When I think about all the choices we make in our lives, we can categorise them into those we make based on fear, and those we make based on love.
Going for a 5K run every morning because you want to lose weight to be more attractive to others. That’s fear.
Going for a 5K run every morning because you enjoy how running makes you feel. That’s love.
It applies to relationships too.
Staying in a relationship with someone even when times are tough because you don’t want to be single. That’s fear.
Staying in a relationship with someone even when times are tough because you know that they’re the right person for you. That’s love.
And it applies to parenting.
Ignoring the cries of your baby because you’ve been told that they need to learn to self-soothe or they’ll never be fully independent. That’s fear.
Holding your baby to sleep for as long as they need your presence, knowing that they’ll be independent before long. That’s love.
In general, decisions based on fear aren’t going to give us the best outcomes. They often arise from focusing more on what other people think of us than on what we think of ourselves. As a result, we may feel a sense of shame or guilt for not living in line with our own values. And looking to others for validation rarely leaves us feeling satisfied. In short, these are the decisions that we look back on in years to come and say, “I wish I hadn’t done that”.
But there is a subcategory of fear-based decisions that has the potential to be the most damaging of all. I say that not because they’re the worst possible decisions that we could make, but because these are the decisions that take us the longest to realise that it was fear driving them. We can live most of our lives before looking back and realising that we weren’t choosing these things out of love. In fact, we often need someone else to point this out to us (which is another reason that I think everyone could do with some therapy sometimes).
Fear-disguised-as-love based decisions.
These are the decisions that we say that we’re making out of love, and it feels like we’re making them out of love. Yet when we consciously interrogate ourselves and our motivation, we notice the threads of fear underlying the decision-making.
For example, you find a tutor to help your child who is struggling with maths. On the surface, you firmly believe that you’re doing it because you love your kid and want to help them succeed in life. But if we really interrogate the situation, you might realise that your child who struggles with maths is excelling at literature or arts or history, and might benefit more from a tutor who can guide them towards a career that doesn’t require an advanced understanding of algebra. In fact, you may realise that it was your own identity as a high-achieving all-rounder at school that is driving you to push your kid to achieve the same, because on some level you expected your kid to achieve the same things you did. You fear what it says about you if they don’t live up to your level of achievement.
Or maybe you put your child in ballet lessons. You want to give them every opportunity to explore their interests and succeed in life. Yet when we really question your motives, you realise that the reason you are pushing ballet over other activities is because you wanted to do ballet as a child but couldn’t. You push your child to stick with ballet because you fear that they will resent you later if they don’t.
“When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful, the true mixed in with the façade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way.”
Mr Rogers
We can move away from acting out of fear by intentionally moving towards acting out of love. And as Mr Rogers said, the only way we can do that is through acceptance.
We can’t love our children unconditionally until we accept them for exactly who they are. Not accepting them for the ways that they are like us, the ways they are living out our dreams or accomplishing the things we wish that we could have done. Loving them for who they are now, not who we hope they will grow up to be. Accepting them as they come, including their quirks and tendencies that bother us at times. Not trying to change them into a version that we find more acceptable. Not loving them because they love us. Not loving them because they make us happy.
Loving them because they are miracles – living beings that we had a hand in creating.
Accepting them because they are wonderful – unique and on their own life path.
But to do that, we first need to accept ourselves in that all-encompassing, unconditional way.
When we love ourselves for the people we are now, not for the person we were in high school, or for the person we hope to become by the end of our careers. When we accept that we are good parents even when our kids are acting out. When we love our bodies with their stretch marks and C-section scars. When we accept that we may not achieve everything we want to in life, and that our value is not defined by our accomplishments. When we stop trying to change ourselves to meet other people’s ideals and expectations. When we accept that we are flawed, and that we may not be able to overcome all our limitations no matter how desperately we wish we could. When we love ourselves as we are. When our motivation for change is becoming the best version of ourselves, because we deserve to be our own best versions. When we accept that we might not meet the expectations that our parents have of us, and that’s ok.
Loving ourselves because we are miracles.
Accepting ourselves because we are wonderful.
The more we accept and love ourselves, the more we can give that same level of love and acceptance to our children and all those around us.
I don’t have a quick answer about how to increase the love you feel towards yourself. But if you want to love your kids more, working on loving yourself first is a good place to start.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Tell me what you think about fear, love, and acceptance.
Oh, and before you go
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