How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love ... Myself

Putting any prerequisite in the way of loving yourself is a fast path to misery, but it’s something successful people do all the time.

See if any of this sounds familiar

You have a high standard for yourself. You feel that being busy and achieving difficult things are the marks of an accomplished individual. When you're not getting shit done, you feel anxious, like life is passing you by.

You set yourself challenging goals. So challenging, in fact, that you often fail to meet them. That's OK, though, you tell yourself you're striving to jump a high bar. Failure is a step on the path to success. Keep going.

On occasion, you do jump that high bar, and it feels good! But somehow the contentment you were hoping for is fleeting. Perhaps it eludes you entirely. Your list of goals remains long, and other people are out there doing great things every day.

You have a sense that if you could just somehow be more disciplined, put in more effort, create better habits and have fewer weak moments, you would feel more whole.

The sound of your inner critic is clearly defined, the most consistent voice in your head. Sometimes the self-criticism spirals out of control and your thoughts whir like metal grinding against metal. Anxiety is a familiar foe.

You resolve to do better and build a plan; exercise 5 times a week, meditate every day, read more, set higher goals. Work harder. Somehow, you will find the right combination of achievement to finally feel good about yourself and your place in the world.

You might find yourself attracted to friendships and romances that are unrequited because subconsciously you agree with their perspective of you. You might find that when people do express admiration for you, you are subconsciously disgusted or feel pity for their mistake.

Putting the horse before the cart

When you hear about the idea of self-love and self-acceptance, it might be confusing, like something you just can't understand. How can you love yourself when you have so many goals yet to achieve? When you are so clearly imperfect?

Or maybe you consider it with a vague sense of embarrassment, as if self-love were a vanity, a smug self-satisfaction.

It might be difficult to see all the prerequisites you've put in the way of loving and accepting yourself. The script you're living by is that you are not enough right now and that to be deserving of love, you need to be better, to be more.

You probably had a parent who was busy, who, without malice or ill-intent, wasn't able to give you the attention you needed when you were younger. For children, attention is nothing less vital than survival. This might have programmed an idea deep into your subconscious that survival will be attained by recognition, that recognition will be earned via achievement.

And so here you are, setting goals, achieving, looking to impress, desperate to survive.

The real battle, though, is not to build such an intimidating list of achievements that you will be noticed, and then accepted, and then loved. True achievement will emerge from learning how to accept yourself as you are, with all of your faults.

You are the imperfect but loveable creature that you are, just like everyone else. You do not need to be perfect before you are deserving of love.

It may take some time, but you can learn how to be supportive, tender, and compassionate with yourself. If you do this, you will feel whole, you will feel enough, regardless of how many to-do's you did or didn't get through this week. You will have your own back and be your own source of support and confidence.

Steps you can start taking today

The idea and the practice are simple; be kind to yourself like you would be kind to a friend. Even if things didn't go well, you tried hard, you meant well. Forgive yourself. Be proud of your effort. Tell yourself that it's going to be OK. See the best in yourself. Be your own friend.

Something magical starts to happen as you begin to accept your imperfect self in this way - you make room, in your own heart, for other people to accept you as well, and are no longer disgusted by it when they do. This is what true connection feels like, and it is no fleeting, elusive contentment.

Of course, many things that are simple to understand can be difficult to manifest. Modern life leaves scant room for self-discovery, and a lifetime of self-judgement is unlikely to disappear overnight. However, awareness is always the first step, and sometimes merely seeing the problem clearly can help unlock so much new understanding.

Key to accepting yourself is knowing that at the heart of every human is a child just trying to survive. Once you acknowledge the child at the centre of your own heart, self-criticism and judgement begin to feel inappropriate, or simply silly and ineffective.

The next time you feel the heavy hooves of self-criticism starting to trample their way over your sense of calm, try to catch yourself, take a deep breath, and simply tell yourself it's OK. Try to think about how you might talk to a close friend who is down on themselves over some perceived failure or other, and then say the same things to yourself.

It can help to begin a journal practice where you sincerely praise yourself for all the effort you have made throughout the day. Gratitude journals are popular, but not many people practice self-gratitude. Think of all the ways you make effort to support yourself, and tell yourself thank you, that you appreciate all that attention.

My journey toward self-acceptance (ongoing) involved working with a therapist, a process I can’t recommend highly enough. While you begin building the psychological muscles that enable this process, a therapist acts as a support proxy, there to show you where you are being pointlessly cruel to yourself, and help you see all the ways you refuse to give yourself credit.

Once you start to feel like a supportive friend to yourself, you will be amazed at how much room this opens up for extending your love and support outward to the people in your life. The effect of all this love compounds; as you support and accept yourself, so you support and accept other people, so they support and accept you, and round it goes.

The Buddha said, "You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” Somewhere along the way, many of us have lost the wisdom in this simple notion, but once you begin to love and accept yourself, without qualification, so much else in life begins to fall naturally into place.