As women, we request of men, and the society at large, to show us respect. Aretha Franklin famously sang "What you want Baby, I got it. What you need Do you know I got it All I'm askin' Is for a little respect..." indeed we rightfully deserve respect. Yet, asking the world around us for what we need is only part of the picture, the other part is us, women, respecting ourselves, engaging in self-respect, the kind that emerges of self-love and self-care.
Self-care is both a delight and a responsibility. Taking care of our body, our instrument in this world, listening to its unique needs and rhythms and enjoying a health-some life style results in natural abundance of energy and provides us with the stamina to care for others too.
Self-love motivates us to engage in self-care rituals. And how do we “remember” we deserve to be loved? Many of us may had turned into self-hatred as a response to childhood trauma. In a way, none of us, men or women, ever got “enough” love. Our capacity for love is infinite. We all need more care and attention anyone outside of us could truly give us. When we realize the key is in our own heart, a powerful shift happens. When we wake up to the fact we are love, we release the contraction of pain, relax the belly, drop deeper into our body, and realize it’s a choice, a choice to open up, relax, and allow love to be. Allow connection to heal our pain, and intimate presence to boost our confidence.
The cycle of self-love > Self-care > self-respect expands as a spiral beyond the self to love, care and respect to all. Since there is no integral self who is separated from the whole, when we engage in self-care rituals, we are nurturing all beings. When we share our overflowing abundance of deep care, the world around us reflect it back. Look into the mirror and see the love, see the one, see the whole-all, unequivocally worthy of respect.