Unconditionally loving yourself

[Sunrise]

Is this the answer? How do you do it when you really are awful? It must be a lot easier when you've got a lot of positive traits.

Is learning to unconditionally love yourself when you have so many negative character traits a good thing, or does it just mean you're in denial?

I think I've accepted that trying to fake being a warm, friendly, nice person doesn't work for me, it just comes across as forced and unnatural. I'm the sort of person people generally don't warm to and I tend to rub a lot of people up the wrong way. Is this something I should embrace? Should I turn it into a positive and think of myself as forthright rather than rude and belligerent?

I've found that the more confident I become, the worse I become in other ways. I find that I become less "normal". I used to worry a lot about my appearance, but the less I worry the less effort I make. I look very disheveled these days, but I'm less self-conscious than I was when I used to make a lot more effort.

I used to put a lot more effort into being "normal" when I was more anxious. It seems the less anxious I become the stranger I become. Maybe it's because I'm naturally a strange person and it requires a lot of effort to appear like a normal, functioning human being. Maybe accepting that I'm not a normal, functional human being is the answer and I should embrace the weird.

I'm not the cool, interesting, arty type of weird btw, I'm more "the neighbour from Friday Night Dinner" type. Generally not the sort of thing that you would embrace.

[biscuits]

How about looking at your negative self-talk and exploring how to have a healthier and more positive self-talk.

[Dougella]

You can accept that you have some negative personality traits, we all do. But that doesn't make you a bad person and you have to equally recognise your own positive traits.

It generally is easier to just be yourself, even if you're a bit different to the norm, than to struggle to appear "normal" all the time. And who gets to decide what's normal anyway.

[Consolida]

Rather than trying to unconditionally love yourself, Sunrise, maybe it's more doable for you (in fact anyone with low self esteem) to simply accept that, like ALL human beings, you have some negative traits. You also need to accept that you have positive traits too. We can see some of your positive traits shining out from your posts (articulate, witty, sensitive to others) so please don't say that you don't have any!

As Dougella says, there's nothing wrong with being different to the 'norm'. I mean, who wants to be a clone among a sea of clones? Personally, I've found that some of the most interesting and likeable people have been those who have been described as eccentric or quirky by others.

I'd happily embrace "the neighbour from Friday night Dinner" type if I was an embracing sort of person so maybe that makes me a little odd also, but you know, so what?

[Moksha]

Maybe unconditional self-love is too much to expect. I'd say unconditional self-acceptance is better. The best thing is to recognize both your strengths and weaknesses and to be at peace with that. People who love themselves, who think they're amazing, often suffer a great deal. They get frustrated that the world doesn't recognize their awesomeness, that they haven't been promoted, that they aren't rich, and, ultimately, that they're going to die. The happiest people have reasonable self-esteem but very little ego.

[gregarious_introvert]

^^ Loving yourself isn't about not being flawed or not accepting the futility of life though; we love others whose lives are just as futile, sometimes in spite of their flaws and sometimes because of them; if anything, it's about accepting those things and being at peace with them.

EDIT: plus what Moksha said, although I think there's some confusion there between self-love and egotism/narcissism.

[anxiouslondoner]

^^^^ you really do enjoy wallowing in your own sense of negativity, don't you?
That bird flying around "without a care in the world" is probably desperately searching for food, shelter or a mate. It has no choice.
Better to love yourself than to love hating yourself and by extension everyone else. You might as well.
What else is there to do?

[indignant misanthrope]

i've disliked myself pretty much my whole life. I don't know if this is + or - but the worst a person can hate me probably doesn't compare to how much I don't like myself. the concept of love is a pretty alien one to me really, it's either been coupled with abuse or neglect or mistreatment. it's pretty difficult to apply the notion of love to something (like yourself) when you have no experience of healthy version of it. it's also pretty difficult to accept love or good gestures from others as I feel like I don't deserve them.
please don't quote.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by DiamonD

You have to also remember that our surroundings have a huge impact on us. I don't like where i live and being cheek by jowl with PEOPLE soi am in a anxious, stressed out and aggressive mood a lot of the time. I know that if i lived out in the sticks with maybe one or two neighbous half a mile down the road that i would be a lot calmer, gentler, less stressed and easier to approach.

God yeah, so true. A lot of people are just rotten to the core, but the majority are OK. Most people would be quite nice if they weren't so stressed all the time. That's the problem with living in the UK - we're all on top of one another, squashed into housing estates in tiny houses with nightmare traffic all around us. People's nerves are shredded.

