Cats Don’t Read Self-help Books
I live with cats. Three of them.
I suppose you could call me a “crazy cat lady” but I would disagree. There is a formula to such things. To be considered for crazy cat person status, you must exceed the ratio of 1:1 cats to humans.
There are three humans and three cats in my house, so, we’re in the clear.
My preferred title is “Disney princess of cats”. Wherever I am, my husband notes, that cats in particular and other animals in general come and hang out with me. Tame or wild.
Cats, in large part, believe that they are in charge. Cats don’t yield to convention when it doesn’t suit them. My name may be on the title of the house, they see that as arbitrary. They walk around as if they own the place-any place that they are in.
I once heard someone say that cats don’t get imposter syndrome, and I thought that summed things up. They are 100% themselves and enjoy that fact. Everyone else needs to be OK with that. If not, then they’ll knock your glass on the floor. In all honesty, they might knock your glass over anyway.
The point is, cats don’t need your approval to cultivate an inner sense of value. They don’t ruminate over whether or not they should catch another mouse so that they can feel better about being productive. They don’t worry what it means about them if you shoo them off the countertop or your lap.
They don’t tie their self-worth to anything external.
From where I’m sitting, cats love themselves and love being themselves. Which is probably why, historically, they were worshipped as gods.
What humans do you know who could say the same?
Speaking from personal experience in both early religious training and late capitalism, self-worth is always tied to something outside of yourself. In order to achieve spiritual salvation, you must do “x” or, in order to “be (hedonically) happy” you must have or do “y”.
Being unapologetically yourself doesn’t seem like an option. In fact, “authenticity” is repackaged and sold back to us as a new style or the latest tech or the best service.
So many of our modern, western ideals are predicated on us not really liking ourselves as we are, in our raw and unadulterated form. If we answer honestly whether or not we “love ourselves” most of us would hem and haw before saying something like “not really”.
I am in that category and have been there since my teenage years. While I’ve drawn the line at getting Botox, I still know that it’s a symbol of what I really think of myself. That to be fully deserving of love, I have to look good in some way. And not just the love of others, but my own ability to love myself.
I’ve done this in other ways too. Achievement being at the top of my list. And, of course, not just any old achievement…perfection.
Perfection is so slippery though. Who of us can actually attain it? Reaching perfection in any endeavor is asymptotic. We might get really, really close, but never hit the mark. In spite of that, we keep on trying, perpetually reaching for what we can never truly grasp.
Reaching for goals is just fine, don’t get me wrong. The tricky bit is knowing the motivation behind it all. In fact, setting goals and doing difficult things can be very rewarding. Healthy even. But the obsession towards perfect achievement often hides our concerns that we might not be loveable as we are.
In Humanistic Psychology, one of the basic tenets is that each human, by simply being, is inherently worthy. This idea runs counter to much of what I was taught at Christian school or through marketing campaigns. But it is an idea that my cats could get behind.
If I could believe in my own self-worth, absent of any product or creed, how would my life change? If I loved myself being myself, what possibilities would open up for me? What if I were to simply flip the script, and decide that I am worthy in spite of the life I live or the things I have or haven’t accomplished.
Wouldn’t this be a happier life?
I found this quote, that kicked off the entire post:
“The love that we withhold is the pain that we experience lifetime after lifetime.”
Dr. Joe Dispenza
That’s it, right? The love that we withhold from ourselves causes us a great deal of pain. Pain we would do just about anything not to feel. And on top of that, if we can’t love ourselves, it becomes difficult to give love, truly and deeply to others. Or to feel it in return.
So much of my life, I had been running internal scripts about not being loveable unless I achieved something external. Now that I am no longer working, this has become apparent to me. It’s also become more and more obvious that a great multitude of people live with the same scripts.
These scripts keep us from loving ourselves completely. When we can’t love ourselves, when we withhold love from ourselves, our pain increases. Feelings of guilt and shame and anger fill the hole where love should be.
Loving ourselves, in spite of our achievements or lack thereof, is a radical act in our current culture. Shoving aside the advertisements, ignoring product marketing, sidestepping religious guilt is basic, plain, countercultural, and revolutionary.
Whoever we are, however flawed, we have to find a way to love that person right now. Not someday, but now. When we love who we are, we make decision for that person that supports them, that loves them. That allows them to give love to others.
When we give ourselves love, the love we give to others is pure, without strings, wants or desires. We don’t perpetuate the notion that love is conditional on to them. We leave out gaps where pain can get in. We see ourselves in them.
I write this now as someone who has experienced a great deal of pain, first from withholding love from myself, and second in not knowing how to give or receive love. My body has kept the score on that over time, and I’ve dealt with the discomfort of minor illness along the way. In order to shed the pain and to heal, I am learning, every day to radically love myself.
Radical self-love isn’t Instagrammable. Its quiet. Its gentle. It’s about letting things be as they are. And in my view, it is one of the ways towards a lasting sense of freedom and happiness.
