Crazy-Stupid Self-Love
“Self-care is never a selfish act – it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”
– Parker Palmer
Self-love can be a very challenging topic, especially for the all to many people who lack it. You may even hate the title of this letter, "Crazy-Stupid Self-Love." If you got past that enough to bother reading this, you may be pretty annoyed at this whole “self-love” thing right now. For most of my life, I knew I hated myself. I knew I hated life. And yet it never clicked for me that perhaps if one could hate himself, the opposite could also be true. One could love himself. When it did occur to me, it sounded selfish at first. Our culture implicitly teaches us from a young age that self-love is selfish and that it’s only okay to love people, places, and things outside of ourselves. Perhaps this is part of why so many of us grow up hating ourselves and feeling miserable. We’re stuck every second of the day with the one person we’ve been taught it’s not okay to love accept and take care of.
For me it was a real struggle to cultivate self-love. The concept itself was very foreign. I read that Sharon Salzberg asked the Dalai Lama in an interview about self-hatred and he was totally baffled. It had never even crossed his mind that someone might hate themself. He felt as confused by the concept of self-hate as I did by self-love. I’d make a joke such as, “Yeah, I loved myself twice last night,” as a tactic to avoid the question. I physically squirmed the first time I tried to say the words, “I love myself.” However, eventually things got bad enough that I was willing to try something even if it was uncomfortable.
A friend suggested a technique that was quite revolutionary for me. I gathered a bunch of childhood photos of myself at various ages. I started with baby pictures. Babies are cute, they’re extremely vulnerable, and we’re wired in many ways to love and protect them. So, I told that baby picture of myself, “I loved you.” I didn’t really believe it but I told it anyway. I said it more and more and it became gradually less uncomfortable. And then I actually started to believe it. Next I moved up to toddler pictures and I told them, “I loved you.” And so on. It got more uncomfortable the older the pictures got. Sadly, while we’re taught that being loving and kind to babies is okay, we’re less okay with being loving to older kids and adults (I was also taught as a guy not to tell other guys, “I love you,” at least not in a sincere, meaningful way. So I had to let go of that thinking too). The more uncomfortable it got, the more I knew I needed to do the work. I kept telling those pictures I loved them. I also gave them compassion. After all, only I knew what they had been through and what they had felt. Only I knew how much pain, loneliness, fear, and self-doubt they suffered. I knew how much they craved to be seen, to be heard, and to have their thoughts and emotions treated as completely valid even if they were “just a kid.” I told them I was happy they were born, that I loved spending time with them, that it was okay for them to be themselves, that it’s okay to explore, that it’s okay to be imperfect and to make mistakes, and that I loved and accepted them completely. They didn’t need to be perfect for me. They didn’t need to be anything but their own lovable, perfectly imperfect selves. I found inner child meditations to connect with them deeper (those in John Bradshaw’s book, Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child were particularly healing for me). It got even more challenging as the pictures progressed into adulthood, but I kept going. I kept going until I was talking to the person in the mirror. This got really uncomfortable. I saw all this person’s flaws; I saw everything I didn’t like about the man in the mirror, inside and out, and I told him, “I love you anyway.” I’m not sure he believed me at first (I’m not sure I meant it) but I kept telling him until we truly felt it. And, I realized how badly I needed to hear it.
Years later, I still use the inner kid technique to have conversations with myself. It’s still easier for me to tell a child I love him than to tell my adult self that, and that’s okay. It’s easier for me to be compassionate towards a child’s feelings and to be tender and take care of him. I tell my inner kid, “I love you,” all the time. And yes, perhaps that’s a trick for telling myself, “I love me,” and that’s okay too. I check in with my inner kid. I find out if he’s scared. I ask him what he needs. I am my own loving inner parent. Sometimes I picture him at different ages. Depending on what is going on with me, I know it might be kicking up stuff from different life stages. Such as triggering stuck grief or another trapped emotion that is waiting to be freed by being met with compassion.
