What is loyalty? I know the concept of loyalty is different for everyone but I thought I would dive into this topic since I have been hearing this word thrown around a lot lately. I am sure you have said to your friends, when talking about what you desire in a significant other, “I want loyalty”. Knowing that you can fully trust those around you is very important. There’s nothing worse than being betrayed by someone who you believed to be loyal. The interesting thing about the concept of loyalty is that its meaning and weight differs for all of us. What is loyalty? I have come to understand that definition isn’t one and the same. It’s not a one ideal fits all.
Loyalty Basics
Your dog is loyal to you because you feed it, give it companionship and shelter. It’s also loyal to you because it needs you for survival. It’s living in your world, therefore, your pet understands its loyalty is its longevity and a demonstration of love for what you provide. They are loyal because they need you. This is loyalty out of necessity. That’s not to say that there isn’t love there but if you change the conditions your pet lives in, you default on this unspoken exchange between you. You will notice a shift in your pet’s behaviour. Why? Because they are loyal to their survival, themselves. They can only give you pure loyalty if you don’t break your loyalty agreement to them.
Simply put their loyalty is framed around what they need. If you want to understand loyalty in it’s simplest form, all you have to do is look at the behaviour animals. They are loyal to their survival; their essentials needs. How does this apply to humans? I am sure you have heard people say, the most important relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself. You first learned how to be loyal, whether you remember this or not when you were a baby. Whomever your caretaker was, your mother, father, sister, cousin, grandma or aunt. This person kept you alive, fed you, nurtured you and gave you what you needed for survival.
Out of the fulfilment of this essential need, love grew. Not just because they were loving you but they were allowing you to love yourself. Allowing you to receive what you need. Don’t confuse essential needs with WANTS (not the same thing). For example, you want a car, you don’t need it if you can take a bus, train, or these days Uber. You will survive without a car; this is a want.
When we are loyal to ourselves we live in a state of complete self-love. We need this, you need this. This doesn’t mean we are selfish, it means that we understand that if we can’t be loyal to ourselves then we can’t truly be loyal anyone else. Loyalty is a process that happens first with you. How you nourish yourself, respect yourself and love yourself. When you break that essential contract to self, it is impossible for you to give this is anyone else. At some point, the uneasiness and anxiety will lead to disloyal behaviour. Whatever the reasons may be, somewhere along the line you will act in ways that show your lack of loyalty to someone.
You have probably seen this in other people who you have felt betrayed by. Not only are they are showing you that they are not loyal to you, but they are also showing you that they aren’t loyal to themselves. With loyalty there is integrity, the two go hand in hand. We can’t hold people to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. If your standard is low for yourself, this, in turn, will transfer onto the way you treat people. Just as it’s impossible to receive and give love if you don’t love yourself. It’s hard to remain loyal to others if you don’t understand where it’s rooted, to begin with.
Loyalty In Love & Relationships
If you think you can treat someone poorly, lie to them, cheat on them, betray them, diminish them, emotionally abuse them and you believe this is loyalty. What you have here is not a loyal person, you have someone who has no self-respect or dignity. A person who has no loyalty to themselves. Self-love is one is the most important contracts we will all have in this life. When we live with love, our decisions, our actions are made from this honest and pure state. We see ourselves in others and recognize that what we do will impact them. Further, we want to be treated with the same amount of love, respect and loyalty we give ourselves.
Someone who values and understands the true essence of loyalty won’t let you treat them poorly. If you can break their personal contract of self-love, to love thy-self simply to be with you, loyalty doesn’t exist. It never will, at some point in time they will turn on you, resent you. This is why people always say the person they married is not who they divorced. Their once beloved who was so loyal to them and their bullshit has changed. This is why friends betray each other. It’s the lack of something, something they need to get from themselves first. Our biggest disappointment in life is the discovery that people can’t give us what we must first find within.
Letting someone walk all over doesn’t make you loyal. It makes you dishonest. Why are you lying to yourself? This isn’t what you need. Where is the self-love? No matter how you rationalize this. Once you lose your dignity in a relationship you have lost the foundation to sustain it. You have now entered a partnership that is conditional. Where one person is in control and the other must go with the plan. A plan that goes against your self-love contract. A contract that will help you remain loyal, hopeful and faithful throughout life.
Where Loyalty Starts
You must be loyal to yourself first. You must be loyal to your purpose. Who do you want to be? What are your dreams? This is a contract you make with yourself before you enter any relationship. If being in a relationship requires the kind of loyalty that makes you lose all of the above, you have failed yourself and broken a very important contract with yourself. There are a lot of people who think putting themselves first is a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing if it’s coming from a good place. It’s not a bad thing if you aren’t doing things that hurt people or affecting them negatively; there’s no malice.
Taking care of your health is an act of loyalty. You are honouring this body that’s going to take you through life. We all know that when we treat our body poorly it eventually begins to breakdown. This also holds true for your life. Cheaters, cheat themselves. When you treat yourself poorly, make decisions that don’t support your essential need for love, spiritual growth, to live purposefully, you begin to breakdown. That loyalty you have for others mustn’t remove you from this. Loyalty is effortless if it’s something that’s applied to your every day, the way you treat yourself and live your life.
