so much to not be like them but to accept them because we have those same traits within us - they are just not expressed.
Speedy! Aaah, it’s always great to have you shining your light on me! I would like to believe that I help my mom.