A New Golden Rule


Have you ever said something like "All people need to be treated well", and then said something harsh to yourself? Why would we exclude ourselves from the list of "All people"? What is this desire to somehow deem ourselves as less valuable than others?

I think there might be some societal issues at play here. Sometimes we hear, "Don't be arrogant or self centered", or "You should not think of yourself".

I think that many of society's woes come from people not fully valuing themselves. When we don't value ourselves, we are not going to value others. Because, again if I'm not including myself in the "All people need to be treated well" category, I'm also not going to believe that other people belong in it. This may seem kind of twisted, but I think it works.

How many terrible man-made events in history have occurred that stemmed from someone seeing someone else as less than human? Unfortunately, too many too count. Chances are the person doing the harm did not have a good image of themselves. Right now, I'm thinking of (and I bet you are too) several notable figures of human history that caused horrible atrocities. Later, in our history books we read the biography of these people, and find out that they were absolutely miserable people who hated themselves.

This is where the Golden Rule comes into play.

The Golden Rule states that we should treat others like we would wish to be treated.
I think we should extend this to ourselves. How about this: "We should treat ourselves and others as well as we wish others to treat us".

Can you imagine a world where everyone treated themselves with dignity and kindness? Can you imagine a world where everyone talked to themselves with compassion?
 I don't know. I could be wrong. I could be way off course. I could be in denial. I could have no idea what I'm talking about. All of this (and more) is possible. Maybe I need to extend the New Golden Rule to myself:)

 However...what if I'm right about this?

What if the next time we make a mistake and want to say something negative about ourselves, that we say sometimes positive and affirming instead? I bet that the next time that someone else makes a mistake that we will be a little kinder to them. If we understand our own faults and are kind to ourselves, chances are we will extend that amazing connector called empathy to others.
Empathy is indeed the way out of this. But, empathy can only really take effect when we are good to ourselves. Empathy will very quickly become codependency if we think that others deserve good and we don't.

I invite you to try extending the Golden Rule to yourself too. I can't wait to see if it indeed makes your world a better place. I'm curious...

#spiritual #selflove #awakened #writers #bloggers

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You Deserve To Be Supported

The pr ocess of writing my book has been so interesting. So many opportunities for me to look at myself and the way that I approach things. One of the most interesting opportunities is the one around the ability to say that I don't understand something. This brings me to what I wanted to  write about here.  That is this false belief that I should be able to know something before I know it. Yes, I read that sentence and say that doesn't even make sense. But, how many of us have taken on a project thinking we should not be able to ask questions about it? It's like the person  (not that I have even done this:) who gets lost driving, but refuses to ask for directions. Truth is our GPS takes care of that most of the time, but there are still times we need to ask.  If the goal of doing a project is to get it done is to get it done, it just makes sense to ask questions. Right? Well, the inability to ask questions usually stems from deeper issues that cannot be just...
Read more

Staying the Course

How many of us can relate to being distracted? How can we not? Every five seconds there is another notification on our smart phones. And, life just being what it is will always be presenting us with another situation to deal with. It's life. It's reality. It seems that it has always been a struggle for me to simply stick with whatever project I embark on. Whenever I start something, it seems that the follow through becomes challenging. Maybe there is some psychological issue I could look at. Maybe I'm just human. Maybe it's just normal. To stay the course in life I believe requires a commitment to the thing we set out to do. It requires saying to ourselves that we will let nothing ultimately stand in our way. And, this commitment has to be so important to us that we will not let the distractions through us off the path. It's about priorities. When we know what is important to us we will find the resources to make it happen. I absolutely believe in the adage th...
Read more

Not Waiting Anymore

Waiting.  Always waiting. Waiting for the right time to change jobs. Waiting for the right time to find a new home. Waiting to lose weight, to have enough in the bank, to look better, etc. There is always a reason not to act. I believe that much of my delaying has been about waiting for that perfect sign from the universe that it was now ok to act on whatever I desired. I believed that the universe would indeed give me a sign that it was now the right time to act. I thought that there would be some great sign to point me in the right direction. Well... The time never comes right? I know I'm not alone in this. Really, it is that feeling of fear that I might act in a way that was not the right thing to do. Don't I have to know how it's all going to work out before I act? Doesn't everything have to make sense before I take a risk? Here are some truths I have stumbled upon in my years of trying to make sense of my reluctance to act: 1. There never is a perfect time t...
Read more