Fountain of Love

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." - Buddha

"Fountains of Love" - Cherished Memories

February is traditionally the month of love. We are in the depths of Winter and with the weather so cold outside, it is particularly important to nourish ourselves with both love and sustenance.

"Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world" - Lucille Ball

Loving yourself is to give yourself what you need and to allow others to give to you too. For many women, this is a struggle. So well practiced in looking after others and worrying about others needs, when it comes to themselves, they feel selfish and perhaps unworthy of love.

Rory Raye is a relationship coach, her blog at www.havetherelationshipyouwant.com has some great advice for women. One visualisation exercise she suggests is to imagine that you are a waterwheel:

Circle your hands towards you, imagine yourself receiving love and affection and bringing them to your own heart, circling down your body, coming up and giving back love and affection.

Now reverse this, and turn the wheel out from your heart, giving love and affection, coming up your body, and scooping out more love and affection.

Which feels better for you?

I instantly felt better receiving love, I could see that having love in the first place made it easy to then give some back. Reversing the wheel, I felt like I would run low on love, because there was nothing coming back for me.

As a fountain overflows because it is full, when our hearts are full of love, we overflow with love and happily give back to others. If there is nothing coming back for ourselves, the fountain will run dry and we will have nothing left to give.

Somewhere along the way, we have been sold the idea that being selfish is a bad thing. The reality is that there is nothing wrong with being selfish sometimes, especially when we need it. I don't mean disregarding everyone else in favour of ourselves all the time, but rather, taking some 'Me Time" when things get tough and we feel tired and low on energy. To be completely selfless all of the time can be very destructive, resentment can set in as we feel unappreciated. It is helpful to learn to recognise the signs that we have begun to give too much.

I know when I have been expending too much energy I find myself feeling tearful, or I become irritable and begin to blame others for their lack of attention to me. As soon as I hear myself say "they don't appreciate me", "I do so much for them, or "they are so ungrateful" these are my signals that I need to take some time out and give back to myself. Fill up my fountain, so that I can overflow once more and give when I have enough for myself.

What are your signs?

It might be helpful to consider:

"Giving myself away and being stingy are not my only options. I can share myself. Yet to share myself I have to have a self to share."

"Meditations For Women Who Do Too Much" - Anne Wilson Schaef

Throughout February, I will be exploring 'Me Time' in more depth and thinking about what  we can do to help ourselves feel better.