The inner kid (or kids) is not in charge. The adult decides what is right and what is wrong. What to act on and what ideas would not be healthy or helpful to act on. I make sure the adult drives the bus but the kids ride along. It’s never wrong to listen to my inner kid. It’s always helpful to find out what he’s feeling, what he wants, and what he needs. I do my best to lovingly take care of him as a means of lovingly taking care of me.
Cultivating self-love can be a long road, and it tends not to be a straight one, but it’s a journey I find incredibly rewarding. Now when something goes wrong, my inner voice no longer shouts, “I hate myself!” It shouts, “I love myself!” I feel self-compassion and self-acceptance. That inner voice I hear in my head all day long is no longer an inner critic. It is a loving inner friend. It is someone who makes me feel better to have around me every second of the day.
Earlier I suggested that if you want to communicate warmly with someone, it is more effective to criticize actions rather than people. There is a tremendous difference between, “I don’t like you,” and, “I don’t like that thing you did.” The former inflicts shame, and the feeling that it’s not okay for the person you’re talking to be themself. The latter is more accepting. Furthermore, saying, “I feel _____ when you______” is even more effective as it keeps the focus on you and is thus even less likely to feel like an attack. I would like to propose that the same theory should apply for how we communicate with ourselves. John Bradshaw wrote, “Our love needs to be for who we are, not for what we do. You are lovable, period.”
I can now tell you with great pride: I love myself. I love myself in that “crazy shout it from the rooftops” kind of way you normally see in romantic movies. That’s an amazing thing. You may think it’s weird I love myself so much. And I take great pride in that weirdness. I also look forward to the day where that kind of self-love is not at all unusual.
I’ve come to believe that it’s impossible to love yourself too much. It’s impossible to take care of yourself too much. After I had done a lot of work on my inner world, I came to believe that taking care of myself was important, but secretly my subconscious was still demanding a lot of exceptions. Like, “You should take care of yourself after work calms down; things are too busy now.” Or, “You should not abandon your authentic self, unless the girl is really attractive.” Even though I knew better, I still found ways to abandon myself or to put myself last. But I get it now: self-care and loving yourself have no exceptions. The right time to love yourself is always. There is no higher priority.
The more I take care of myself and love myself, the better I can ultimately help others too. The calmer I am at work, the better my work is. I also attract and am attracted to healthier people. I build better relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners because I no longer abandon myself. I am not looking for someone to take care of me, or for someone I will need to rescue. I know I will take care of myself. I will no longer abandon myself; I love myself too much for that.
You may be thinking, “Wait, isn’t all this narcissism?” The answer is, no. Narcissism is an over-correction for insecurity. A narcissist is constantly telling the world how great they are because deep down they don’t believe it. Narcissists are unconsciously putting up a false ego as a shield to hide their deep-seated fear that they are not enough. A narcissist constantly wants possessions, money, and other external achievements to prove they are okay because deep down they feel they are not. The root of narcissism is still self-hatred and self-doubt. What I am suggesting is rooted in the opposite, self-love. I don’t need anything or anyone external to affirm me; my sense of worth comes from within. I know deep down I love and accept myself no matter what.
It may seem like a long way off, but I look forward to the day you love yourself so much you want to buy flowers for yourself, sing yourself love songs, write love poems to yourself, or do whatever else feels self-loving to you. That you love and care for yourself so much you willingly check in with your own feelings, and allow yourself to feel them, whatever they may be. That’s a love I would love to hear about. In my humble opinion, that is a kind of love that is neither “crazy” nor “stupid.” Abundant self-love is perhaps the greatest sign of sanity and emotional intelligence.
Ask Yourself:
How do I feel about myself today?
Do I love myself unconditionally, faults and all?
Is it okay to listen to my inner kid and decide as a loving inner parent what actions to take or not to take?
Is it okay to be a loving, imperfect inner parent to my inner kid?
Next Letter: Walking The Path