Dear rosie:

“doing whatever I want to do” is often not self love/ love at all because what we want to do often enough is not loving. For example: I want to eat the whole cake but it will make me sick and feel bad. So it is not loving to myself (or to anyone who cares about me, seeing me distressed). Or, I may want to yell at someone because I am angry at him/ her, and it will feel good, but it is not loving to myself because I will feel guilty later on (nor is it loving to the person being yelled at).

So figuring out if what we want to do is loving to ourselves first and then choose to do it if it is loving (ex., eating one slice of cake, asserting oneself with another person respectfully, without raising my voice), is self loving.

In addition, many of us have a part of us that hates us, a part of us that follows us with negative commentary such as: “you shouldn’t think this! You shouldn’t feel that! You are a bad person! You don’t deserve anything good… etc.”- that is a self-hating part. That part needs to be dealt with, when one aims at loving oneself.

anita