"We must love ourselves, or else...."
"No one will love us?"
"We can't truly love others?"
Speaking for myself, I reject those rules about what love is or must be.
Self-love may be problematic for some of us. In particular, shame/self-loathing can be a core symptom of Complex PTSD, as I explored here.
We may be overflowing with love for humanity and compassion for all sentient beings. Kindness towards others may be the animating principle that we aspire to guide our lives.
Except for ourselves.
It's possible (for some of us, at least) to love humanity and hate ourselves. Or simply exist in a complicated relationship with ourselves that isn't loving.
I know this because I've not only experienced it in myself but also observed it in others. Some of the most loving, humble, gentle, compassionate, caring people I know are those who struggle with deep self-hatred. Some of these deeply loving people have tried their very best to "heal" that self-hatred. They've perhaps tried to medicate it, and/or "cure" it with therapy, or philosophical aphorisms. But it's persisted. And its persistence has deepened their sense of shame and been used abusively by others to further isolate/blame them.
I feel sad when people don't love themselves (except for myself, because it's complicated and asymmetrical, as I wrote in the previous post cited above) . I want everyone to have self-love who can (as I wrote here), but those who lack it don't necessarily lack the experience of true, vibrant, rich, deep, meaningful love. And we aren't being kind IMO by trying to pressure, cajole or shame people into believing the love they do get to experience isn't valid and real.
As for those sayings about how we "must love ourselves OR ELSE," it always perplexes me that they never seem to explain why. It simply seems to be taken as self-evident. And maybe it is for some people. If some people need to love themselves before they can love others or receive love from others, I'm not here to tell them they're wrong or that they shouldn't pursue that goal. That may be how it works for some people.
My own view? It's complicated. And flexible. And personal.
As it happens, I wrote my MA theses (here 🤮) on "the ideal of unconditional love." It was rushed and terrible. It could use many more edits and less pompous convoluted writing. A lot of what I started unpacking there requires further development before it can be useful. I was also only 22-years old. But I did derive some wisdom from the experience, I think.
Here is what I learned: the concept of "love" (like so many other concepts) isn't something obvious and inert. There's considerable debate about what it means: not only about how we experience it but how we should experience it and aspire to do as it directs/suggests. How we view it may also depend on such complex things as how we view our own and others' personhood, how we construct self vs. "other," and how we orient ourselves to whatever we view as "good." There may be a correct answer, but no one has authoritatively provided it. There is room for differing approaches (which is where autonomy comes in). We can perhaps learn from each other and have constructive discussions, but not simply dictate the answer for each other, IMO.
So with those caveats, my own tentatively evolving view (for myself)?
Love (whatever it may be) is not something rigid and narrow that can be experienced only one way.
In my view, love can be experienced a variety of different ways. We can experience love in our relationship to ourselves and/or in relation to others. We can even experience it more abstractly and/or generally (love of humanity, love of community, love of life, love of knowledge, love of "goodness").
If we experience disruptions along one or more of the usual axes, it doesn't mean we are shut out from experiencing love and allowing it to flow in and through us in a way that works for us.
Perhaps we've been so deeply hurt that turning that light towards ourselves is profoundly uncomfortable and maybe even dangerous for us either temporarily or permanently (especially if it's in a forceful pressured way). Perhaps we've had to erect a forcefield around ourselves, because the questions that are raised by efforts at self-love are too painful and disruptive right now. Perhaps we surrendered our sense of self-love to survive difficult things we've been through. Perhaps we focussed on love for others instead because that provided a way forward in the darkness, whereas love for self would have resulted in us needing and/or wanting to give up. Perhaps we were put in impossible situations where we had to choose between loving ourselves and loving others who meant too much to us for us to relinquish our care for them. The ways in which our self-relationship can be disrupted and fractured are complex. Just as the way we may rebuild afterwards may be (as I explored here).
But the good news, in my view, for me and some others I know at least, is that if self-love doesn't work for us, we can love in the ways that do work for us. Our love can be every bit as precious and real in doing so.
With this in mind, rather than push towards self-love those for whom it doesn't work (does shaming and pressuring people into loving themselves ever work anyway?), we can acknowledge that there are many ways to love, and affirm the value in the love that others are able to experience.
Self-love can still be cultivated in those who wish to pursue it (I'm sure many will and I applaud it), but it's a personal choice as to when or if to start down that sometimes very difficult path.
In any event, I did a previous twitter thread on my thoughts about an approach that may work for me, and rather than try to re-invent it, I'll simply post (a somewhat edited/expanded version of) it here:
If you have difficulty loving yourself, but no problem loving others, one thing that *may* work is to love your own capacity for love and its manifestations/activity. I can’t currently "love myself" the same way I can love others but maybe I can love the caring itself. It’s the best part of me in action--not me as object.
I personally find most of the talk of self-love problematic anyway in how it constructs what is self vs what is other. It just doesn’t work that way for me. In loving others, I can love myself more readily because that action aligns with my values and my sense of beauty, and it's loving what is active and expansive in myself rather than simply loving myself as an object within narrowly constructed boundaries.
It’s okay to have our own ways of valuing what’s most important to us in our experience of ourselves. We don’t have to accept others’ ways as our starting point. What we most prize in ourselves is ours to choose even if it’s actually goodness that is outwardly directed not inner-directed.
So I may not be able to direct that love inward in the same way, but I can love that manifestation of what I value and who I am and can shut out all the voices commanding “love yourself.” They don’t work for me.
That capacity to love those around us is something that can be tended to, cherished and maintained without all the sticky thorny questions that “self-love” as object can involve for some of us. Being made an object may be what damaged us in the first place.
Anyway, just my own reflections. Sometimes the way these things are constructed doesn’t work for all of us so internal reflection about what may work and what does reflect our values and needs can be important.
Telling me to love myself as much or more than I love others reinforces a dichotomy that set me apart from others as an object & disconnected me from my basic humanity. And was weaponized against me. Choosing to love more expansively can be gentler & less divisive.
It’s like my trauma isolated and separated me from others to target me for shame and damage. The solution for me isn’t to focus on myself in that same disconnected conception. It’s to rebel against it and simply love in the ways I still can. And to cherish/value that love without demanding that it do and be more to count as real.
Me not “loving myself” doesn’t necessarily mean I’m doing it wrong. It means I’m doing what works for me. It’s a form of self-love in its own way too, though I wouldn’t call it that because it reinforces the self/other distinction
But I totally get that others--if they can--may need and/or wish to focus on the self within those boundaries and create safety there. That’s not possible or palatable for me personally but it makes sense too. When we’ve been ruptured there’s more than one way to rebuild & move on.
It's the beauty of being human. There are so many ways to adapt and survive. Let's not force one narrative on everyone, please.
As always, please note that I am a lawyer, not a mental health professional of any kind. I have no expertise in trauma or mental health. Also, please note that any opinions and views expressed in this blog are solely my own and are not intended to represent the views or opinions of my employer in any way.
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