Are You Giving Yourself What You Give Others?

Are you treating yourself the way you want to be treated?

In this episode of Making Space for Me, Otanthia Williams-Brady explores what it means to love your neighbor as yourself and why so many women are better at giving grace, patience, and compassion to others than they are at giving it to themselves.

Through the lens of Mark 12:31 and Ephesians 5:29, this episode reflects on self-neglect, self-awareness, emotional exhaustion, and the pressure women place on themselves while carrying a lot. If you have been feeling drained, pushing through, or overlooking your own needs, this conversation will help you pause and consider how you are treating yourself.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• loving your neighbor as yourself
• how self-neglect shows up in everyday life
• why many women struggle to give themselves grace
• the emotional toll of always pushing through
• questions to help you reflect on your need for rest, support, and space

This episode is for women navigating burnout, overwhelm, self-neglect, emotional fatigue, and the challenge of learning how to care for themselves without guilt.

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Are you treating yourself how you want to be treated? That’s a question I’ve been sitting with lately. We grow up hearing things like, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” And the Bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. But a lot of us are much better at giving grace, patience, and compassion to other people than we are at giving it to ourselves. And that’s something worth paying attention to. You’re listening to Making Space for Me, a podcast for women who carry a lot, give a lot, and are learning how to care for themselves in a life that never slows down. I’m your host, Otanthia Williams-Brady, and welcome. In Mark 12:31, Scripture says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Now, while that verse is often used to teach us how to treat other people, I also think it highlights something else: that how we treat ourselves matters too. Because if we’re called to love our neighbors as ourselves, then how we treat ourselves cannot be irrelevant. And while many of us are good at loving our neighbor, it’s the “as yourself” part where we struggle a bit. Let’s kind of look at the reality of it. You know how to show up for other people when they’re overwhelmed. But when you’re overwhelmed, you tell yourself to deal with it. You know how to be understanding when someone else is tired, but when you’re tired, you push through. You know how to tell other people to slow down and take care of themselves, but when it comes to you, slowing down feels wrong. And without even noticing it, we start to fall into patterns. Patterns where we’re quick to put pressure on ourselves, but slow to show ourselves grace. And those repeated patterns can have an effect on you. It’s not always in big, obvious ways. Sometimes it looks like functioning and getting through the day, but just feeling drained and worn on the inside. And I think a lot of women can relate to that, as many of us have become very skilled at carrying responsibilities, but not as skilled at checking in with ourselves along the way. And that matters, because if you’re truly called to love your neighbor as yourself, then you need to recognize how you’re treating yourself. Like, how are you talking to yourself when you’re tired? How are you responding to yourself when you’re overwhelmed? How are you handling your own needs for rest, space, and support? Are you giving yourself grace? Are you giving yourself patience? Are you giving yourself the same understanding you would give somebody else in the exact same situation? Because sometimes it’s not just the weight of life that wears us down. It’s also the pressure we put on ourselves while trying to carry it all. And that makes an already heavy load seem even heavier. I feel like Scripture gives us a different picture of how we’re meant to relate to ourselves. Take, for example, Ephesians 5:29. It says, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it.” I really like those words, nourish and cherish. They feel very different from the way many of us are moving through life. A lot of women are not nourishing themselves. That’s just fact. We’re just pushing through. A lot of women aren’t cherishing themselves. That’s just fact. They’re more so neglecting themselves. And I’m not saying that with judgment, because for most of us, this is learned. Like, we learned how to be dependable. We learned how to keep going. We learned how to do it all. But we didn’t always learn how to give ourselves the same grace we so easily give others. And part of the problem may be that the opposite gets praised so easily. Like, people will recognize you and congratulate you for being a good mom, a good friend, a good wife, a good neighbor. But no one is really praising you for being good to yourself. Like, that part is internal. And that’s why we have to pay attention to it, because if we don’t, then who will? Here’s something worth reflecting on: What are you asking yourself to go without that you would not ask of someone else? Is it rest, patience, space, support, understanding? Because a lot of us are quick to give away what we actually need ourselves. So today, I want to leave you with this question: Are you loving your neighbor as you love yourself? Or are you loving your neighbor better than you’re loving yourself? Allow that awareness to be the first step toward giving yourself the same grace, patience, and understanding you so freely give to everyone else. Thank you for listening to Making Space for Me. Until next time, be gentle with yourself and keep making space for you.