I love myself :)

Raghav suffers from constipation off and on. A while ago, he was on the potty and screaming that his backside was burning. He does have a very low tolerance for pain of any sort. Once he came out of the loo and was getting dressed when he felt a little better, he wiped his tears, smiled and said: "Ah! I love myself!". I smiled back and asked him why. "Because my body healed from it so quickly....I am already feeling better," he said. "...And only when I love myself can I love anybody else, like you or appa".

I was deeply touched and shaken by these profound truths from an eight year old. "But why do you need to love yourself to love somebody else?", I asked, looking to understand how he had made sense of all these things. "...Yeah amma, only when I love myself, can I love you or appa or anybody else. If I don't love myself, then I will be too sad to do anything, and then no one else can do anything for me, because I will refuse. So then, I will stay like that, and not even eat anything, and will die. Then I can't even love! So I have to love myself!"

What a complicated labyrinth of love we weave every moment, when all of it starts and ends with loving oneself! :)