Love Yourself

I am constantly hearing of great stories of how staff are going above and beyond in supporting students and families from Bluecoat and Emmanuel during these unprecedented times. From delivering extra food supplies, helping families access their free school meal vouchers, to creating work packs and online work for students to continue their learning as much as possible. It is testament again to what a great school we get to be a part of and one that is always finding ways to serve others.

In Luke 10 verse 27 it says: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and Love your neighbour as yourself.”

We are very good at loving others, at finding ways to serve others. I guess that’s why we all work in education because education in its very nature is a serving job. The question is: how are we doing with the loving ourselves bit?

We can only love others to the degree to which we love ourselves. “When you love yourself, you will find it easy to love others because you cannot give what you don’t have” – Philosopher Gift Gugu Mona

Self-care is not selfish it is essential. During this time when you are giving out a lot, can I encourage you to take time to invest in you. Do something you love, eat your favourite food, give yourself some time out. Investing in yourself benefits those you then serve. In a talk I did on wellbeing I used the analogy of a jug pouring out and reminded staff that we need to make sure we keep filling our jug so that we have enough to keep pouring out. Now more than ever we need to be mindful to make sure we are filling up.

Filling our heart with hope and love. Filling our soul with joy as we do activities we love. Maintaining our strength with good sleep, good food and doing walking/ exercise to stay healthy. Filling our mind with positivity.

As we do these things we will be more refreshed to love our neighbours (our staff, students, families, communities) wholeheartedly.

Challenge

Spend some time doing something you enjoy today. 

Prayer

Father God We thank you that you love us and you want to help us in all we do. During this time when the need seems great and the demands unending may you help us to find ways to look after ourselves, to show ourselves love so that we in turn can then love others.

Amen

Written by Nic Freeman

Assistant Lead of Christian Distinctiveness at Bluecoat Wollaton