I was watching an episode of Fruits Basket tonight and they talked about self love. An interesting point was made about how can you love yourself when all you know are the parts that you hate about yourself...and sometimes you need someone else's love to discover what you could love about yourself.
I used to think that way myself...
I don't anymore. I have been loved by someone who gave me lots of love and despite all that love it didn't change the reality that I loathed myself at the time. I simply didn't know any other way of being and being loved by someone else didn't change that for me.
I came to self love when I had a realization that all the love in the world from other people wasn't going to be enough to save me. I had to save myself...I had to find a reason to love myself even though I didn't think I was worthy of love.
When I had that realization and started to love myself it wasn't easy. Part of me really resisted loving myself and for a time I had to fake it to make it. I think we all do, because we aren't taught to love ourselves. We are taught to give our love away to other people, but turning it inward is perceived as cringeworthy and shameful, when if anything self love is the antidote to shame.
I have looked for love in all the wrong places, as so many of us are taught to do. We treat love as a panacea...if I find that person who loves me unconditionally that will be enough to make all my wounds better and change the parts of me I don't like.
It simply isn't so and it's a huge burden to put on someone else.
I don't think self love is a cure all. It doesn't make everything better and it takes real work to love all of yourself, including your shadows. I still have days where I don't love myself, although thankfully I don't loathe myself anymore. Still, most of the time I do love myself and here's what self love does for you:
It helps you become more receptive to the love other people can offer you, more accepting of it in a way that is leads to deeper relationship with the people you share love with. The other night I had a brother in my men's group share that he loved me. It was such a genuine warm expression and I could accept his love because I loved myself enough to see that I am worthy of being loved by someone else.
I used to never be able to receive compliments that other people would offer. I would brush them off, or compliment them back (I still do this some, BUT not as much). Now I am learning to receive, to accept and acknowledge that someone perceives something admirable about me or loves me and I can acknowledge that yes there IS something lovable about me, something admirable to appreciate.
I couldn't do it before when I didn't love myself, because there was a filter inside that said, "If this person really knew me, they wouldn't love me."
That filter was my own self hatred, my lack of belief in myself. As long as that was in place, I couldn't accept the love anyone else gave me...I would sabotage that love...and the love I gave them was a desperate love. I gave them all the love I had and emptied myself in the process, thinking that doing so was how you are supposed to love...
Self love has taught me to balance how I love someone else. I can still love someone very much, and yet also balance it with enough love for myself to have boundaries and self-respect...And having those things actually deepens the love I feel for the other person as well as myself because I know I can stand up for myself when I need to and do it with a quiet dignity and purpose and presence that calls the other person to attention but also holds them in a place of love.
Being loved by another person is a precious gift. Loving yourself is also a precious gift. When I learned to love myself that's when I learned to accept the love someone else could express to me.
