Wednesday, July 19, 2017

A Research Poem about Self Love

A research poem
Subtitled: Notes on Self Love
Additionally subtitled: Reflections and conclusions following notes

Who hasn’t heard this?
You have to love yourself more
And I wonder,
How much is enough?
And then there’s this one:
You can't love another person until you love yourself first.
    And I wonder if,
    Maybe the better way to say that is
    You can think you’re in love
    But unless you love yourself
    You don’t really know what love is
    And you’re not capable of giving love fully.
So people write and talk about this:
Do you want to live well?
And their answer,
Which I mostly agree with
is:
    Not possible unless you love yourself,
    Respect yourself,
    Take care of yourself.
    YOU are important.
         So are other people,
    If you don’t take care of you,
         How can you take care of anyone else
              Without reservation
              Or guilt.
Self love isn’t just about feeling good.
    Feeling good is a symptom of self love,
    Not its equal.
Self love means you accept
    Your weaknesses
    And your strengths.

Be mindful, they say.
    How trite does that sound?
    And what the heck does it mean?
Mindful is the buzzword of self help these days.
It’s the big word of the new age of self help,
so to speak.

Next up for discussion is:
The difference between Want and Need
They aren’t the same.
Which is stronger want or need?
I need water, food, and shelter.
I used to say I want to be happy.
Now I realize,,
    big ah ha moment here,
    drum roll please
That I NEED to be happy.
And that,
    From what I have read
    And what I feel,
Is the essence of self love.
You may want to take care of yourself,
But what you really NEED is
To take care of yourself.

I want to write a poem or song every day.
That is true.
But what I;ve realized as I do it is
I NEED to do it.
I need to nurture my creativity
And writing begets writing.
The more I write, the more I write.
The more I create,
Fool around on the keyboard,
Make up silly songs,
Write in a journal,
Write quick poems and songs,
The more I do it,
The more whole I feel.
It is a way to nurture and take care of
Me.
And it is about damn time.