The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin.
Interpretation
True love begins with self-acceptance and self-love.
In this quote, Bell Hooks emphasizes the importance of self-love in any journey toward finding love from others. Recognizing that our relationship with ourselves is fundamental, the quote suggests that embracing our true self, particularly as women, lays the groundwork for authentic connections and healthy relationships with others.
In practice
During a women's retreat, this quote can be shared to encourage participants to embrace their true selves.
Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education, and all women can earn PhDβs, if they so desire. Privilege does not have to be negative, but we have to share our resources and take direction about how to use our privilege in ways that empower those who lack it.
Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else.
While privacy strengthens all our bonds, secrecy weakens and damages connection. Lerner points out that we do not usually "know the emotional costs of keeping a secret" until the truth is disclosed. Usually, secrecy involves lying. And lying is always the setting for potential betrayal and violation of trust.
When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.
Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.
I still think it's important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society β because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not.
Goddess-nurse of the young, give ear to my prayer, and grant that this woman may reject the love-embraces of youth and dote on grey-haired old men whose powers are dulled, but whose hearts still desire.
God knows I wanted love... but the moment I had to choose between the man I loved and my dresses... I chose the dresses
So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?' 'Love,' he explained. She looked at him with eyes the blue of the sky. 'I hope you choke on it,' she said, flatly.
What I need is a woman who is something, anything: either very beautiful or very kind or in the last resort very wicked; very witty or very stupid, but something.
Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.
No, the Lord doesn't really need us to take care of the poor, but we need this experience; for it is only through our learning how to take care of each other that we develop within us the Christlike love and disposition necessary to qualify us to return to his presence.
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