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Hey Faithers! Happy Monday!! Welcome to Episode 110! We are in our FINAL episode of Everyone Has A Love Story Series! Shout out to ALL the guests I had in February! This series was so fun! So, I attended the 6th Annual Millenial Social Work Conference this year, and I did not preschedule the episode! So today, you will get this episode and a bonus episode!

Ice Breaker: How to Love Yourself by Louis Hay

I let my light shine. I am wonderful. I rejoice in the truth of my being. I accept it as so and let it be.

Topic: Everyone Has An Agape & Self-Love Story

I wanted to do this topic because March is Women’s Month, Social Work Month, and Doula Appreciation Month. I believe Agape and Self-Love go hand in hand, but in order to work in these industries, you have to have some type of Agape love and self-love.

Agape love is mostly seen as God’s love. While I am a believer in God, and I can understand it. I started to switch my perspective on Agape love. I believe it is loving people for who they are. God’s love is unconditional, and we’re taught that God’s love is unfathomable. But what if we start allowing ourselves to be human and seeing people for just that? I am not God, nor will I ever be. Plus, God is going to be God regardless. While I am here on earth, I can do my job and love people for who they are.

While being in social work, we have a code of ethics that we follow, and one of them is the right to self-determination. As a social worker, it is my job to make sure my client has and knows their rights to self-determination. This means that if I see a problem and I have a solution and I give it to my client, my client does not have to take it. This is a hard one for people to grasp. A lot of the time, we want to help people because of what we lack, but people do not receive the way we receive. A lot of my struggle in 2023 was wanting more for people. Just because I think they should leave the relationship or job does not mean it is the right thing to do. Just because something worked for me and I had this bug revelation does not mean my friend will have the same.

Being a social worker, there is a lot of giving and giving some more. One, in order to do this job, we must have agape love because this truly is a thankless job. Even though we are helping people, we are the ones getting cursed out. We get the burnt end of everything. We very rarely get acknowledgment for anything other than what is wrong. We have to fight in some of the toughest situations and are still expected to show up with a smile on our face, and if we don’t, we’re deemed not a people person.

But as a social worker, I keep going back because I know the world needs more resources and safe spaces. That is agape love to me. Also, I know that self-care and self-love are preached in social work, but they are not considered in actual social work. Most of us can not practice what we preach because the industry doesn’t allow us to.