So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.
—Alan Watts
How do I love myself?
This is a question that has been asked of me by clients and readers over the years. We’ve all heard that adage that you can’t love anyone else until you love yourself. Some balk at that, but others believe it to be absolutely true. My take on it is this: Of course we have the capacity to love others even if we aren’t feeling that love for ourselves, but unless we have self-love as well, what are we really experiencing? Is it truly love or an unconscious need that loving another fulfills in us? As Alan Watts implies in the quote above, love does not discriminate between self and other. To love self, one must love the other. The inverse is true as well.
I once had the question about self-love put to me this way: How do I fall in love with myself?
I love this idea of falling in love with yourself. At first, it can sound egotistical and self-centered, but I don’t hear it that way. I hear ecstasy and connection. Devotion and loyalty.
Falling in love with yourself
The same way we fall in love with other people is the way we fall in love with ourselves: You get to know the person. The real you. Much like relationships, you may begin by getting to know the really exciting enticing, fun part of you. The surface. That’s fine. It’s a good place to start. Some ways you can do that are to…
1. Acknowledge yourself as a unique being. Remember that you come from Creation/Great Spirit/the Universe/God and because of that, you carry a spark of that majesty within you. Listen to episode #2 if you haven’t.
2. Be aware of the vibrancy in doing the things you love to do. (e.g., travel, build something with your bare hands, make love to yourself, turn off the phone and spend a whole day reading a novel…)
3. Share your life with only the people you wish to.
4. Remove the dead weight from your life (e.g., the toxic people—energy-drainers and/or people who do not champion your stellar existence as they do their own, and the toxic actions you perform—negative thinking, soul-crushing job, etc.)
5. Be kind to yourself. Always. This may seem easier said than done, but I’ll address that in a minute.
After the honeymoon phase
In relationships, after some time has passed, we begin to see deeper facets of our partner. Or, rather, they begin to trust us enough to let those parts emerge. And they’re not always pretty.
Also like relationships, the deeper you will begin to emerge after a while. You’ll mess up, you’ll have doubts, you’ll feel worthless and despairing. Good. That’s real. When you trip up on the path, when you are not kind to yourself, acknowledge and forgive it. Just like you would ideally in a misunderstanding with your partner. Remind yourself that you are on the path. The best any of us can do is try.
Finding the energy to be loveable to yourself
When we don’t have self-love, we often find ourselves drained of energy. So where can you find the psychic energy you need to be the (loveable) person you want to be?
Finding energy for what you want comes from generating that energy within. The list I just gave you is a great start toward creating and sustaining that energy.
Another way is to begin a solitude practice. In my book, Celebrating Solitude, How to Discover and Honor Your Highest Self, I write about why taking regular time to nurture ourselves is the psychospiritual equivalent to recharging our batteries. Once you have energy to care of your own needs and fight for what you want, you’ll find a surprising benefit: You will have enough energy to give to others, and that is immensely beneficial to everyone and everything around you.
Even though you’ve experienced rough road along your path, your individual power never left you. You just forgot it was there, waiting for you to call upon it again.
Once you begin to reconnect with and truly love your deepest self—the one that is here for the purpose of living to its highest potential—the power will rush back to your being, ready for you to use it to improve your life and, most importantly, the lives of those around you.
Loving self and other
Loving yourself is very similar to loving others. That’s the whole point, right? We are all connected, yet we each are one beautifully unique facet of the cosmic continuum. The more we give love to ourselves, the more we generate the creative energy from which we came, and the more we return that energy to those beings around us who are our siblings.
When we hold ourselves back, when we degrade ourselves or deem ourselves unworthy of love, we become a wound in the great energetic lifeform of which we are a part.
Of course, only we can heal that wound. And the most powerful medicine for all wounds is, of course, love.