Learning to Love the Monster

Christ said the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had issues with the commandment to love my neighbor as myself. Loving myself always sounded narcissistic. How was that supposed to work? Shouldn’t I love my neighbors better than myself? Putting others before yourself is the Christian way, right? So how does narcissism fit in with that? Plus, I had other issues.

For most of my life, I’ve felt a little bit like a monster. (Needless to say, I have some massive issues.) I am angry, have issues relating to others, live with some abandonment and insecurities. I have a hard time believing that I am a good person. So how on earth can I love myself?


Ever see Wreck-It Ralph? It's is the story of a computer game villain who gets tired of always being the bad guy and hated by everyone. So he tries to go out and prove that he can be Good. Along the way he makes many friends and realizes that his programmed role as a villain did not mean he was a bad guy. As he says in at the end of the movie, “I don't need a medal to tell me I'm a good guy. Because if that kid likes me... how bad can I be?”

 (And yes, I always cry at that moment. I almost cry at many moments in that movie. You would too.)

The main point of the movie is that you don’t have to be the hero to be a good guy. Your “programming” doesn’t determine who you are.

There's another movie I need to mention too. Have you ever seen The Iron Giant? If not, you need to go see it. NOW.

It  revolves around a 50-100 foot tall giant robot who crash lands on earth and loses all his memory, making him, in essence, a blank slate. He makes friends with a boy who teaches him about life and about what it means to be good.

But it turns out that he’s a highly advanced weapon sent from outer space. Suddenly he has to determine what he is and what he wants to be.

During the movie there is a marked tension between being “Metallo,” the evil robot, or “Superman,” the good guy. And repeated throughout the movie is the phrase, “You are who you choose to be.” When his friend is in danger, and the only way to save the boy is to sacrifice his own life, he chooses to ignore his own programming and decides to be good. He chooses to be Superman. (And yes, I cry watching this movie too. Deal with it.)

Both those movies spoke to my heart. I am not a monster. Whether or not I have issues, I am still a child of God. He still loves me and (hopefully) approves of me. I learned how to accept and love myself. And it was only after I was able to accept myself that I became able to accept others. Only after I began to love myself was I able to love my neighbor.

Loving oneself doesn’t mean being vain and prideful. It means knowing your own faults, your fears, your good and bad qualities, and accepting them as a part of you. It means letting go of trying to be perfect and being okay with who you are instead of who you think you should be.

And believe me, when you do, you will be able to obey the Golden Rule.

A friend came to me recently and told me about his struggles. They weren’t nice. They weren’t pretty. He made mistakes. He was hurting.

Dr. Brené Brown has written extensively about vulnerability and empathy, which I believe are key to loving others as you love yourself. It requires you to see someone else’s hurt and let yourself identify with that hurt. You have to let their pain touch you and hit on something inside yourself.


That doesn’t mean one-upping them. That doesn’t mean sympathizing. It means saying, “I know what that feeling is like. You’re not alone in this pain.” Or if you don’t know, it means admitting that, and not trying to provide answers. As Addie Zierman said in her post “In Defense of the Four-Letter Word,” “it’s more profane to say God never gives you more than you can handle than it is reach across the table, grab [your friend’s] hands, [and swear].”

Loving someone as yourself means you have to be vulnerable, admit your own brokenness, and let another’s brokenness touch yours. It means seeing that you aren't that different from the other person. It means seeing the "monster" in the other person and being willing to admit that you can be a monster too.

Before I learned to love myself, I would have judged my friend. I would have told him that he needs to ask forgiveness for his sins. I would have rejected his broken heart because I would have thought he was stupid to let it break in the first place. (I wasn’t a nice person. I admit that. When you hate yourself, anyone who has a struggle similar to yours is subject to scrutiny and judgment because you fear you might end up just like them.)

But God worked wonders in my heart. I saw his pain and brokenness and it touched my own. Instead of judging him, I loved him even more. I saw him as Jesus did. Broken, but loved. I understood his pain and let myself enter into it. I didn’t shy away because it was close to my own brokenness. I didn’t respond with righteous indignation.