I don't mind being the weird bloke who has Christmas decorations up most of the year and stays in his own little bubble. There's plenty of us weirdos and "Quirky" types out there. I've always found those types of people the most interesting and likeable anyway.

To me, 'normal' usually means bland, dull and boring.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by gregarious_introvert

EDIT: plus what Moksha said, although I think there's some confusion there between self-love and egotism/narcissism.

Possibly. I'm not quite sure what people mean by self-love, and no doubt that IS different to narcissism. I do think, however, that the key to life is healthy self-esteem but no ego. Imagine the ego as like a volume dial on an old record player, with zero being Buddhist enlightenment, and 10 being raging narcissism. If you can dial your egotism down to a 2 or a 3, but remain fairly confident and OK with yourself, you'll be happy. The ego really does drive us insane - all that grasping, competing, fear, greed, etc. The opposite, where you're both egotistical and full of self-loathing, is a living hell.

Eckhart Tolle is great on all this.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by DiamonD

@Moksha: Wise words, my dear. I agree with you on ALL of that

Well, I'd much rather read your funny, charming posts DD than the tweets of the average so-called 'normal' person. By the way, you'll be pleased to hear that they're selling mince pies and christmas wrapping paper in my local Sainsbury's

[Appear]

I struggle with the idea of 'self-love' and the Instagram logic that tends to accompany it.

You don't need self-love to feel good about yourself. It might be one (and I'd argue misguided) way to, but I think there are others.

As others have suggested, maybe instead of trying to love yourself, just try to focus less on these sorts of negative self-evaluations. They're not helpful and they're not reliable, so you shouldn't give them the time of day. When you find yourself thinking them just acknowledge that it's just the product of habitual patterns of thought and focus on something else.

Alongside that do things that are meaningful to you, or that give you a sense of accomplishment or reward. That, in combination with not giving time to your negative self-evaluations, is a more reliable way to feeling better about yourself.

I used to dislike myself a lot too - and I sometimes still do. But most of the time I don't really have an opinion and am happier for it. There are more interesting things to think about than my relative worth, so that's what I try to give my focus.

What Moksha says gets at. Even if you don't try to pursue Buddhist enlightenment formally (more than understandable), you can still borrow some of its principles.

[Appear]

Also, I find it helpful to remind myself that lots of people far more despicable than me (e.g Trump, Boris, Ricky Gervais, the people that make all those Marvel films) feel good about themselves, so I'm not going to get in the way of me having a bit of that too.

[Sunrise]

I'm not sure I've ever found trying to look for positive things about myself that helpful, as I always struggle to find any and it makes me feel worse. I think that's why some sort of unconditional self-acceptance would be the answer, because I wouldn't need to analyse any of it or find reasons why I should love myself. I don't want to get bogged down in looking at my strengths and weaknesses because I don't find that helpful at all.

Unconditional self acceptance/self love means I would be comfortable with myself just because I am. My approach has always been that I need to be a certain sort of person or do things a certain way if I want to be happy, but I don't think that's helpful for me. I become too self-conscious about what I'm doing and how I come across to others.

[gregarious_introvert]

^ A large part of your low self-esteem is likely to be because you are trying to conform to being a certain way, which isn't natural for you; it's an exhausting mental strain, constantly trying to be something you're not - and happiness will never be found there, because you're not doing what makes you happy.

I know I sound like a cracked record, but instead of changing to fit with others, we need to be ourselves and find those who fit with us - "find your tribe" as the soundbite goes. Maybe self-acceptance / self-love (or however you might wish to term it) is the necessary basis to give us the confidence to do that?

[Finlay]

Please don't take anything I say below as advice, because I'm stuck in the same cycle of self criticism as a lot of people on here, but I think a year ago I briefly, accidentally experienced some of that self-love that I've often pooh-poohed as vague self-help speak before then.

I think I've posted about it before, but long story short I was looking through some old internet bookmarks from years ago, that I'd saved on an old laptop. It was all my interests and fears from that period of my life, some of which I'd forgotten about. For whatever reason, I kind of mentally zoomed out, and looked at myself from this period as like a different person....and it made me feel really sorry for myself. I don't mean sorry for myself like the standard day-to-day "boo hoo, why is life hard" kind of thing; I mean like feeling sorry as if I was another person entirely. It was as if the self critical filter of "I deserve this, I'm a POS" disappeared, and I just felt nothing but care for this rather sad, lonely person who's life I was looking into.

