Self-love, Self-forgiveness, self-acceptance.

Hi all,

First off, I think you know it's not like me to dwell on "touchy-feely" topics like this, but this has been preying on my mind a lot in the last few weeks.

I've often heard it said that you can't love someone else unless you first love yourself; interestingly, people who repeat that mantra don't themselves seem to love others enough to provide examples. , so I hope we can try to correct that.

The way I see it, self-love is a hard thing to define, or to even exemplify, especially for me as I'm not given to introspection; but I think I can say what it is NOT; self-love is not the taking of hard drugs, the tolerance/endurance of extreme and repeated stress in working or social environments. Nor is it egotism, though there's nothing wrong per se with ego.

I think that what stops us from loving ourselves is the inability to forgive and accept ourselves. I'll try to give an example, lest this all appear too much like a damn sociology essay; for a long time I was fat, overweight, ate too much. So, I thought, "I'll do something about this". And I did; I took up weights, cleaned up my diet, and it happened...got down to that nice 34" trousers. But I remember thinking "How disgusting do you look? Of course no girl is going to look past the flab, why should they? You're weak, you look disgraceful and you need to ACT!"

I think in hindsight, what I should have thought was, "Ok - you got yourself into this mess, but you're human; there's a reason for your state, and now we're getting out of it". See the difference? Positive vs Negative. I should have loved myself TOO much to allow myself to stay like that, not hated my body too much to allow it to stay like that. I should have accepted my flaws, forgiven myself, and THEN acted.

In my case, I recognised the flaws, acted...but there was no acceptance, just determination to move on. No forgiveness, just a subconscious desire to forget what looked back at me in the mirror. But the phrase is, 'Forgive AND forget", not "Forgive OR forget". It's one, PLUS the other. I think that's a character flaw; it makes me a less well-rounded person (no pun intended) not to self-forgive. The more I look back, the more I think it has to do with self-love, or lack thereof. I've heard some people say, "I love myself too much to ever..."

Anyway, over to you good people...what have you forgiven yourselves for? What can't you forgive yourselves for? Either way, how, why, or why not?

 

I´ve already seen your topic yesterday..but it´s a very difficult topic. Especially for me to explain in English..


Your headline Self-love, Self-forgiveness, self-acceptance is something you normally learn in your childhood. Your parents, family give you that feeling on your way into your life. If they missed it, I assume it´s difficult to get it back,when you are older.

But what you can learn later is to forgive yourself and others. Nobody is perfect, we are all in a process of experiences..

The weight of yourself is many times a sign of self-acceptance..I, myself always had problems to have a healthy weight. My normal BMI was around 16, sometimes 13. Since I am over 40 it seems that I found my balance in my life and my weight.I can hold MBI 18, what is healthy.

Personally I do not regret anything, really. It was my stony way I had to go to be the person I am today.

 

:smt038

 

Okay Jaybee, this can't be answered in 10 words or less, so just remember you asked

I've heard the same, but have personally found that to be a completely false notion. I've known many people utterly lacking any type of self-esteem or sense of self-worth who were capable of astounding love for others.

For me personally, I associate the term self-love with more narcissistic or prideful qualities, and therefore would say that I do not love myself. However I do accept myself for who I am, and I am content with the person I’ve become. So self-acceptance I understand, and I do feel it is important to reach that point in your life, however I do not equate that with self-love.

I am prone to introspection and so realize that my ability to be content with myself regardless of my circumstances at any given time is due to my upbringing, as Christine suggests. I was primarily raised by my maternal grandfather and I credit the fact that I became a productive member of society solely to his influence. He instilled in me the belief that there is nothing I cannot do if I put my mind to it. He further reinforced the concept that no one person is better than another, that we all have our flaws, and they are what make us unique so he believed you should acknowledge and accept them. He also made it very clear to me that you treat yourself and everyone else with respect until they give you a reason not to. Based largely upon this I developed a very strong sense of self as a child, and I learned that my happiness in life was entirely dependent upon my outlook and the only person who could truly impact that, either positively or negatively, was me.

Self-acceptance has no relation to the ability to forgive and/or forget for me. Forgetting anything is largely impossible for me to do. I can push it to the background and force it not to be a part of my conscious train of thought for indefinite periods of time, however it is always subject to recall if something in the present triggers that memory. As for forgiveness, there is nothing in my life I have ever felt the need to forgive myself for. I think that is likely due to the fact that I don’t do guilt…ever. IMO guilt is second only to hatred as the most useless human emotion. What is the point really? If something bothers you enough to cause guilt, change it. If you can’t change it, accept that you’re screwed on the deal and move on. Staying stuck there, holding yourself accountable for something you have no hope of ever changing is a complete waste of your time and energy. So without guilt, there is nothing to forgive. That’s not to say I haven’t made what I would characterize as mistakes in my life, I have, too many to count. I just don’t let them rule me. I learn what I can from them, and if the only thing I learn is how not to repeat them then the mistake had purpose.

Like Christine, I regret nothing I’ve done in my life. I am the sum total of all my experiences, good and bad. I wouldn’t be who I am today were it not for the path I chose, there may have been multiple detours along the way, but that’s where I learned the most and ultimately I am pleased with where I ended up.