Therapy Helped Me Understand Self-love

A therapist once asked me if it was my responsibility to make other’s love me?  I said with confidence, “yes, of course”.  She told me something I have never forgotten, “no, it’s not responsibility to make other’s love you, it is your responsibility, your job to love yourself”.  I remember being completely stunned.  It was so true!  It made me feel guilty about the cruel way that I treated myself.  Weeks went by, and I started to forget this phrase.  The secret is to constantly remind yourself.  At first, it mentally will make sense, but your emotions might not always follow.  After you “deprogram” your brain and reprogram that it is your responsibility to love yourself, not to make other’s love you, it will start to be one of your beliefs.

As a child, abuse taught me that I was unlovable, so why love myself?  Anxiety and depression crept in and told me that I could not love myself and I would have to work harder to make people like me.  All this programmed my brain that it was my job to make people like me, and it didn't matter what I thought about myself.  Through therapy, I am trying to reprogram my beliefs to treat myself with the utmost care and to reduce the constant need to please people. Therapy is helping me learn to love myself.

The mantra might seem uncaring and selfish to some people.  Yes, if some people had this mantra, it might not be a good thing.  They might interpret it as saying that they have the right to be cruel to others, and that “loving yourself” means always getting what you want.  For those people who are like me, sensitive and anxious, it does not mean any of those things.  It gives you the permission not to people please and to be compassionate and kind to yourself.

Your responsibility is to love yourself.