You Don’t Have to Like Yourself to Love Yourself
A look at love as an active verb.
I used to think that self-love was this warm, fuzzy feeling that you either had or didn’t have towards yourself — and most of the time, I did not have it. I could see the benefits of self-love, of course — at least in theory. But the actual reality of it seemed out of reach.
In the past couple of years, I have come to see self-love as less of a feeling and more as a practice. A process. An active verb. Love is something you do. And it was only in choosing to do it that I understood why they call it a journey. ’Cause it’s one fucking wild ride. I also understood what was meant by the saying “In filth it will be found.”
Because the process of self-love is not pretty. To actually love and accept yourself, you will have to dismantle the walls you have been carefully constructing around your conscious perception since the day you were born.
You will have to let go of the fantasy of who you would like yourself to be and step into the truth of who you actually are.
You will have to dig your hands into unknown depths and pull yourself up to the surface, look yourself in the eye and say “Okay.”
The process of self-love is not pretty because it requires you to get dirty. At times, it will feel like your skin is disintegrating. At times, you will feel disgusted. At times, it will feel like the salty hot tears will never run out. At times, you will surprise yourself. And at times, it will even be fun. Like I said, it’s a fucking wild ride.
It’s not about calling yourself a goddess, or king or queen or majestical being. It’s not about lying to yourself in new ways, saying things you don’t believe. It’s simply about sitting down in the darkness and choosing to make peace with whoever appears.
It is not a pretty process. It takes courage, practice, patience, time. It takes grit and softness and tenderness. Above all, it takes trust that beneath it all, you are actually kind of okay. You were never worthless or broken or whatever else you’ve been telling yourself this whole time.
Perhaps the hardest part of learning to love yourself is learning how to stop actively hating yourself. To be understanding when you want to judge. To be curious when you want to condemn. To be compassionate when you want to be cruel. To stay with yourself when you want to run.
I cannot emphasize this enough — at first, every nerve in your body and every thought that crosses your mind will resist. Because self-loathing is comfortable. It’s comfortable because it’s familiar, and the familiar is safe because it’s predictable. That’s a lot of good reasons to stay exactly as you are, even when it sucks. I’m sure you can think of a couple more.
Most of us choose to love ourselves when we have no other alternative.
Yes, we choose to love ourselves.
Love as a verb is a constant choice. It’s a choice you make every time you fail to actively love yourself and every time you let yourself down. Because you will always find a way to let yourself down.
It’s a choice to lower your expectations of yourself to align with where you actually are. It’s not about liking who you are. That part comes later. Maybe, in fact, it never does.
It’s a choice to take a breath and reach out a hand to yourself even when you don’t like yourself, when you’re sick of yourself, when you don’t want that version of you that has fallen down— and pulling yourself up again, looking yourself in the eye again and saying, “Okay” again and again.
That said, self-love is not your get-out-of-jail-free card. It is not your permission to forget about others. Quite the opposite. Loving yourself means you take accountability and responsibility for yourself whenever you make a mistake. Loving yourself means becoming bold enough to accept that you have made a mistake, without going back to loathing yourself.
Loving yourself means admitting fault when there is fault without self-deprecation or self-punishment. Without accusing yourself of being the worst thing to have ever happened. Loving yourself means seeing and accepting what went wrong and why, and then remedying it at the root.
It is integrating your faults and your innocence.
Above all, choosing to love yourself is about choosing to believe that the You you will find in the filth is worth finding.
I promise you that learning how to love yourself is not a pretty process. But, it is also not that bad.
Hi, I’m Noemi, a certified relationship coach. I help you understand your patterns and cultivate self-love, confidence, and compassion to create the deep, fulfilling conscious relationships your heart desires.
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