Do We Treat Ourselves Better Than We Treat Others?

This question was posted on a meme this morning on FB (where I live some of my social life, I admit) in a gay men's touch group, and instead of scrolling past it, I responded to it. 

I answered...

That's a definite hmmm...maybe.

I treat myself better insofar as I am more aware of my needs and what works for me than I am of others' needs. So, I treat myself better because I have more opportunity to do so.

Every chance I get, though, I am very religioius about loving my fellow as myself and not doing to others that which is hateful to myself. I actively pray to be a channel for Divine blessings to flow to others.

I don't always like my responses to things (and I endlessly re-edit), but I liked how I responded this time, because it's basically true. My growing up into someone I consider a reliable adult manifests in two significant changes in how I behave:

1. I listen to my own body. I take the messages I get seriously. Examples include: I need sleep. I need exercise. I need touch. I need food. I need to close my eyes and listen to Vivaldi. 
2. I take seriously each opportunity to be a channel for Divine blessings to flow to others. I do this when I work as a pastoral counselor and when I see clients for bodywork AND I do this in personal conversations and when running errands. I don't just pray it once, I pray it throughout a session or an encounter. A gazillion times a day (someday I will actually count how often I do it). 

It's all about the Buber. It's always all about the Buber.

As a human being, there is always a chance that I will tilt to the wrong side of the dynamic and engage with the world in an I-It manner rather than I-Thou, as Martin Buber z"l explained the alternatives. Do I treat the living beings in the world around me as people of equal worth as myself whom I can know (the I-Thou relation)? Or conversely, do I passively or delierately write the world off as being beneath me and unworthy of my full presence and engagement (the I-It relation)?

In order to treat myself and others in the way I feel we deserve to be treated, I use the same prayers. I recite:

God, I pray that I may be a channel for Your spirit to flow to others.

May the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart,

the deeds of my hands, and the life of my body

find favor with You, my Rock and my Redeemer.

These help me to trust myself to do well by myself and by others from moment to moment throughout a day.

Blessings to all, 

David