Skip to content

Most of us have grown up with some version of the Golden Rule that includes doing unto others as you would have them do to you and loving your neighbor as yourself.

Most of us think of the rule as encouraging us to be kinder to others. Such thinking is completely backward. We already do love our neighbors as ourselves. The problem is that most of us have never learned to love ourselves and to see ourselves as a source of love.

We can never really accept or love anyone else until we learn to accept and love ourselves. Even our soulmates, spouses and children – we are only able to love them and receive their love for us in the same measure as we love ourselves.

How do you love yourself? By letting go of self-judgment and criticism. By acknowledging feelings of failure and insufficiency and then letting them go and replacing them with self-affirming thoughts like, “I am doing the best that I can today, and that is enough for today.”

Once I understand that I love my neighbor by loving myself, I realize that I am not just a receiver of love. I am a creator. I have my own light and my own love inside me. I don’t need to wait for someone else to love me first. I can choose to love everyone and everything around me.

When I consciously choose to generate love, regardless of the circumstances around me, that love radiates, and I begin to see its reflection in others. My love grows exponentially as long as I continue loving myself and my surroundings, and I am always surrounded by love. When I surround myself with love in this manner, I am empowered to choose kindness and gratitude kindness and gratitude for myself and others.

We cannot control the world around us, but we can choose how we will respond to the events, circumstances and people we encounter. Our default mode seems to be to reflect – give back whatever we receive. Bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. The world should expect us to respond this way when it treats us this way.

But the blessings and curses of others have very little to do with us. We do ourselves and others a disservice when we take their words and actions personally.

We feel compelled to judge everything others do and say and to criticize or punish everything we might disagree with lest they or someone else think we condone the conduct and think badly of us. This constant judgment undermines our ability to act with kindness and gratitude.

In fact, those who act unkindly are those most in need of our kindness. Forget retribution and the old “eye-for-an-eye-and-tooth-for-a-tooth” approach. It just doubles the number of blind and toothless people and offers no hope of healing for anyone.

Instead, gratefully accept the lessons each day brings and be kind to all whose lives intersect with yours, even for a moment. In doing so, you will surround yourself with love and kindness.

Avatar photo

Laurie Gray is an attorney, author, teacher and child advocate who works to empower all people to feel, think and act with their own spiritual awareness, clarity and confidence. She is the founder of Socratic Parenting LLC, the co-creator of Token of Change™, and the author of three young adult novels: Summer Sanctuary (Luminis Books / 2010), Maybe I Will (Luminis Books / 2013) and Just Myrto (Luminis Books / 2014). Her debut novel earned a Moonbeam Gold Medal for excellence in young adult fiction and was named a 2011 Indiana Best Book Finalist.

Laurie earned her B.A. from Goshen College and her J.D. from Indiana University Maurer School of Law. From 1986-1990 Laurie taught high school Spanish, coaching volleyball, basketball and academic teams, and working summers as an interpreter for a missionary group in Guatemala. An experienced civil and criminal trial attorney, Laurie joined the Allen County Indiana Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in February of 2000 as a full-time deputy assigned Felony Sex Crimes. After an extended maternity leave, Laurie returned to work as a part-time deputy prosecutor assigned to the Drug Court Intervention Program and Juvenile Sex Offenses through April of 2010.

Laurie has served as a lecturer for various Indiana Continuing Legal Education programs, co-chair of the Women Lawyers Section of the Allen County Bar Association and court-appointed guardian ad litem in child welfare cases, and court-appointed Spanish/English interpreter in both state and federal courts. She has served on the faculty at the National Symposiums on Child Abuse in Huntsville, Alabama, every spring since 2009. She also works as an adjunct professor of criminal sciences at Indiana Institute of Technology (Indiana Tech) and as a bilingual Forensic Interviewer at the Bill Lewis Center for Children in Fort Wayne, Indiana, conducting interviews in both Spanish and English.

For more information, please visit SocraticParenting.com

Recent Releases

This Post Has 3 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *