Loving Yourself

[wlotus]

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.

Comments

[shutterbug.livejournal.com]

*love*

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

I learned to love myself in a large part through realizing that smplmn and several other people truly loved me, as in, they liked what I was like, liked being with me, and enjoyed doing things to make me happy. It was a stunner of a realization when I started understanding what that really meant, and it gave me a solid space to stand while I learned the rest of it.

On the other hand, I think I was a lot more selfish before I learned to love myself. I could give pretty much unconditionally to the bandar log, but really putting myself out for other people wasn't something I did much (including for smplmn). I don't know that I *couldn't* love before I learned to love myself, but I sure loved a lot better afterward.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Be loved by others (and being able to open ourselves to their love) helps us love ourselves, and loving ourselves helps us love others. It's a cycle. That's why I find it too simplistic to say we cannot truly love others until we love ourselves. The two are related, for some of us.

Quite frankly, I think the claim that one must truly love oneself and be wholly content alone before being able/worthy of a healthy romantic relationship is idealistic at best and hypocritical at worst (when stated by people who are in loving partnerships).

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

If we had to wait until we're totally healthy about loving ourselves to have a romantic relationship, there would be about 5 billion single folk roaming the planet. Including me.

I think that your emotional health *affects* romantic relationships, in that the healthier you are, the more likely you are to choose and maintain a healthy relationship. But it isn't the only deciding factor by a very long shot, and I've seen some pretty dysfunctional people manage to maintain good relationships. Rocky, but good.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Your comment perfectly sums up why I feel annoyed when I hear people say, "You have to be truly happy alone/You have to completely love yourself before you can be happy in a romantic relationship."

[kyra.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's simplistic, but there's a bit of truth in the flip side of the coin. I'd say rather that it's difficult to accept love from others in a healthy way until we learn to love ourselves. The love of others can help us learn to love ourselves, true, but the self-hatred, the self-loathing, the negative feelings we feel toward ourselves before that happens impedes our ability to gracefully accept that love and feel we truly deserve it.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

It's difficult, but not impossible. However, when people say one must love themselves before being in a romantic relationship, I presume they usually mean it doesn't make any sense for a person to actively seek a romantic relationship before they are whole and complete alone. *That* is what annoys me.

[far-gone.livejournal.com]

I think that feeling unconditional love helps us find ourself loveable. And if we didn't feel that at home as a child, then we need it all the more as an adult. And it sure helps a lot of that's coming from an external source or two. I know your family attached a lot of strings to that love, at least some of the time. Which can leave you feeling like you need to be "good enough" to be loved. When, I think, what everyone really deep down wants and *needs* is to feel like they are loveable, just as they are, whether they're having a good day or a bad day (month? year?). Some people find that feeling from God, I guess that's a big part of the appeal of religion. Some of us have friends who love us, just for being us (and I'd dare to put you in that category!!) and some of us are lucky enough to have family that just made that the default.

You are loveable and you are loved! Maybe you haven't found that special (romantic) love you're looking for yet, but not for lack of loveability!!

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I haven't the words to express how much I appreciate what you wrote. Suffice it to say you hit the nail on the head.

Thank you.