I felt love. And I learned what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

Writer's Ego

Confession time.

I live with a small voice in my head telling me how awesome I am and how everyone should love what I write.

Sadly, not many people listen to that voice inside my head. (I wonder why….)

It’s the voice inside me that tells me that I need to work harder, do better, and become the best. The ambition to one day be a famous writer/blogger, and have publishers competing to be the one to publish my book. I call him Writer’s Ego. He’s a fun chap to have to deal with all the time. (But more on that later.)
So I go out and publish more and more words, hoping to get noticed…

Aaaaaaaand my post views still end up in the double digits. Sometimes, I’m happy just to make it over 50 views, a rarity itself. (Not saying all of you MUST read my blog from now on. Just speaking reality here.)
Then I see some of my friends writing and people liking so much of their stuff. Enter Ego’s brother, Envy.

He starts out small. He whispers things in my writer’s ear that rake his brother Ego.
“Why does she get all the likes? Why does no one appreciate the words you say?”

Or “Why is he the one every turns to? Why do they look up to him as a writer? You’re just as good a writer.”

I told you he starts small. Ugly, but small. (Envy picture from FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

He starts out small. But then he and Ego join together and become one giant evil monster of jealous ambition that drives me to do better, not because I want to be my best, but the best.

“YOU MUST WRITE BETTER!! BE FUNNIER, HAVE MORE WISDOM!!! TELL BETTER STORIES WITH BETTER PLOTS AND BETTER CHARACTERS AND BETTER DIALOGUE!!!!  YOU MUST BETHE BEST IF YOU EVER WANT TO AMOUNT TO ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!”

Yeah, he's even uglier when he gets bigger. And more monstrous and unmanageable. (Picture of Envy from FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

And here we find my fatal flaw (or in Christian-ese, my “deadly sin”). I want so much to be a voice, a writer, an influence, that I pressure myself to be the very best, not just my best.

Or to paraphrase the Pokémon theme song, “Gotta beat ‘em all!”

And then the pressure builds, I fail to write better than my peers, and I fall short. And I feel a lot like a failure as a writer.

Thus is the cycle of Ego/Envy. And, despite what my pastor says about “nailing SELF to a tree,” (or sacrificing myself to God’s Will,) that Ego keeps coming back like a comic book villain. He won’t die.

Maybe you know what this is like. Maybe you don’t. As much as I wouldn’t want Envy to be a scourge for anyone else, a part of me hopes I’m not the only one who lives with Ego/Envy.

What is the solution? I mean, come on! I can’t write about this without offering some sort of resolution. All my fellow writers would kill me!

The best thing I’ve found that defeats Ego and Envy is humility. And God humbles me in the most unlikely ways. Often, it’s a comment, or a text, or a Facebook message telling me how much I and my words mean to someone. It’s really humbling when I didn’t think that particular piece was one of my best.

Sometimes, it’s someone telling me that I am wise after reading my words. I'll sadly admit I tend to have to work very hard to restrain myself from laughing in their faces. One of the fun, dark sides of Ego is that he’s excellent at reminding me of all my past failures and how stupid I am on a regular basis.

But the truth is that I have dedicated my writing multiple times for God’s use. And He’ll use it however He chooses. Most of the time, He humbles me with how he uses my writing and what He chooses to use.

It doesn’t solve Envy and Ego. They’re like comic-book villains, remember? Unless you see the dead body, they never die (and sometimes, not even THEN!). But it helps to remember Who I’m writing for and Why I write.

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For more about dealing with Writer’s Ego, read Heather Kopp’s “Why I Hope Your Novel Fails (and you get a zit).”

And if you want to know who I was talking about with that jealousy stuff, truth is, it’s these people. Please go check them out, because I mean it when I say they are really awesome writers, and, frankly, better than me.

Amy Green at The Monday Heretic.

Chandler Birch at Peregrination.