Learning self-love: How does it actually work?

Self-love… That must be for people without problems. For those who wake up rested in their feather-soft box spring beds in the morning and then cuddle with their perfect partner for another twenty minutes. Before they enjoy their freshly brewed coffee, say goodbye to their well-behaved children, and head off to work in high spirits. And of course, the promotion is already waiting for them there.

Self-love is made for such people. For the people for whom everything just goes smoothly. Who have accumulated so many good experiences with themselves that they can afford the luxury of confidence in their own life.

But what about the people who wake up in the morning with what feels like ten tons on their eyelids? For whom things aren’t going well with their partner, their job, or other projects in life? What about the people who are constantly getting a slap on the wrist? How is self-love supposed to work so easily when you belong to those for whom things are simply not always going smoothly?

Sure, we know: self-love is for everyone. Regardless of where you are in life right now, where you are supposedly supposed to be, or what good or bad experiences you have had. Self-love is simply a bit more difficult to cultivate when you are lugging around a sack full of bad experiences and the voice of your inner critic is getting the best of you again.

What is self-love anyway?

Let's start by saying what self-love is not :

Narcissism. Okay, that's still relatively obvious. A narcissist probably has a love deficit, otherwise they wouldn't have to constantly tell themselves how fantastic they are. They wouldn't have to constantly look for people, unique objects, and exclusive memberships that repeatedly confirm their lovability. However, there's one more thing that self-love shouldn't be confused with: selfesteem.

Similar to narcissists, people with inflated self-esteem tend to have blind spots and an image of themselves that has little to do with reality. Kristin Neff, professor of educational science at the University of Texas, explains that simply increasing self-esteem hardly changes people positively. In California, $250,000 was invested in a study in which children's self-esteem was systematically increased for one year. [1] [1] Book: Dr. Kristin Neff (2015): Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself Yet none of the hoped-for effects occurred. The children didn’t do better in school, nor did they commit fewer crimes. The artificial boosting of their self-esteem brought no change in behaviour. The researchers concluded from this that there isn’t necessarily a connection between behaviour and self-esteem. Good self-esteem is at most a side effect of healthy behaviour. 

What do we need for self-love?

Self-esteem is closely linked to the ego and always refers to the environment. Perhaps you can think of self-esteem a bit like a piece of gold. Although the piece of gold doesn’t change, the environment reassesses its current value again and again. Sometimes it’s worth more in the eyes of others. Sometimes less. Anyone who builds their self-love on these assessments is always dependent on what others say. If instead we distance ourselves from the opinions of other people and develop compassion for ourselves, we can focus better on ourselves.

In her book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself Professor Neff explains selfcompassion in essence:

Self-compassion is immune when something goes wrong in life, when we don’t receive confirmation from others, and our egos are threatened. Studies show that both people with high and low selfesteem are more likely to feel like a failure in the event of a negative occurrence. Whereas people with high selfcompassion recover more easily from their mishaps and are less hard on themselves. Anyone who can have compassion for themselves, and isn’t constantly worried about their worth, allows themselves to be weak, has less fear and depression, and feels more happiness and optimism. People with a lot of self-compassion are often even better partners because they can more easily accept the weaknesses of the other person and are less biased.

So if we want to cultivate self-love, we need a healthy dose of compassion toward ourselves. But how can we become more compassionate toward ourselves?

Not only puppy babies deserve your compassion

Imagine you are going for a walk and suddenly you hear a heartbreaking whimper. You follow the sound and find a small, frightened puppy behind a trash can. All alone, dirty, and covered in blood. One of its tiny paws is broken. The puppy looks at you with its big eyes. This innocent creature, which had to spend the first weeks of its life alone, cold, and full of fear. How would you take care of it?

Probably you would take it in your arms. Carefully wash the dirt off it. Clean its wounds. Make it feel that everything will be fine and that it now has someone who cares for it. You would give it rest and time until it slowly regains its strength. And you would forgive it if it sometimes gets scared, resists, and scratches you.

That is compassion. 

Often it’s easier to have compassion for others than for ourselves. How often are we far too hard on ourselves without realising it? But why is it so incredibly difficult for us to give ourselves exactly the love that we can so naturally give to a little puppy? It says, love your neighbour as yourself. Not: love and take care of a cute little dog more than yourself. You deserve just as much compassion as you are willing to give.

Friendly realism on the way to self-love

Make it your virtue to talk to yourself more and more like you would talk to someone you wish love and understanding with all your heart. And if you don’t know such a person, create them in your mind. Self-love requires less than many think. You should treat yourself kindly at the same time and have a realistic attitude.

Encourage yourself the way you would encourage a loved one if they had once again had a binge-eating episode at night and were now ashamed. Observe yourself with the same concern when you work yourself to exhaustion again and warn yourself against overwork exactly as you would do with a good friend. Ask yourself what you would say to them if they failed. How would you bring them back down to earth when they were flying high? That’s your friendly voice that you also need for yourself. You may notice that you already carry it within you. Now you just need to direct it toward yourself.

This takes practice. To start, you could ask yourself every evening: “What have I done well today in dealing with myself? What can I do even better tomorrow?” Do not take on too much at once. It’s enough if it’s a few minutes a day and you gradually increase the dose of friendly self-talk and friendly actions toward yourself. And surprise yourself once in a while. Treat yourself to something, especially when you think you don’t deserve it.

None of us is perfect, and none of us has the perfect life in which we’re constantly promoted. But we don’t need perfection to be good to ourselves. We need a practised way of dealing with ourselves. And then self-love isn’t reserved only for the people for whom everything goes smoothly.

Gratitude is also a form of self-love! Here we have exercises for you to learn gratitude.

Let's summarise once more

1. If we put ourselves above others – as narcissists often do, for example – then something is wrong with our self-love. But it’s also not self-love if we permanently sacrifice ourselves for others and neglect our boundaries. Love yourself like your neighbour. Love yourself no more – but also no less.
2. We should not equate self-love with high selfesteem.Selfesteem is far too often merely a result of the evaluations that others give us. It’s great if you have many people around you who repeatedly give you confirmation. But this beautiful feeling doesn’t arise from within yourself – and is therefore also not very stable. 
3. If we want to love ourselves, we must treat ourselves like someone we consider absolutely lovable. Our compassion should be just as pronounced toward ourselves in word and deed as it is for a suffering puppy.

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This post is by Lena Schulte, full-time comedian and online editor. Since her studies in cognitive science, she has been fascinated by human consciousness and likes to conduct secret perception experiments in the editorial office.

Sources:

[1] Book “Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself" by Dr. Kristin Neff (2015)