LOVING MY NEIGHBOUR AS MYSELF

Fr Jim Cogley

Why love thy neighbor as thyself and not the other way round? My Christian principles dictate that I should always be kind, generous and caring and when I fail then I feel guilty. This does not take into consideration that I need to be kind to myself also and take time out from being kind to others. That may involve saying ‘no’ more often, even if it doesn’t mean ‘never’ but ‘not now’. Similarly, if I am generous to the point of never saying ‘no’ I end up being used and abused and eventually find myself still giving but with resentment and no longer from a generous heart. Here without having good boundaries the quality of my giving has been seriously compromised. This I have discovered from painful

experience and there are certain people who are expert in organizing guilt trips and exploiting our weakness. Finally, to always care for others can be a subtle diversion from caring for myself and looking after my own needs. It may simply amount to a spiritualized ego trip!

By choosing to love my neighbor as myself can seem selfish but to live one’s life the other way around, as most people do, is to suffer from poor personal boundaries. This is where I live through others, and never know where I end and the other begins. This is where the urgent can take precedence over the important and I am so busy pleasing others that I end up neglecting my own needs. As a priest I can so easily get caught up in the work of the Lord that I forget about the Lord of the work and so spend little time in prayer and reflection. This is the occupational hazard of being a parent where children’s needs tend to come first. Recently a lady died in her 90’s who had a saying that was remarkable for her generation. ‘it’s a selfish mother that doesn’t know how to look after her own needs.’

Much of ancient philosophy teaches a basic truth – Know Thyself. Self-knowledge forms the basis of all knowledge and even precedes self-acceptance since it is never possible to accept what we don’t know. If I know myself as an introvert who needs a lot of personal space and time to recharge my batteries, then by accepting that reality it saves me from comparing myself to and trying to be an extrovert who gets their energy from non-stop interaction with others. If I know where I carry hurt from the past, and am still vulnerable in certain situations, it gives me permission to not place myself in circumstances that will aggravate that hurt or spend too long with people who drain my energy. Simply knowing

myself is an integral part of loving myself and from there the unconditional acceptance I give to myself can extend to others.