The Truth About Self Love
“You ruin everything. You’re the worst. Can you stop being such an idiot for once in your life?”
These fleeting thoughts in my mind play over, and over, and over again whenever I make a mistake. For a long time, I thought I was just being self-critical. Frustrated by a situation, I’d need someone to blame, so I blamed myself. I was emotionally whipping myself into not making the same mistake again, or sometimes, I believed I deserved to be punished. In my mind, this was just the way I talked to myself, and I didn’t think I actually believed these excessive insults. My self-loathing became so habitual, natural, unremarkable.
I realized how much I had abused myself emotionally only when I read a piece written by my roommate from college. For her creative nonfiction class, she wrote a letter to herself, saying at the end, “Thank you for being you. You will always be more than enough, and I will always love you. Don’t forget that, okay?”
She was showing unconditional love to herself. When I read her letter, it was as if I felt my accumulated self-inflicted emotional pain all at once. The difference in how she and I treated ourselves was so vast that I couldn’t help but cry. At that moment, it was as if I were two people, one wanting to apologize ceaselessly to the other. I would never have been okay with treating someone the way I treated myself. I thought that since I wasn’t trying to project my frustrations onto other people, self-hating was okay. But if I gave everyone else in the world my love while treating myself with hate, would I be able to say that I’m living a life of pure, true love?
True love isn’t something I’m supposed to give out of thin air. It is something I’m supposed to be, something that comes from within me .
Who You’re Really Hurting
Some people opt for self-hate because they believe they aren’t hurting anyone else and they need to release their anger. I also believed this to be true, until one day I made my own mother cry. I had gotten a bad haircut, and began blaming my mother, who had suggested the style. Soon, I began to fear I would make my mother upset, so I started to blame my face for simply being too ugly for the haircut. A few minutes later, I noticed tears streaming down my mother’s face. I insisted again that it wasn’t her fault, but my face’s. She was silent. She didn’t look at me once for the rest of the car ride, but kept crying without saying a word.
When we got home, my little sister, who had been in the car with us, asked me if I knew why my mother was crying. “I guess I hurt her feelings,” I said.
“You’re so dumb,” she said. “It’s because she loves you.”
Because she loves me. By not loving myself, I made my mom cry and I hurt her, because she loves me. I had thought of myself as hideous, needing a certain kind of hair to hide my ugliness. To my mom, however, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was so beautiful, but because I didn’t recognize my own beauty, I made her cry. My mom’s tears reminded me that I was a divine being, a child of God—beautiful, valuable, and worthy of love, even and especially my own. This was so difficult for me to see with my own eyes and from my own perspective, until I saw myself with God’s eyes. We are all divine. We are all His children. We all should love each other and love ourselves.
Self-Love in Action
To practice self-love, here is a challenge for the week: at the end of each day, write a thank you letter to yourself. Don’t deny the existence of your flaws, but instead, accept them, and express your love for who you are in spite and because of them. If you don’t feel that you love yourself, imagine that God is writing a letter to you. What would He say to express His love?