“You can’t love others until you love yourself.”
“No one is going to love you until you learn to love yourself.“
Ever heard of this advice? These are quotes that I come across all too often. And whilst it is true to some extent, the simplicity of these quotes leaves them open to much misinterpretation.
A Common Misinterpretation – What Loving Yourself Is NOT
One common misinterpretation that people can get sometimes, is that they are “not good enough” yet, and thus are unworthy of love from others.
There are 2 possible outcomes of this mindset:
1. They continue to believe that they are unworthy of love and act in accordance with that belief with the people around them, inducing reactions from others (e.g. pushing people away because they feel unworthy, then feeling unworthy because people don’t approach them), and only gathering more and more evidence in their minds that this belief is true.
2. Because they’re “not good enough yet”, they embark on a long journey of personal development, trying to improve themselves in every way, filling up every weakness and void to become the perfect human being that people just can’t help but look up to and admire.
For me (and probably many others), I was a mixture of both possible outcomes of the unworthy mindset.
How this misinterpretation comes about
For most people, this misinterpretation comes from their upbringing, and the experiences that they had with their environments growing up.
For me, I carried the above misinterpretations at the back of my mind for 12 years of my life — starting in high school.
I grew up in a culture of conditional love, where good grades were rewarded with love, affection and gifts, and poor performance was reprimanded and punished physically (i.e. conditional love).
Growing up, my parents also fed me these lines of advice constantly:
- “Only hang out with the smart kids at school and be their friends”
- “Don’t hang out with the dumb kids”
- “If you’re not smart and you don’t accomplish much, no one wants to be your friend”
For the early part of my life (i.e. 0-12 years old), these were simply just words and beliefs that I had in the back of my mind. They didn’t affect my ability to be happy, socialise and get along with others. I was considered an academically gifted kid, and so I never really faced any problems with receiving love and attention from my parents.
But it all came crashing down when I was 14. A victim of bullying in high school, losing all my friends from primary school, and lacking emotional support from my family, I was experiencing a period of suicidal depression.
I lacked motivation to study and as a result, I had poor grades. Facing suicidal thoughts, and really needing some love and attention, I reached out to my parents. After all, your parents are meant to be there for you during your hardest times, right?
Things didn’t quite turn out that way… In the midst of a confronting conversation with my parents about my depression, they got into a fit of rage and told me to “go kill yourself then”.
In all fairness, when I look back at it and process things, I realise that they had their fair share of troubles and had fought very hard to start a life from ground zero to make sure I could get the best tuition and start off with a better and more comfortable life.
But the damage had already been done. As a result of that traumatic experience, I shut myself off from people and formed a strong belief that in order for me to be loved, I had to become a person of value; as someone worthy of love.
And in my hormone-filled, teenage brain, I thought the best way to become worthy was to become a super-achieving human of some sort.
My journey towards becoming “more worthy”
And so for a good part of a decade, I invested significant amounts of my time and money into books, courses / seminars, mastermind groups.
I volunteered my ass off, choosing work experience over money for 4-5 years, and making many sacrifices along the way, in order to “catch up” with others in what I thought I lacked.
I set my mind to make my mark on the world; to achieve something noteworthy that would show me my value and worth as a human being.
All of this was done with the unconscious belief that it would pay off in the long run, I would be loved and find happiness as a result.
In my mind it equated to something like this:
But in the 10 years that I have done this, I realised that it never truly gave me the life satisfaction and happiness I was after…
Becoming more “Worthy”… But still failing to experience Love
On the surface I was an accomplished young person who others praised for having so much foresight and self-awareness at a young age.
I had a pretty killer CV crammed with multiple work experiences. I became a person that ticked many boxes, but on the inside, I was still fragile, weak and feeling undeserving; of love and happiness.
Even though I’ve achieved some pretty cool things and ended up being quite confident with myself, deep down I still had a fear of intimacy. I subconsciously pushed people away, even those who I wanted to be close to.
But this wasn’t the main problem. The main problem was that I didn’t know this; it was all happening on a subconscious level, and it took me many years to figure that out.
On the outside, sure. Every time I achieved something and others would recognise my achievements, I would feel great about myself:
- Every time I managed to pull off a great presentation that people were inspired by, and I’d see how what I had said had impacted them, I’d feel great.
- Every time I got attention from the opposite gender, I’d feel great.
- Every time I scored an awesome opportunity for my career and future, I’d feel great.
- Every time someone older and wiser than me told me I was going to go on to achieve great things, I’d feel great.
