I love words like devotion, admiration, appreciation...
Sometimes I worry my heart feels too big. My feelings grow so big if I let them, and the thought of slimming them down hurts in a way that rejection does, rejecting the self. I think devotion to oneself is a requirement before being able to truly devote yourself to others. If you aren't cherishing and nurturing who you are giving to others, then what are you devoting?
I've thought about undesired devotion, or desire masked as devotion, like what I had to deal with in college. It is not fun to have someone obsessed with you to the point of self harm. It's terrifying to think back to when no one would believe me about how this person would act towards me privately, when public safety waved off my concerns when he threatened to kill himself because I wouldn't date him, because he denied all of it.
I can think of plenty of times I've done things for people I admired that was never asked for, many of it in the form of self sacrifice. And I can also think of plenty of times this was done toward me. It really feels like it comes from a desire to fill a hole in the self that someone else gives. And I have been thinking about my Doll feelings, and how desire to be given purpose can fill that hole for me. I want to be given purpose while holding my own close. I want to feel love in others that I can also feel in myself, not want to give out of fear.
So I have decided that I cannot hold anyone close out of fear. It always creates an awful relationship with the way I treat others' and my own fear.
I want to connect out of admiration and appreciation. And I want to devote myself to myself.