If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
As I sit back, I do so with fascination at the world that we are currently living in and the life we are living. Mr Kim was watching the FA Cup final yesterday (which Arsenal, which is the team he supports, won) and he turned around to me and said that we are going to look back in years to come, at how this was the one FA Cup final that was played with no supporters in the stadium. I was also thinking the other day that this is the year that Wimbledon was cancelled.
It really is a fascinating, yet bizarre, time in our lives.
Would it come again in my lifetime? Who knows?
And that brings me to the intention this month, which is respect; respect for self, our community and the planet. I fear that as we start moving back into the world, the tendency is for us to do what we know, and so the space and gains that we have created over the past few months will be lost. So, we need to look deeply at the concept of respect, and how respect for others starts with us.
If you are someone who finds it easy to extend love and kindness to those around you, but aren’t so good at giving this positive attention to yourself, then you are not respecting yourself. Respect yourself by treating yourself with kindness as it will help you better able to avoid stress and overwhelm. You will be more inclined to a calmer and more relaxed outlook on your life, and this will inevitably also become true of your relationships with other people.
Showing yourself respect does not make you narcissistic or conceited. In fact, it does quite the opposite. When we respect ourselves, we are more worthy of receiving love and, in turn, giving love to others. Here are some strategies for practicing true self-respect:
- Spend time questioning what makes you feel your absolute best. Then, respect yourself by prioritising them daily.
- Once you know what makes you feel good, prioritise it with yourself and with others. Be honest.
- Take action around things that excite you! The most successful people are not afraid to try something new.
- Many people have good intentions, but their advice is often clouded by their emotional baggage. Do not let other people define your boundaries.
- Letting others know what is not OK does not make you a bad person; it makes you a strong and respectable person. When you stop saying yes to things you do not want to do, you create more time and energy to engage with the activities and people that do make you happy.
- Be willing to see things and people as they are. Approach problems with curiosity and courteousness in order to respect your time and energy.
- Families can be complicated structures and you could spend a lifetime untying the knots of your family life. Know at any time, you can reflect on your childhood influences and declare it is not your story.
- Our health, like everything else in our life, is a relationship. The more we pay attention to it and nourish it, the more our body thrives.
Self-respect is all about treating yourself the way you want others to treat you. By focusing only on our self-perceived faults and flaws, we are basically giving permission for the rest of the world to focus on them too. That then has the knock on effect on them, and hence a ripple effect of lack of respect for people, our surroundings and the environment.
It all starts at home, with one person, and that one person is us.
What does it matter that other people act the way they do?
Be the change you want to see in the world.
