Dear Brian:

My answer: as is, you love yourself a little bit and you love that woman a little bit. The more you love yourself, the more you can love another. It is a matter of degree, a spot on the continuum of love. Problem is that if you are a parent, a “little bit” of love will not be good enough for your child, so I will strongly suggest to any person who does not love themselves to postpone parenthood until you do. For a child, there is no “little bit”- it is all-or-nothing. The “little bit” can be enough to survive but not to thrive.

I think you love yourself a little bit when you are drawn to a person who, like you, suffered or is suffering significantly. It is your loving yourself, caring for your own pain, having empathy to yourself, that makes it possible for you to have empathy for another. You have empathy to your woman friend because you have empathy for yourself. You don’t feel that empathy for yourself (at all or hardly?)but it is there.

One possible way for you to increase your self empathy is at any one time when you are in the company of another and you are aware of that warm, empathetic feeling for the other person, think: what is it that he/ she is reminding me about myself (Brian)- what about me and my life am I reminded of right now?

If you could then shift for a moment the empathy to the other from being directed at the other- to you, directing it to yourself.

anita