You Can't Give What You Don't Have

I think the hidden lesson in the parable of the Good Samaritan is that we can’t love our neighbor as we love ourselves if we don’t first love ourselves.

Have you ever heard the line “You can’t give what you don’t have?”  We can only give to others what we have first given to ourselves.   If we are to live an authentic life and have a positive effect on our world, we must first have that positive effect on ourselves.  This doesn’t mean that we have to live a life of perfection.  Perfection is a work in progress, something that only happens as we let go of the ego and start living towards a higher ideal.

We can be so blocked in our life by the things we refuse to first offer ourselves.  We can’t offer permission to others to live their life as they see fit, because we don’t offer that same permission to ourselves.  We don’t extend grace to others because we don’t first extend grace to ourselves.  We can’t offer forgiveness to others because we haven’t first offered forgiveness to ourselves.

We can only give to others what we have given ourselves.  We judge others because we judge ourselves.  We fear others because we fear our own power.  We don’t open ourselves to others because we don’t trust ourselves.

It takes courage to offer ourselves forgiveness.  It takes strength to extend grace to ourselves and others.  Sometimes, we have to unlearn old behaviors before we can begin to love ourselves, but if we are to truly offer our love to others, we must learn to love ourselves.