Hi, this is very similar to the process I teach students and work with clients around boundaries. Personal boundaries, are, I believe, based on our values. When people talk about their values, I ask them to go down the list and see if they do that value to themselves. i.e. if Honesty is one of their values, are they honest with themself? If love is a value, or fun, do they do that for themself… and on and on.
It’s a huge aha for most people!
Thanks for all you do! Georgina

Thank you, Jim. I love it - a timely reminder indeed. We cannot love others until we love ourselves… And if we don’t like being judged (and do our best not to judge others) wouldn’t it be just great if we stopped judging ourselves with that nagging little voice that always pipes up with ‘not good enough’? I shall muse on this today!
Looking forward to talking this afternoon.
Tricia

I belevie that is the highest order of service is to treat yourself as you would treat others. It reminds me of how the airlines tell passengers to "put you oxygen maks on first…..before you help someone else"! You can be so much more to others if you are true to yourself first. 

Charles Gibbs participated in his first workshop at Cambridge University ten years ago. He is the Rev. Can. Gibbs, founding executive director of United Religions Initiative.

Charles has observed to me that in his working with people from 70 countries that he’s found that virtually all faiths and spiritual traditions have something akin to the Golden Rule. He wrote to me:

Dear Jim,

Greetings of love and peace.

Your twist on the Golden Rule strikes me as a wonderful articulation of the often ignored but essential part of Jesus’ summary of the law. He said to love God with the fullness of our being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

But many of us grew up with the “as we love ourselves” dropped out of the picture or overwhelmed by the injunction against pride. Your comment, and my hard won understanding of Jesus’ teaching point to the truth that you can’t love or serve others better than you love or serve yourself.

This twist makes all the sense for me. In most of our societies, we’re educated to be “good” - good to others, to care about our neighbor, our brothers and sisters, to be generous and to give our best to other people, to our society. But we cannot give what we don’t have. So, being to ourselves what we want to be to others is the only way to genuinely experience compassion. Most of us grow up believing that if we are critical to ourselves we’ll improve. That’s not true. We just improve through love, acceptance and appreciation for who we are. And when each of us feels happier and realized, the entire world gets better.

Its about paying attention to the dream that draws us to engage others. It invites us to interview ourselves periodically to reaffirm our best and let our best get better as we try to do the same for “others”.

Jim, This DOES speak to me. Very interesting. I have a feeling that many folks dedicated to various nonprofit missions put others ahead of themselves - repeatedly, consistently, and over long periods of time.
In many ways, of course, this is a most generous stance. We certainly need a lot more of it in our world. It is also true, however that at the extremes this stance needs to be balanced so that we don’t give up so much of ourselves and what we need that we are left without the energy and stamina needed to be effective participants and leaders.

There is one other twist on the Golden Rule that I always find crucial. The thought needs to be “Treat others as you would wish to be treated…IF YOU WERE THEM.” The Golden Rule falls apart, for instance, if you are a masochist and someone else isn’t :) Or if you love chocolate and they love vanilla. Because of people’s tendency to assume others’ share their values, the Golden Rule itself can lead to people imposing their own wishes on others, all the while believing they are doing something helpful and caring. In applying the Golden Rule, it is crucial to take into account personality, value and other differences and put yourself in the other person’s shoes before asking how you’d want to be treated.

As for the particular twist mentioned here, I like it. I often use this twist with people who have horrid self-esteem. Usually these people, who have no problem berating and even physically harming themselves, would never treat another human being that way. It can be a profound awakening when I get them to see how differently they would act if they only treated themselves with the respect they would given even a stranger. I also often point out that a baby, even though it does nothing to deserve it, would be helped and fed if found in danger. The reason, they come to understand, is that we deserve certain things simply for being human. When I can help them apply that mindset to themselves, it can make an impact as well.

Good thinking!