The best way I could describe it was the feeling you'd maybe get when going through the belongings of someone who's recently died. I don't know about anyone else, but when I hear of someone's hopes and dreams, from the big stuff right down to their little interests (in fact, I think the little interests hit the more sharply: the half finished scarf; the scribbled out plans for a new border in the garden; the pile of Slimming World record books from years gone by) it actually makes me feel for them waaaaay more. Like it gives you a glimpse into that person's inner self. Well, that's what I was feeling, but about myself, albeit myself from maybe 6-8 years previous. I say it was brief, because within a few days I was back to the usual self-critical, reprimanding inner monologue that beats me up most days of the week. But for that short period then yeah, I think I got that whole self-love thing. It was like I wanted to give myself a big hug and assure me I was okay and I was loved (I feel naff even writing this out, but hey ho)

Who knows, maybe I was just experiencing a brief moment of depersonalisation and was skirting round having a full mental break So I dunno, maybe that's the thing to: view yourself in third person.

Maybe

I dunno.

Please don't sue me if it goes wrong.

[Finlay]

Oops double post. Here's a little man in a box instead to fill the space ---->

[Bored]

What do you do that makes you rude and belligerent? Do other people tell you this? Or is it only something you tell yourself?

Shalom

[Sunrise]

Because I'm not the sort of affable, easy-going sort who people warm to. I can't seem to make conversation with anyone without resorting to cynical sarcasm. I'm probably quite arrogant in some ways, or I at least come across as such. I'm a strange mix really. I don't think people can work me out a lot of the time. I think people tend to warm towards those who they can easily read; they prefer an open book and don't like being challenged. I don't think I'm a bad person as such but I'm definitely a difficult person.

I'm the sort of person that's hard to love, and I'd find it hard to love anyone with my sort of personality. I'm not one of these sickly sweet shy types, I'm cold and cynical and I'm not sure how much of that is sa and how much is just my personality in general.

[Sunrise]

My whole problem is I seem to combine the worst introverted traits with the worst extroverted traits. I actually think I probably like myself a lot more than other people like me, and a lot of people are quite vocal about their dislike of me. I think being socially awkward but still very arrogant is the most unattractive trait imaginable. It is basically a combination of the worst aspect of introversion and the worst aspect of extroversion. I don't have confident charm or endearing shyness, I'm cold, cynical, aloof and generally unpleasant.

The weird thing if I had good social skills I would probably be a lot more successful and happier, but I would be an even worse kind of person. I'd be the sort of person people hate but still admire. Although maybe that would be preferable to being the laughing stock people see me as in reality.

[Bored]

You could try to change your behaviour , as you seem to know what the problem areas that you need to change are , it's up to you , try to change or don't bother and just feel the same as you do now, good luck

[Sunrise]

I've been trying to change for years, it's certainly not a case of me not being bothered. Although I don't need to justify myself as I know how hard I try. I'm sorry that not all of us can be inspirational success stories.

[Bored]

Sorry , that was rude and belligerent of me, I will try to not be in the future, please accept my apology, take care

[SpectralOwls]

I think we're often the harshest critics of ourselves, and it's so hard to get past that.

Obviously, not everyone will be able to cope as I do. We all have unique minds and bodies, and one thing that might work for another person might not work for you, but personally for me, self acceptance is what has helped me out the most in life.

In my early 20s I was in a state of depression because I felt like a "freak." I had no friends IRL, didn't know how to talk to people, felt like an outcast and didn't know how to fit in as society tells you to do. All my life as a teen my parents constantly kept questioning WHY I was an introverted social outcast, and kept trying to push me to be social when I didn't want to be.

But the moment I started saying to myself, "Hey, you know what? It's wrong that society deems shy people as being unworthy of anything. This is me, and society can deal with it or shove it. I AM WHO I AM." Introverts are misunderstood. People with Social Anxiety are misunderstood. People with Autism are misunderstood. But we are existing and that is honestly good enough. Don't force yourself to be this way or that. Be yourself and do what makes you happy in life.

People are all unique in personalities. I kind of look at cats and compare them to humans, and then it reminds me of my Aunt who passed away some time ago. Some cats are really super affectionate, some are skittish and always hide, some are just downright mean. My Aunt had a shy cat and an angry cat, and she LOVED them to bits even still. There's always going to be someone who appreciates you for being you. Maybe you don't even realize it!