The problem with all these achievements and feelings was that they were external sources of validation (Poland, public speaking, family and friends) rather than internal sources of validation.
And as I have come to realise after a long time, external sources of validation are never reliable. The most reliable source of validation comes from within. From YOU, yourself.
You Don’t Have To Be A “Superstar”
Dating and relationships are one of the best ways to learn more about yourself.
It wasn’t until the second time that I ever pursued a girl (let’s call her Sally – not her real name), that I realised that whilst I had become what I thought was a genuinely great human being with great career accomplishments, I had yet to learn to fully love and appreciate myself.
I realised this when Sally listed what she thought were my good traits as she politely rejected me, and all of them reflected my professional career achievements and my mature perspectives on life, but none of them were related to what I actually wanted to have or be in a relationship (i.e. fun to hang around, positive energy, funny etc.).
I had been quite confident in myself, and believing that because I had achieved certain milestones in my life, I was completely deserving of anyone in the world and people should just flock to me (the delusion sold by media).
It was only after this experience of being rejected, that I realised I had been seeking love and care from others my entire life. And no matter how much love I’d get from someone else, it’d eventually fade and run out. I was lacking self-love, and I was not self-sufficient.
You don’t need to have extraordinary achievements and skills to be worthy. You are enough as is.
“So.. does this mean I don’t need to work on myself?”
It all comes down to your underlying intention.
What I’ve said so far isn’t to suggest that you should not strive to become a better person.
You can still become more of a person of value. Just don’t expect it to get you the happiness you’re after.
The real meaning of “love yourself”
The people that we attract into our lives (friends, work colleagues, associates, partners) are usually a reflection of who we are (this is known as the Law of Attraction).
So if you want to attract a partner who can fully love you for who you are, you must first learn to love yourself properly.
THAT’s what the quote means by “loving yourself.”
So, now that we know how NOT to love yourself, how do you actually love yourself?
ACTION STEPS: How to actually love yourself and feel worthy of love
Save yourself years of trouble trying to make yourself more worthy. Here are 3 of the most powerful methods that I have used to feel more worthy and loved:
Invest in the practice of self-love and self-care. Here are some ways to get started:
1. Take care of yourself
What’s one of the most basic things that you do when you do when you have unconditional love for someone? You take care of them.
Think about being a parent to a child, then think about how you treat yourself. Do you make sure you:
- Get enough sleep
- Monitor your stress levels
- Eat healthy
- Exercise regularly
- The words being said to you (i.e. self-talk) are positive and supporting
- Look for, and create evidence that you are awesome
- Limit your exposure to social media / the Internet / LCD screens
- Don’t overwork
- Don’t commit yourself to too many projects at once
- Have your finances in order
2. Spend some time just “following your heart”
Have you ever had a moment in time where you really feel like doing something, but you tell yourself “Nah, I shouldn’t do that.”?
When we hold ourselves back from doing things that bring us joy, we end up hurting ourselves. Take some time to indulge in the things that bring you pleasure.
- Got your eye on that greasy burger? Go for it.
- Really want to check out that movie even though you’re broke? Treat yourself.
- Chase after that dream career / job that you’ve always wanted to have.
- Connect with your inner child and engage in child-like curiosity and play – e.g. play on the swings in the park, or pull a silly face at someone.
3. Realise that you are enough, and you should never have to change yourself to please others and “win their love”
As someone who grew up between Eastern and Western cultures, I struggled a lot with fighting between the collectivist Eastern mindset of “saving face” and the more individualistic Western way of doing things on your own.
I was always afraid of what other people would think, and it’s never gotten me the happiness and freedom I sought.
- Cut out people who are out of alignment with who you are and with whom you feel a pressure to always be on guard with your behaviour. This could mean limiting your exposure to certain people, or even breaking up with someone you’re in a relationship with.
- Be wary of the intention with which you are doing things:
- are you chasing that athletic figure to attract the opposite sex? Or because it gives you confidence and energy / vitality?
- Why are you really chasing after that flashy corporate job? Because you’ve been told that’s the thing to do or because you genuinely love your work?
Stay In Touch
If you found value in this article, then please share it with your friends and family. I will be writing up more articles soon.
Alan
Wow, although at face value I felt that I didn’t really connect to your commencing story – it definitely portrays a very similar upbringing to my own in the values of the family. I love the re-focus on self care, and the focus on the true intention. Thank you for this wonderful reminder of what makes a meaningful and intentional life.