Loving Yourself

I have heard people say you cannot truly love or be loved until you love yourself. I don't believe that; it's too simple. Some people learn to love themselves from within a romantic relationship; seeing themselves through someone else's loving eyes helps them see themselves in a more loving way. Some people learn to love themselves without having a romantic relationship. In fact, I would bet the majority of people learn how to love themselves both from their alone times and from their relationships with others (romantic and platonic), not one or the other. Humans are complex that way.

Loving yourself is appreciating, feeling good about, and doing nice things for yourself. If you usually think you are the scum of the earth, I'd say you don't love yourself. But if you usually treat yourself well and believe in yourself, I'd say you love yourself. It's natural for circumstances to affect how you feel about yourself, too. When you are feeling really good about your external circumstances, it's far easier to feel good about and do nice things for yourself. When your external circumstances suck, particularly if you had something to do with making them that way, it's natural to feel bad about yourself. But the hope is that you bounce back from that, forgive yourself for being an imperfect human, and go back to feeling good about yourself.

By my mid-teens, I actively hated myself. Over the years I've reversed that trend, and now I am glad to love myself. I have my self-hating moments, but they are only moments; I bounce back in a day or so, usually less. Those moments used to be years. I've worked hard and as a result, I have come a long way.