Gentle With Myself

Amy Oden August 2025

Church of the Resurrection Insights

Matthew 22:37-39

GPS today invites us to consider self-love, to take self-love seriously as part of Jesus’ foundational teaching:

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

For many of us, loving our neighbor comes more easily than loving ourselves. Self-love can sound a bit arrogant or self-centered or narcissistic. We haven’t had many healthy models for self-love.

For me, a starting place for self-love is learning to be gentle with myself.  When I catch my inner critic scolding, shaming or condemning something I’ve said or done, I’m learning to pause and be gentle with myself instead.

This is what it looks like: I pause, take a deep breath and exhale, releasing that voice of self-judgment. Then I get curious: Jesus, what are you showing me? Perhaps my words or behavior tell me something about myself right now: a need for rest that has gone unmet; or a desire to be helpful that morphs into controlling; or anxiety about the future that shows up as compulsive online scrolling. Whatever it is, I ask God to show me what’s really going on, to see myself through God’s eyes.

That’s when grace inevitably pours over me, over my words or behavior. I feel the weight of failure dropping away. I become lighter as gentle possibility offers space to try again, an invitation into the rest I need, or to carry my desire to be helpful more lightly or to shift my gaze from anxiety about the future to gratitude for the present.

I’m still learning. Sometimes it takes days before I realize that self-condemnation has taken hold.  It takes practice, a spiritual muscle strengthening over time. I’m convinced that self-scolding will never make me more loving to others.  Instead, I want to let love shape me, love for myself, for others and for God.