Love yourself first

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I’m just going to jump right in. I’ve heard at least two variations of this saying. One being “You need to love yourself, before you can expect others to love you.” the other being “You need to love yourself, before you can truly love others.” I am aware that there are many variations of these sayings but these two are the ones I’ve heard the most and I never liked them...especially the second.
I always understood them to mean, that if I can’t love myself, then the love I have for others just isn’t real love. I know this might seem somewhat dramatic but it made me feel like people were trying to tell me, that my feelings weren’t real and that what I thought was love...well wasn’t. It’s only recently I realised what these sayings really meant (I still don’t fully agree with them but I’ll get into that later). I finally understood that it was saying I needed to make myself a priority, to take care of myself and my needs, be nice to myself and show myself understanding and empathy. For I’m “stuck” with me for the rest of this life and it’s going to be really rough, if I spend that time disliking or even hating on the one person who’s going to be there for every second of it. I really liked this other quote:

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
– Malcolm S. Forbes (1)

 I can agree with and get behind all of those reasons however, there are some reasonings like:

“If you are not good enough for yourself, nobody will be good enough for you.
If you are judgmental about everything that you do, you will be pessimistic about everything your partner does.
If you are too afraid to face your demons, you will push your partner away so they don’t make you.” (2)

that I just can’t agree with.
The main reason I gained confidence and managed to feel love and appreciation for myself was because my amazing friends and especially my boyfriend, even before we got together, loved me the way I am and pretty much showed me the way.
I definitely believe it’s possible to love yourself without someone else doing it first. However, I strongly believe that the opposite is possible too. I for one really needed someone to help me start off the process of not believing in these negative thoughts. Sometimes we need a little help and someone to reassure us, an outside source to give reassurance that those voices trying to tell us we’re not worth it (whatever it may be) are very much in the wrong.
In the end of course what’s important is that we learn to love ourselves, whether we do that first and foremost or through the help of others.
If you want to read a totally different take on the subject and a somewhat detailed analysis on it go check this article out I found it an interesting take.
If you have any thoughts about this I’d love to hear about them.

Take care and wishing you a lovely day

Shaura



(1) https://www.positivityblog.com/self-esteem-quotes/

(2) https://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2017/11/this-is-what-it-actually-means-to-love-yourself-first-because-its-more-than-just-being-confident/





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