Loving Myself

“…You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection” – The Buddha

I have a difficult time giving love and safety to myself. I am constantly trying to find happiness in something outside of me.

Why is it so hard to feel good about me? Maybe it’s because I grew up around someone who was very hard on themselves, so I mimicked that behavior. I thought that modesty was a virtue and a noble quality to display. That led to me negating compliments and to judging myself harshly. I thought that if I was not hard on myself, I would not be motivated to change. So I have made it so uncomfortable, so shameful to make mistakes that when I mess up, I can’t stand to be with myself. When I lose my cool at my job, or screw up in a relationship, the suffering is extremely difficult to bear. In the past this has led to me doing anything I can to numb out – drink, shop, you name it. And all those activities have resulted in is problems getting worse while I delayed dealing with them.

I don’t have the exact study or quote that says that being mean to ourselves is ineffective in motivating change. There’s enough pain and suffering from situations and from other people that I have to at least provide safety and kindness to myself. So how am I going about this rather difficult objective?

1) I am doing things that help me feel good about me. I have established practices and routines, commitments to improve myself like daily meditation and yoga. Just by doing these things, I feel proud of myself for showing up for me. Performing these acts that I resolve to do signals that I care for and respect myself.

2) Paying attention to the way I talk to and about myself. If I say anything negative or mean, I notice and sometimes even correct it.

3) Metta/loving kindness meditation. That practice starts by recognizing our innate goodness, worthiness, desire to be happy, underneath all the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. It has been said that what we focus on becomes the inclination of the mind. So the more I focus on my lovability, the more I will feel those kind feelings towards myself.

4) Staying busy. I’m getting more involved in “spiritual fellowship,” taking harmonium lessons, and being creative by writing this now. I feel proud of myself for doing what I’ve set out to do, inspired and happy to be alive.

If you have any suggestions or thoughts about the journey to love yourself, feel free to share. I hope that we can start a community here and on the site to have conversations about inner work and relational topics in a non-judgmental manner in which we can feel heard, understood and normal.

Much love to you all and thank you for reading.