The old saying tells us that we can’t love others unless we first love ourselves. It’s true
I call bullshit. This is the beginning of an article I had to read for my meditation class. I keep trying to blow this class off but the positive impact of meditation keeps really hammering itself home with me. This entire article is talking about self-love, and it’s two obstacles of self-love: Self-diminishment and self-aggrandizement, and goes into detail about the techniques for the safety and connection necessary for self-love. This article really stuck out to me among everything I’ve read this entire semester and I ended up reading the article a couple times to wrap my mind around my thoughts about the article. My opinions kept changes as I meditated upon it but I tried to figure out some of my angers and insights about the article.
The statement we have to love ourselves before we can love others is my least favorite sentence ever. I believe in the positive outlook it is trying to make you think of, but I think it is very very possible to love others no matter what you think of yourself. I see the importance of how your feelings for yourself impact how you feel about others, but I don’t think that makes these feelings incapacitated because of such. I don’t think you have to love your self to love others, I think it helps, but it is possible to do so without loving yourself.
I have worked on having self-love for the last 3 1/2 years and it’s been something I didn’t think possible since self-deprecation and self-criticism started in full swing when I was just 12 years old. It took over a year and a half for me to even get somewhere in the process my mind set was so horribly negative. I love reading these articles, but I always find it hard to come from a place of neutrality that I am in now when I read them. I always come from the place I used to be in, of depression and overwhelming negativity that ruled every thought. When you were so far behind in the race, it’s hard to think of yourself at the starting line now.
I appreciated the entire article, but there was one section I kept skipping until I read it through a third time. I skipped entirely the section about “seeing yourself through others eyes” This was a process that actually pushed me farther away from self-love because of so many negative people in my life. This isn’t a place I would like to go back too. In writing this, and finally reading the passage, I realize I am in a better place, and I have been able to see myself through others eyes much more productively and with less negativity as of late. I am improving, but I know this is still a difficult one for me.
This was a blog I wasn’t sure I wanted to write. I wrote so many emotion fueled writings last year I wasn’t sure if I wanted to revisit that. I like to think this is more in a retrospective mindset of writing – from learning from my mistakes and life – to grow into the person I need to become to love myself. I can’t get away from the emotion filled blogs because I think I learn so much about myself each time I write and reflect upon myself. PLA has allowed me to grow into a person I didn’t think would ever come out from under my depression, but I’m able to be the best I can be now, and I’m not letting that go.
Follow Us!