I used to get confused whenever I heard the phrase “to love, love yourself first”.
What does it really mean anyway?
It might be clearer for people who have reached that space. However, for those who are learning about it, it can be quite a frustrating abstract concept.
As I tried to figure out what it really meant, I came to understand a few things.
What it means to love yourself
The following explanation might still sound abstract. I promise that by reading everything it will get a little clearer.
To love yourself means to cherish and hold dear all that you are, and all that makes you the person you are, not in the future but right now, in the present moment.
Can you love yourself fully, including the darkest corners of your soul?
Can you have compassion for how you feel, whatever emotion that arises within you, however uncomfortable and inconvenient it is?
Do you celebrate who you are, in the present moment, with everything that you have experienced that shaped who you are right now?
We are humans, and we all have a light side and a dark side.
Our human nature is a result of millions of years of survival and evolution programming, so we are bound to have certain patterns and instinctive behaviors with darker flavors.
Loving ourselves doesn’t mean condoning our darkest parts, but still accepting that they are part of our nature and potential, while not forgetting that we also have light and potential for so much good.
For example, most of the time I no longer feel bad for having petty thoughts or negative feelings. If I feel jealousy, I fully embrace it internally and become compassionate and curious about why I feel that way.
It wasn’t easy to reach this level of acceptance. It was certainly a journey full of inner introspection and some running away. But acknowledging my darker parts and desires without shame or guilt, or even embracing the shame or guilt I might feel along with my darkness, has been the key to accepting all of my nature and self, as I am.
Why you need to love yourself to love someone
We often judge or hurt people, even unconsciously, because we are wounded in some way or another.
If there are certain actions, people or situations that especially trigger our anger and critical side, then we might have unhealed wounds asking to be acknowledged, loved and healed.
The problem is that these wounds, projected anger and patterns have been so ingrained in our subconscious that they became our blindspots.
I grew up in a family environment in which harshness and criticism were often present. Because that’s what I was familiar with, I couldn’t spot certain unhealthy behaviors as toxic, and ended up accepting them from others while also playing out certain dynamics myself.
After starting my healing journey and taking a good look at those patterns, I’ve realized how we all just wanted to be loved. We all just wanted to be seen, heard, and cared for, yet we didn’t know how to properly interact with each other instead of resorting to unhealthy ways to get those needs met.
As I embraced my darker emotions and validated my own needs, as I felt love and compassion for those parts of me, I began to forgive my loved ones who were also in those dynamics.
I’ve started to feel so much love and compassion for their wounds and needs that it gradually improved how I reacted to them. I began to feel less and less critical of their shortcomings and toxic behaviors.
Loving and forgiving doesn’t mean not having boundaries. In fact, as this pattern became clearer to me, and as I love and cherish myself more and more, I can now choose to walk away from it, lovingly and compassionately.
If we repress and avoid the pain inside us, we might attempt to do the same whenever others display the same pain by criticizing and judging their behaviors harshly.
A common example is that when people grow up being told to not cry and be strong, they disconnect from their hearts and become critical towards others as well, attempting to repress other people’s emotions.
But when we love and feel compassion towards our own pain, we can feel the same when others display it, instead of reacting harshly towards them.
By acknowledging our dark side and wounds, we also take the first step to heal them, so that we become more compassionate, patient and understanding towards others instead of reacting out from pain and inner wounds.
Practical tips on how to love yourself
If a loved one is in pain and feels really emotional, our immediate response might be to give them support and care the best we can. However, how often do we give that to ourselves, whenever we feel emotional or go through some hard day?
Many of us are our harshest critic, and we don’t even notice it. Some time ago, someone helped me become aware of my inner critic, when I was commenting on how bad I was at something and he asked me why I would tell myself that.
We wouldn’t say belittling things to a loved one, and yet we often say it to ourselves.
We wouldn’t avoid or dismiss someone’s emotional distress, and yet we often belittle or invalidate our own negative emotions whenever we go through something.
Loving yourself means embracing yourself as you are, moment by moment. That you acknowledge that you deserve your own attention and care even if you feel emotional, angry, sad, or ashamed. That you honor all that you are and all that you feel, even if you want to run away and numb yourself.
It might be hard to do this, especially if this has been so foreign to you. Many of us went through experiences that wounded us and we never really came to know what healthy self-love actually feels like.
But there are things you can start doing that can slowly change it.
If you notice yourself being critical to you, accept with compassion even that critical voice.
That voice is not the real you, it was developed by the accumulation of the voices of critical parents, unkind teachers, clueless friends… They became critical because many of them also got hurt by others before them who were also critical of them, with everyone passing on this pattern without even being aware of it.
You might have inherited it too, and it’s ok if it takes time to dissolve it. But give yourself time, and every time you notice it surfacing inside you, change the dynamic by telling yourself that what it said is not true for you. Change it to something that you’d say to a dear loved one instead.
The practical tip here is to never look away from your own feelings and emotions whenever uncomfortable ones arise, and to practice more kindness and acceptance towards yourself while remembering that your inner critic is just an automatic pattern that has been inherited, but doesn’t dictate your true reality.
When you finally embrace all that you are and everything that you feel, with compassion and curiosity, you take the first steps to heal your inner wounds and you become more and more committed to cherishing yourself.
Next time you feel uncomfortable feelings such as anger, sadness or shame, instead of trying to repress or distract yourself from them, ask yourself, “what is it that I really need and desire?”
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Mónica Valverde is a daydreamer navigating the experience of human life. She’s in love with Spirituality, Inner Work and Relationships.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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