The importance of loving yourself -- so you can love others

For David Lobenberg

Self portrait
acrylic on canvas
12 x 12 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(I did this portrait for David Lobenberg's

June Paint Off in 2009)

You can read about it here.

David is a fabulous portrait artist. I
have been working on a big abstract
painting for a show today.)

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of loving 
yourself.  A very hard thing for some people to do.  When
I taught Positive Psych for 10 years to pre-health students, hoping to
improve their grades so that they could go on to study 

in medicine, either as nurses or doctors -- it was so exciting
to get constant proof that learning how to love and accept
themselves sent students' marks skyrocketing. Their 
averages were consistently high, and between 75% and
95% of students depending on the year finished their
college courses in two years, and went on to university.

Forgive me for a long post again tonight.  Loving yourself

is the beginning of a life of love, and vital to highlight
in the Month of Love.  Here are some self portraits of me,
and a post from 2022 reposted from 2018.  We thought
COVID had lasted a long time in 2022  Three of my friends
just got it and it's 2024.  Luckily I have not been with them.
I wish them a fast recovery

"A fact of a portrait artist's life is that if there is no one else
available to paint, you always have you, so of course I've 
painted and drawn myself many times. Some of these images stick 
and make me happy.  

When I taught Positive Psych one of the first things we said

to students was, "if you don't know yourself, you won't love 

yourself, and if you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else,

and you won't be happy."

Self-portrait: The Happy Artist
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

This was not a popular idea when I was growing up -- loving 

yourself smacked of narcissism.  But in fact nothing could be 

further from the truth. If we love and accept ourselves, the world 

is less about us, and more about the people we love.  It's when we 

don't love ourselves that we go around hurting other people, don't end up

doing what we love, and generally don't enjoy our lives.

I credit Louise Hay, excellent therapy and Frank Daley, who

wrote the book Who are you and what are you doing here? for

helping me get that concept, and then of course the constant work of 

quieting the ever present inner critic to keep the idea going. 

One more cup of coffee please

Self portrait

Watercolour and black marker on

Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

(this is perhaps the most me of

the bunch.  I run on coffee, and

am not quite in the day until I've had

three. I am so lucky to live
with a man who gets this, makes
the best coffee, and if possible
brings me a fresh cup when I wake
up.  A veritable coffee lover's saint)

I've included a few of my self portraits to underscore the

idea of loving the self.  I know I'm lucky.  I love my life, my work,

my family, my friends."

 

Have a loving yourself and your world day.