Called to Fullness of Life: Authentic Self-Love

I could still picture the shock on the face of a friend when I told her straightforward: "You know what, you do not really love yourself and you are expecting us all to do that for you. The truth is much as we should want to, we will never succeed to make you feel loved until you allow us to and that means, loving yourself first." After that initial shock, her face lit up and she almost screamed: "Gosh, now I get it!"

But how many of us really believe that the greatest love is learning to love ourselves? For the longest time, we have been taught or made to believe that it is basically wrong or selfish to focus on the self or place our personal concern before those of others. This distortion in our belief system has led many of us to unconsciously sabotage our personal growth and happiness.

The main difference between selfishness and true love of the self lies in the fact that selfishness is in itself the very absence of authentic self-love. Selfishness makes us demand that others give us what we do not or cannot give ourselves, namely, acceptance, approval, appreciation, affirmation and affection. True love of the self, on the other hand is the capacity to give these five most basic human needs to ourselves, to esteem ourselves to acknowledge our personal worth and dignity and to be in a caring, affirming relationship with significant others around us.

Most of us will readily admit that we cannot give what we do not have. So it goes without saying that we cannot expect a healthy, loving and fulfilling relationship with others if we have not yet attained, albeit in a small way, a healthy, loving and fulfilling relationship with our own self.