Searching for love outside yourself

[Artemisia]

So in order to love someone you have to love yourself first.....or so the saying goes. But what if all your life you have searched for love outside of yourself? How do you try to turn inwards and love yourself?

I have been in this journey for a year now, with some good results, but I would like to hear from others who may have gone through a similar process. What exactly changed for you and WHEN did you come to this realization?

 

[Bellosome]

I have been on the same situation not long ago so i know how you feel. What i did was i listed all the things that i hate about myself that i need to work on. (I.e: body, confidence, patience etc) and then i joined a writing app and poured all the negative feelings i have there. And then i get comments from strangers telling how much they could relate and how i write well etc. (Which i know contradicts the "not depending the love from others") but overtime the more i pull out all the emotions i kept bottled up inside me, all my frustrations it helped me start to appreciate myself. I also lashed it all out on painting and posted it online. It made me feel good about myself when strangers who don't know me well appreciate my work. Over time i didn't realize i felt lighter, i slept well. i look at the mirror with a girl who can smile now and i learned to love my flaws and accepted that everyone has one. Family noticed that i was confident and radiant. And most of all, i learned that i deserve to experience true happiness, to be appreciated and to experience real love. (Which is loving yourself) it's also important that you are doing this for yourself not because you want someone to love you. That's not how it works. I got tired of depending my happiness from others i woke up one day saying this has to stop. i hope i kind of helped somehow and everything works out well for you as it did on mine. just remain focused.

 

[Flavus Aquila]

The first prerequisite for healthy self love is accurate self knowledge. -We cannot love what we do not know about.-

There are elements of delusion, fiction, and inaccuracy in one's self knowledge; and we are rarely impartial judges of ourselves. From my reading of some saint's writings, accurate self knowledge, and subsequent actual self love takes years to approach, and slips away easily without constant effort.

 

[Lycid]

I have been on the same situation not long ago so i know how you feel. What i did was i listed all the things that i hate about myself that i need to work on. (I.e: body, confidence, patience etc) and then i joined a writing app and poured all the negative feelings i have there. And then i get comments from strangers telling how much they could relate and how i write well etc. (Which i know contradicts the "not depending the love from others") but overtime the more i pull out all the emotions i kept bottled up inside me, all my frustrations it helped me start to appreciate myself. I also lashed it all out on painting and posted it online. It made me feel good about myself when strangers who don't know me well appreciate my work. Over time i didn't realize i felt lighter, i slept well. i look at the mirror with a girl who can smile now and i learned to love my flaws and accepted that everyone has one. Family noticed that i was confident and radiant. And most of all, i learned that i deserve to experience true happiness, to be appreciated and to experience real love. (Which is loving yourself) it's also important that you are doing this for yourself not because you want someone to love you. That's not how it works. I got tired of depending my happiness from others i woke up one day saying this has to stop. i hope i kind of helped somehow and everything works out well for you as it did on mine. ������ just remain focused.

Thanks for sharing. Going through something similar.

I wouldn't say I have no love for myself. Some days I feel quite confident. But I can't ignore the fact that I only feel like that in isolation, if there is no one else involved. Whenever anyone else is involved (friend or otherwise) I can't help but go into this mode where I can't stand on my own two legs. Everything I do becomes in service of them or their opinion of me. This goes deep, including thinking thoughts like imagining me including them or showing them whatever activity I happen to be doing at the time. I place all my confidence chips in with whoever it is, and am always feeling insecure in comparison to them.

It's hard work changing a lifetime of thinking that revolved around putting all of your self worth in the eyes of others.