And You Love Yourself Too…

This afternoon I was sitting with Little Man and asked him, “do you know who I love?” When he turned to look at me, waiting for my answer, I told him, “I love you, and I love daddy, and I love Thomas and Percy (our two new guinea pigs)”. And do you know what his reply was?

And you love yourself too!

This isn’t the first time he’s said this to me, but every time he does I am blown away by how deep and profound his response is. And yet, to him, it isn’t deep or profound at all, it just is. And therein lies the beauty of it – if we can love another, we must surely love ourselves.

And it makes me wonder – at what point in my life did I stop seeing things with this kind of clarity and start leaving myself off that all important list of those I love? If asked about self-love, I’d say that of course I think it’s important that we love ourselves as well as others. But thinking it is important is not the same as actually loving myself with the same level of intention and intensity as I love and value others.

Which is why Little Man’s response is so powerful to me, because it challenges me to really consider not only whether I truly love myself (and what that may mean) but also how that love manifests and why I have (until now) valued it far below the love that I have for him and others. I want to live a life with that same kind of simplicity that says, “you love yourself too, don’t forget that!”

But then, of course, my rational mind comes into play and I start over-analysing it all.  I begin to ask questions like “what does loving yourself actually mean?” and “what does that even look like?” I don’t know about you, but whenever I think about self-love I often come across a wall where the bricks are engraved with words such as “fear”, “ego”, “pride”, and “selfish”. I am so worried that by loving myself fully I will become unbalanced and “full of myself”, and that scares the hell out of me.

And I wonder why that is, why do I fear love so much when I know how powerful it can be? Of course, therein lies the crux – love is so powerful. I know that by loving myself everything will change, but instead of focusing on all the positive results this could bring I see only the negative possibilities. Why is that? When did I stop trusting love and start fearing it?

I’d like to be able to blame it on all the bad things that have happened in my life, all the difficulties with my health, struggles with finances, challenges in the workplace etc, but the reality is that I can’t blame any of these things. The circumstances of my life have naturally had an impact on me, but the lack of self-love goes much deeper. No matter what has happened in my life, I have continued to have a great love for so many people, that side of love (the giving side) has never been compromised. But the receiving side, that’s where I struggle. And that goes right back as far as I can remember…

This lack of self-love has manifested in so many ways – low self-esteem, lack of confidence, inability to say no, acting like a martyr, I could go on and on! In fact , over the past couple of days I have begun to realise that the only reason my dreams of making a living doing the thing I love most has never quite come true is because I do not value myself and my skills enough to expect payment for them. I feel hugely uncomfortable at the idea of charging for my services, even though I know that I do it so well. And so, the reality of this is that year after year my dream remains just that, a dream that other people get to do but I don’t, not because they are any better at it than I am but rather because I do not value myself enough to get out there and do it.

And even though I know this, I find it so hard to change. But change I will. I want to love myself, I want to follow the advice and inspiration of so many who have said time and time again that the key to living a happy and successful life lies in loving yourself enough to feel you deserve a happy and successful life. And I want be like Little Man, with the knowledge that self-love is the most natural thing in the world. And that starts today…

Tell me – do you love yourself too?

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