Love's Other Name Is Consistency

I used to be the habit of buying myself flowers. One afternoon, I was walking home with some pretty white roses, when a gaggle of schoolgirls started following me. “Hey mister,” one said. “Are those for your girlfriend or boyfriend?” “Neither,” I replied. “They’re for me.” They were quiet. Then, as I crossed the street, I heard one say, “Only a half dozen? If that were me I’d break up with myself.”

These are the voices of the world, always telling you that your self-love needs to be big, dramatic, Instagrammable. A lot of folks bring this attitude to spiritual practice. It’s always, “Just got back from Vipassana retreat. Huge realizations. Epic heart opening.” But what if “epic” isn’t what you need? What if your body doesn’t want to be shocked into an altered state? What if your mind doesn’t want to be bulldozed into an epiphany? Is your self-love really love, or just another way of not listening to what you need?

What counts most in self-love is not flashiness but consistency. Unfortunately, we’ve all grown up with inconsistent love of one kind or another. Maybe a parent was emotionally or physically absent and then showed up with sweets or toys. Maybe violence punctured periods of affection. When children are shown inconsistent love, they seek consistency in whatever they can: daydreams, food, TV, and then later, often, addiction.

So remind yourself: love’s other name is consistency. Your job isn’t to be the coolest parent to yourself, but the one most present. That means holding yourself accountable to what you said you’d do. That means resisting the pull of fantasy and being present with difficult emotions. That means not comparing yourself to others. This is something you can do, a little bit each day.

Garcia Marquez once said that when a man buys flowers for a woman, he should reflect that he’s setting up the expectation to bring her flowers forever. In the same way, we should reflect on the flowers we bring ourselves in the form of our thoughts, words, and deeds, which are only as beautiful as their ability to keep blooming, again and again, time after time.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, "A Solicitation"