Hi Eve,

Maybe too late now, but I hope you are doing well. I have recently been going through something like this myself. Really confusing to be honest. People say follow a certain steps to love yourself, set goals etc. Really none of that shit seems to work.  It just feels like I am fighting an endless battle with myself trying to love myself. Interestingly, all the counselors and psychologists think that by fighting this battle with yourself, you will learn to love yourself eventually as a part of you will over power the other part. I think all of this is just encouraging neuroticism.

Recently, through my explorations, I have learnt a new way to resolve my internal conflicts. Basically goes like this, having an insight out of self-understanding and that very insight brings the dissolution of conflict (something similar to what has been communicated by J Krishnamurti and Buddha — Being a light to oneself). Now while reading your article, I kind of had some insights about my (and probably yours as well) situation. It seems to me that we often think we have a lot of time in our lives, and facing the fact that we are getting old and would die one day brings more stress and anxiety. But the truth is our time is passing by, and yet we are faced with this tremendous self-conflict and disorder. How do we understand this disorder so fully that we free ourselves from it immediately so that we aren’t wasting any more life energy living in conflict?

Let’s see, I think I lack self-love, because nobody really taught me how to love myself. My father was emotionally abusive. I don’t think he intended to be that way, but he had become one. In the culture where I come from, it is considered to be a favorable thing when a kid is scared of his father, as then, the kid stays in control and doesn’t just do whatever the hell he/she likes. I was beaten with belt/slippers, shouted on as well. And then, when I wanted to cry, because my mom was to weak to see me cry, she would cry in return and emotionally black-mail me to stop crying. And if my father saw me crying, well then I was legit fucked! He would shout at me even more until I stopped crying! You see, I became a master of suppression! There were reasons that I continued suppressing my wants and my needs you know:

I.) Probably because suppressing my feelings kept me safe from the wrath of this maniac I called my father and also kept that one weakling (my mother) happy. This way we could all pretend that nothing was wrong in our family and we are/were a happy family.

ii.) Suppressing my desire to hang out with friends seemed to help me study better. Studying better meant better reputation among classmates and teachers. Finally, the love that I wanted!! But then, studying more, becoming more and more perfect became my ambition, and in this ambition, I ironically, isolated myself more and more from people. Also, in this ambition for excellence (fueled by the need for love and respect from people),  I further suffocated myself until I achieved perfection. You see, I turned against myself lol!

Honestly, it is very complicated. But I hope that through this self understanding, I would eventually be free. I don’t know honestly. Really, I personally feel that self love should be something natural. A dog knows how to take care of itself. So does a kid (cries everytime it experiences inconvenience, not caring whatever the hell adults face lol!). Somehow in this demand of meeting externally set standards, we seemed to have become excellent at suffocating ourselves. Maybe all we have to do is understand ourselves, than to suffocate ourselves further with the pressure of loving ourselves to achieve some results. Because it seems like if we are striving to love ourselves, then we are fighting ourselves, and then inturn, maybe not loving ourselves.

Take care 🙂