Receiving Ourselves

Image: “An Indian palm squirrel shares its emotional feeling (love, care, fear) with its pup, which is in a cage. Photographed in June 2011, in (Batticaloa, Sri Lanka).” Photo and description by Anton Croos

​For all of my life, I have been the giver, the nurturer, and the pleaser for my closest loved ones. I have put great effort into nurturing others, and have had to learn (and re-learn) how to receive that same love and care. I have made great strides, but life still teaches me that receiving from others is not enough—not even from the most giving, caring, loving, selfless, amazing, and wonderful people in my life. It isn’t because they are inadequate. By far, they are breathlessly amazing. Instead, it is because I need me. Nurturing myself is something I will likely never master but only improve upon, especially as I put more effort into others’ care and forget about myself—as a devoted mother, as a lover, or as a friend.

It’s a tricky balance to strike, especially when nurturing others brings genuine, tremendous joy.

However, a situation has reminded me once again of this important truth: we and only we can nurture ourselves in the ways that we need. That sounds harsh, but I’m not saying that we don’t need others. We absolutely need others, whether they’re our parents, grandparents, spouses, grown children, best friends, or other special ones in our lives. The first people in our lives absolutely should give us that nurturing, but I’m reminded that this nurturing from others was never supposed to be the goal or the endpoint. We get married on this premise and promise—to nurture someone else and to be nurtured by them for the rest of our lives. If we must replace what we never had (or what we had greatly and yearn for again) for the time being, so be it. It is necessary, but… it was only supposed to be the foundation for the real goal.

We have to level up to the point where we can nurture ourselves and show ourselves out of the cage. No one else—not our mothers, not our fathers, and not our partners—can do that for us. They can only provide that foundation of love, but it is up to us to continue that momentum of self love for the rest of our lives. The true endpoint (and it is not a point, but a continuum) is receiving that care from ourselves. We all start at different spots—some of us have been shown no love, some of us have been shown inadequate love, some of us have been abused and told that it was love, or some of us have been given material replacements for love—but we can all continue that momentum of self nurturing no matter where we started. It is our only way out, or rather, our only way in​.