Honoring Yourself
Here is the first rule of honoring yourself: If it doesn’t honor you, it doesn’t honor anyone!
Often we think that honoring means we have to sacrifice ourselves for other people and do what others want us to do. This can look like honoring, but it is not, and it leads to burnout.
I recently worked with an organization whose mission is to empower people who are homeless to take ownership of their own lives. To walk into this agency is to experience as profound a sense of community as I have ever experienced. In a training session for staff, we explored together the idea of honoring. These staff members, some of whom are homeless or previously homeless, deal with issues of honoring on a daily basis with whoever walks in their door. These staff people are masters in the area of honoring, and I told them so. They could teach any of us the lessons of honoring.
Still, they found the term “honoring” useful. It was a new way to name what they do on a daily basis, and the way that they honor their clients and their contributors, no matter what their economic status or race, gender, sexual orientation, cultural background, religion, mental and physical capacity, or life history. Their donors, some of whom are quite well to do, hang around this organization because they too are honored and treated with the same basic respect that this organization shows to everyone!
Yet even this skilled staff found something missing in the way that they honored themselves. They felt guilty that they had homes and the people they served didn’t have homes. This sometimes led them to do more for their clients than was good for either of them. Sometimes the clients manipulated the staff, by playing on this sense of guilt. The first rule of honoring applied. It is ok to say no to a client or a colleague. If it doesn’t honor you, it doesn’t honor anyone.
Consider the following questions the realm of honoring yourself:
- 1) Are you operating from a sense of obligation or guilt? If so, you are not honoring something or someone. The person you are not honoring may be yourself.
- 2) Are you paying attention to your own health? Are you getting enough rest and relaxation time? Are you taking vacations? Are you paying attention to your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health and well being? What can you do, even in small increments, as a way to honor yourself?
- 3) Are you satisfied and fulfilled with the work you are doing and with the way you are doing your work? Are you doing work that you love to do? How might you increase your level of fulfillment and accomplishment in the work you do? Are you clear about your life purpose? Do you have goals you are working to fulfill?
- 4) Are you being honored (appreciated and respected) by the organization you work for and the people you work with?
- 5) Are you honoring yourself? Are you paying attention to your own needs and wants?
By honoring yourself and respecting your own needs, you also provide a model for how the people around you might honor themselves. It’s important of course in diversity work to practice what we preach. Honoring yourself is fundamental to truly honoring other people.
