I've always had a hard time "loving" myself. Whenever we practice sending kind thoughts to ourselves or practice forgiving ourselves, I get kind of blocked and uncomfortable and just disengage. I never have a problem sending kind thoughts to others or extending compassion to strangers, it's just me I have a hard time being nice to. I'm not exactly hard on myself, but it's always felt really weird or wrong to "love" myself.
I never felt too bad about this. It didn't seem like there was any problem in not loving yourself. I mean, what's the harm in that? You're the only one who's suffering when you don't love yourself so it's not such a big deal if you're not doing it.
But then, I was having an imaginary conversation with a friend. In it, we were talking about the roles we played in each other's lives. We both agreed that there were times that I had brought her joy and ease. But we also agreed that I had done that because I had intended to do that, that my focus in our relationship was to make her happy.
Then we talked about what she brought to our relationship. We laughed because we both knew that the joy and ease she had given me had come through some suffering on my part. But we laughed because we knew that this suffering had come from a place of honesty and care, and that the suffering had kind of pushed me along, had helped me to see things about myself that I didn't exactly want to see but in seeing, helped me to kind of heal around it.
After the conversation, I had another imaginary conversation with this person and in it I said, "It's true that your role in my life was to be honest with me, to say those things that no one else was willing to say, but all I really wanted from you was love and acceptance. That's all I really wanted and it's something that you never gave me, that I don't think you ever will give me."
She agreed, "Nope, I probably never will give that to you. It's not my role in your life."
I knew this was true about her, at least about our dynamic together, that she would never shower me wih love and praise. But I was still kind of mad at her for it, disappointed in her for it, and I noticed that because of that, I just kept wanting things from our relationship that were never going to be given. I realized that I was spending our time together feeling angry with for her not giving me what I wanted.
And when I heard myself say "What I wanted," I realized that I wanted love and acceptance. I heard myself loud and clear: All I ever really wanted was love and acceptance.
And then I thought about how my therapist always says "It's never about the other person, it's always about you."
And I thought, "Oh, guess what, you're the only one who can give you love and acceptance. If you really want love and acceptance, you're going to have to start giving it to yourself."
And then I thought about how in asking this other person to give me love and acceptance, I was kind of messing up our relationship. It was kind of unfair of me to keep asking them to give me something that could only come from myself. In some ways, I was kind of shirking my responsibility around this- asking others to do it for me- and wasting a lot of time and energy on it.
And that's when I realized that hating yourself, or at least not loving yourself, is kind of harmful. Well, I don't know that it's harmful but it sure keeps you from loving others. If I keep looking to others to love me, I end up doing a couple of things. First, I'm not being present to them or what they offer, I'm too focused on looking for love and acceptance from them that I don't see what they are giving me. Second, I think that in not meeting my own needs, in not giving myself the love and compassion that I need, I'm kind of crippling myself. If I keep on hating myself, I'm going to keep on creating a need in me and that kind of keeps me empty and wanting. When I picture myself feeling loved and accepted, I picture myself smiling and full and that feels like I can be present to others- that when my needs are met, I have the space and presence to see others and respond to them with kindness and love.
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