When You Find It Hard To Love Yourself

Sometimes it’s really hard to love yourself.

All the self-help guides in the world will tell you that in order to receive love, joy and happiness, you must first give it to yourself. If you cannot love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?

But what if you find it really hard to love yourself?

What if, in fact, more often than not, you hate yourself?

What if instead of loving yourself, you constantly punish yourself? You berate, you chastise, you criticize. You say terrible things. Hurtful things. Hateful things.

You set such high standards for your life. As a partner, as a mother, as a friend, in your business, in your work, in your home, and in all the other roles you try to squeeze into the minuscule gaps of life.

You set standards SO high that if you were being honest with yourself, you know you have a snowflake’s chance in hell of ever accomplishing.

But still, you set the bar that high, and then immediately admonish yourself for how pathetic and useless you are for not being able to reach it.

Perhaps you label it perfectionism? Maybe that’s what you call striving for excellence? Perhaps that’s just the way you like things done?

Or maybe, you’re simply using those labels to provide an outlet for your own self-hatred?

To provide an opportunity to say all those hurtful things you believe about yourself when you “prove” that you’re a failure.

That you’re not good enough, that you’ll never be good enough, that you can’t even fold the laundry on time so how do you expect to build a business?

When the “self-love” prophets come banging their drums, that little voice in your head sharply replies,“Well, what is there to love?? Maybe if you could finally get your shit together then I might be able to start loving you.”

When you’re so used to punishing yourself, the leap to self-love can seem too great a jump to make.

Possibly too risky a jump to make.

Because if you all of a sudden LOVE yourself, won’t you go all soft? Won’t your standards slip? Won’t you become completely unmotivated and lazy? Because who else is going to kick your own ass like you can right?

Can I ask you something?

What if you overheard a young girl talking to herself that way?

What if she didn’t get the score she wanted on her math test and you heard her tearfully saying how stupid she is, how useless she is, how she’s never going to be smart enough, she’ll never be good enough, she’ll never get anywhere so what’s the point of even trying?

What would you say to her?

Because if I were to make an assumption based on the way you talk to yourself, I’d have to guess that you’d say, “Yeah, you ARE a piece of shit! How do you ever expect to get anywhere? You’re pathetic! Why can’t you just DO IT? Everyone else is, so why can’t you?”

Would you say that to that young girl?

Would you say that to your best friend who thinks she’s a horrible mother because she was late to her son’s soccer game and missed seeing him score his first goal?

Would you say that to anyone?

OF COURSE NOT. You would only upset them more, you would only be making them feel even more shitty about themselves, you would only drive them further into their pit of despair instead of reaching a hand down to show them the way out. You KNOW it would be totally ineffective right?

But yet... you speak to yourself like that  all day, every day.

How exactly do you think that is going to help?

I would bet that if that young girl, or your best friend were sitting next to you right now, you’d wrap your arms around them with love and compassion. You’d tell them that everybody makes mistakes, you’d tell them that you understand how they feel and why that would upset them, you’d tell them how amazing they are, you’d tell them that you believe in them and that you love them.

You would respond with complete compassion.

But if that circle of compassion that you extend to the people around you doesn’t include yourself, it’s incomplete.

So maybe you DO find it hard to love yourself right now.

But the bridge to self-love starts with compassion.

What if you could just start being compassionate with yourself?

What if the next time you hear that little voice in your head trying to rip yourself to shreds, you just stop and ask yourself, Would I speak to my best friend like that? What would I say to her right now if she was feeling this way?

What if, instead of the usual stream of vitriol you’d direct at yourself, you simply said, You know what? It’s totally normal to feel angry with yourself right now. It sucks when things don’t go the way we want them to. But you were trying your best. That’s all we can ever do right?

Do you think that would that make it easier or more difficult to take the next step forward?

Right!

So just start there.

Compassion.

As you start to allow yourself to be included in your circle of compassion, you might just hear that voice whispering some other nice things, too: You know, you’re actually not so bad. You’re a good mom sometimes. You did a good job.

And before long, if you stretch that self-compassion muscle enough, who knows... maybe it might blossom into self-love.

And THAT is something YOU deserve to feel.

It’s YOUR time for more

Melinda xx

www.melindakitto.com