My boyfriend doesn’t love himself. It’s a rocky road at times as I fall in love with him while he hopefully is falling in love with himself.
He doesn’t know how to. Sometimes loving yourself is a hard task at hand, not to mention accepting love from others on top of that. You feel undeserving, unworthy.
However, when you start to love yourself, the love from others is attracted to you. You become a magnet for love — and we all are these magnets, so let’s learn how to be!
“Self-love can provide contentment, streaming through like a rushing river.” — Chill Out and Cheer Up: A Ten-Step Guide
***
1. Don’t live in the past
First and foremost, stop living in the past. I know this is easier said than done at times, but it can happen when you reign in present moment awareness.
I know that regretting the past is common and can put you off track from loving yourself because of all the emotions that come alongside it, like shame, fear, doubt, dread etc.
But one way to love yourself to accept love from others is to live in the present moment and forget about yesterday or tomorrow. Think about how much time you waste worrying about the future when it’s not even here.
I’ve now taught myself to live in the present moment ever since being in the mental clinic. It helps me become less stressed and find trust in my path. It takes dedication and willingness to start to live in the present moment, but it’s possible. Don’t know how to? Let me know, and we can hop on a free discovery call together!
I know for sure that my boyfriend suffers from living in the past as he never was able to finish his studies, so he always blames himself for his mental health issues, which he cannot help. You have to learn to accept what has happened is over and what is to come is in your hands.
2. Stop overthinking
Again, this is easier said than done, I know. My boyfriend overthinks a lot. Right now, he doesn’t really know where he’s going in his life (but who does, let’s face it!?).
This causes a lot of pressure on him, and he then overthinks about how bad he is and how not in tune with his life.
The thing is, the more we do such things to ourselves, the more we are going to hate ourselves and become our own worst enemy. Beating yourself up when overthinking is common.
I remember when I used to beat myself up (not physically) for not having a full-time job. I compared myself to my University friends who were all in a full-time job, and there was me. Skint, with mental health issues and not knowing what to do.
When we overthink, we kill joy. Overthinking is a joy killer.
It also causes you to compare, which is one of the worst things you can do, so stop and start to love yourself to accept others’ love.
3. Stop listening to self-doubt
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Self-doubt comes up all the time when you don’t love yourself. It will come up in the form of doubting your expertise, your skills, and even yourself in many ways.
I know for my boyfriend doubts his skill at playing the guitar magnificently. He is one of the best, if not the best, guitarist I have come across, and I marvel at the fact about how he can write a song so easily and then play it and sing to it on the guitar.
He wrote me a love song once, and I nearly cried at how beautiful it was. (Ok, enough of the cheesiness!) But he found it “OK”.
I remember him saying yes, it’s ok and thinking nothing of it. He then played to me and some patients in the clinic and was quite confident, but after every song, he would make an excuse up or apologise for it not being as good as he intended it to be.
A quote comes to mind here:
“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”[Modernism’s Patriarch (Time Magazine, June 10, 1996)]” ― Robert Hughes
Stop! Stop the self-doubt and treat it with care, consideration, kindness. Treat yourself like a child when doubt appears and imagine you are a kid or your smaller self — you wouldn’t talk to them like you do now, right?
4. Stop listening to the inner dialogue
Along comes the inner dialogue. You may have a name for your inner bitch (excuse the language), or you may not. I advise you to.
When we personify our inner demon dialogue, then we can get rid of it easier. I was telling this to my boyfriend when we were both suffering from anxiety one day.
I now have forgotten the name we called it, but it was Ann or Anna, I think. Ok, so that name isn’t so horrible. I advise choosing a not so nice name so that you can imagine them as a horrible person.
Now the features.
What features do they have that put you off them? A big nose (like me, lol) or a long face with a twitch. Get into detail about how they look so that when the inner dialogue appears and tells you off, you can make it scamper with love and light that you show yourself instead.
Please don’t fall for your self-sabotage but heal it with self-love.
5. Stop caring about what people think
“Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don’t let the limitations of others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt and believe in yourself, you can achieve what you never thought possible.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
As Roy Bennett puts it so perfectly, don’t let others tell you what you can and can’t do, and don’t let the opinion of others get in the way of the love you have for yourself. That’s why the fifth point to love yourself and accept love from others is not to care so much.
When you start taking care of yourself, you start feeling better; you start looking better, you start to attract better — it all starts within you.
So my boyfriend has a big issue with this. In his mind, he thinks others think that he is an uninteresting person with nothing to say. However, he’s not! In fact, he’s far from it, and I actually love the way he interacts with others — he always seems so cool and chilled out when he does.
But in his mind, he’s not.
His mind tells him that he’s useless and boring. It isn’t very pleasant to hear, and I want him to draw near. The moment you start to believe in yourself, the moment you start to love yourself more and more for who you are.
6. Don’t believe everything you think
This way to love yourself and accept love from others might be one of the most important points. As mentioned above, my boyfriend thinks a lot of things that are far from true.
You see, our mind taunts us and wants to believe every word it says for us to be our own worst enemy.
Sometimes my boyfriend can’t stand his company, so he decides to sleep. This pains me as he is one of the calmest and cutest people I surround myself with.
When you stop believing everything you think and change your dialogue to happy, positive thoughts, you begin to notice that you are made of love. Yes, we are made of hate too, but choose love.
7. Accept your flaws
“Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no-one can use them against you” — Anonymous
Ok, so this really hits home for me. When I didn’t love myself, I was so paranoid about my big nose and hairy face (yes, I have Mediterranean genes!).
Yesterday, I was visiting the family that we took on here five years ago from Iraq. They have now become our extended family, and I love them to bits. However, the father doesn’t believe that women should have any bit of air on them.
I understand that this is a cultural difference, and I accept it for what it is. I used to get really upset when he would point at my facial hair and say that it needs to go, but now I just laugh it off.
It doesn’t bother me that much anymore because through loving yourself, you accept all your flaws. You accept who you are and rejoice in it. So what are you accepting about yourself that others may not like about you?
In conclusion
Seven ways to love yourself to accept love from others include:
- Don’t believe everything you think
- Accept your flaws
- Stop caring about what others think
- Stop listening to your inner dialogue
- Stop listening to self-doubt
- Stop overthinking
- Don’t live in the past
I hope these lessons help you in your path to love yourself!
Before you go
Thanks for being here.
—
This post was previously published on Medium.
***
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often | Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | ..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Oswald Elsaboath on Unsplash