Just about every self-help and self-improvement program out there preaches self-love, self-respect and self-acceptance. However, not surprisingly, for a person who has been lacking in those areas and is coming from the background where those mental attitudes and skills were missing as well, these concepts are not easy to fully process and understand. I find that sometimes it is easier to see materials explaining why it is important, than the once telling you more about how the process of greater self-love and self-acceptance actually works.
For the longest time it puzzled and even somewhat bothered me as well, especially the concept of self-love. "How can I love MYSELF?!" - I used to exclaim with exasperation. Love is something you experience as coming towards you or from you. Say, someone smiles at you and looks at you lovingly - you feel like you are worthy of affection and loved. Same when you do truly appreciate someone - you express it with your actions and/or words and then they feel these good feelings reverberate. So how can you do it for yourself - it doesn't make any sense...
If you had that emotion in you, you would already feel it without having to "send" it over to yourself, and if you are lacking it, then by default you do not have anything to send, do you? You see how my confusion played out. Because I and naturally inclined to logically work out and analyze everything, I clearly could not make head or tail out of this, until, at last I stumbled on the question of identity.
Of course!! When I was so puzzled as to meaning of those calls for greater self-love, I failed to consider that I might have a broader concept of my own identity. Since I do not really have time to go on more about those somewhat philosophical aspects, I will leave you with this hint and hope that those you find such explorations interesting will easily pick it up from here.
But, staying on the topic of self-love and understanding it from more practical point of view, I, at last, settled on a different expression when attempting to explain this. Instead of saying we should love ourselves more, I propose that we open ourselves up to the love that exist in the Universe, and that still nourishes and sustains us despite all of the self-doubt or self-hurt that we generate. So for me it is a question of simply allowing more of the good stuff to come in into my life, taking down the obstacles on its path.
That also means no longer defending against any new input at all, positive or not, out of fear, which used to be my habit. Of course, once we feel loved in this more profound way, it becomes easier to radiate that kind of love from within, which set off a much more positive and fulfilling cycle than self-denial and limitation ever could.
Now, having somewhat covered self-love (and I really would like your opinions on the subject too), moving on to sense of self-respect and self acceptance. For the latter, my opinion is that self-acceptance really involves acceptance of our shortcomings and limitations, as well as our good qualities.
We, of course, live in the culture that continuously strives for bigger, faster and better and encourages individuals to do the same. However, as many of us learn, if left unchecked, this type of never enough attitude is more likely lead to total burn out and nervous breakdown than world domination.
While this type of never-ending strive is good for business, it, in my opinion, lacks in respect to natural ways life operates. Every human being needs some time to recuperate and some space to be able to be less than perfect and make mistakes. Too often type "A" personalities disregard that simple truth and drive themselves too hard in the pursuit of that illusive "perfection". However, denying your own needs can have a very high price, as many of us will only find out too late. Self-acceptance then, helps to maintain healthy balance and nourishes our self enough to keep going while feeling well. That is self-acceptance the way I see it, and much of it, I must confess, is purely theoretical so far, as I am absolutely terrible at accepting my own limitations, and expect myself to always perform perfectly which, of course, rarely happens and then beating myself up mercilessly for every little thing that went wrong.
In my family, my worth was always judged on my performance and so i can see where this way of behaving must have originated, and why it is so hard to get rid if it despite all of the good reasoning. The other end of this unbalanced behavior is of course, total burn out where I finally succumb to exhaustion
and simply let everything happen as it may, relinquishing any responsibility. Of course, none of this is healthy or helpful and so learning to accept myself is high on my list.
Alright, time to move to the last part of today's topic - self respect. I guess this one was the easiest one for me to figure out, or at least so I think. Of course, self-respect means recognizing once own value. This did not come as easily to me, and I think we somewhat covered this topic in the previous videos. Here, I will briefly note that for me, sheer fact that we still exist and that the force that created us still sustains our daily needs and therefore believes in our ability to improve and contribute, or even the fact that we are an inseparable part of this magnificent Universe is proof enough.
However, there is another special meaning that self-respect holds for me, and I think this particular one affected me greatly. You see, while I was able to admit I have many unpleasant and downright unhealthy tendencies of a Narcissist, concealing the truth was never a significant part of my arsenal.I simply do not tolerate myself intentionally misleading someone, unless they were first to try and take advantage of me.
I feel equally strong, or perhaps even stronger about lying to myself. For me, self-respect first and foremost means being honest with oneself. Because our cognitive function is easier understood in terms of differentiating between parts of self - we all know that other "voice" in our head that does not really feel like our core selves, but rather like some "other" part talking to another, professionals sometimes call that part Super Ego - it was easier for me to understand how one can try and conceal certain truths from another part of self, and I strive continuously to keep as much integrity in that way as possible.
That, of course, does not equal being a hundred percent aware of all of the "secrets" my subconscious holds - it it were the case indeed, I would not have to struggle with all the issues I have been talking about in this series. I am simply saying is that once a certain fact reaches my conscious mind I try my best to keep it in light and in focus, and do not let myself to conceal the "inconvenient truth" again, simply because it is more comfortable.
So, to me, at the root of self-respect lies self-awareness in a way that less-than-savory parts, once discovered, are acknowledged and processed and not staffed-down. I feel like this "core" discipline, when exercised, gives one enough strength to stand up to external challenges to their self-respect as well. It is almost like our internal "cleaning" gives us stronger immune system to ward off the less-than healthy input that comes from outside. Perhaps this is the only quality that kept me from going over-the-cliff as far as Narcissism or other imbalances, because absence of at least minimal self-awareness and willingness to act on it will make one "unreachable" to any kind of new input, and by extension, any kind of improvement indeed.
Of course, ability to stand up for oneself, put up healthy boundaries and determine when to exit a damaging situation or relationship are all signs of healthy self-esteem and therefore also signs of respecting oneself. However, I feel that at core of it all lies an ability to see your truth and act on it. So this is my take on the three skills/ attitudes often called for when trying to reach more emotional balance.
Until just a few days ago, I could honestly say I have never have given it much thought (other than the concept of self-love, which, as I said, used to bother me plenty). Thanks to this project and to you guys, I am once having to think-through and articulate some of the basic concepts of self-discovery and greater self-awareness, and therefore I have to thank you for this opportunity to share and learn at the same time. Thank you again for commenting and supporting this project in any way you see fit. I am grateful and impressed with you guys every time. As always, best wishes to you! Take good care!
Here is a video from NPDrecovery channel that goes over the same material discussed in this post:
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Thanks again for visiting - all the best to you!
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