Self Love: The Importance of Learning to Love Yourself

Individual CounselingPersonal DevelopmentSpiritual DevelopmentWomen's Issues

How many times have you heard people talking about the importance of learning to love yourself? Has it
become like hearing background chatter? Maybe you no longer hear the words, or maybe you do not let the
words really sink in.
For some, it is like hearing your mom say, “eat your vegetables” when you were a child. It is in one ear and out
the other. But the reality is that learning to love yourself is so important.
When I work with people struggling to learn to love and take care of themselves, I like to use this analogy:
When you are on a plane before take off, the flight attendant talks about securing your own oxygen mask first
before helping anybody else. The reason they say this is because if you are not getting oxygen yourself, then
you are not going to be conscious to be able to secure anybody else’s mask.
This also applies when learning to love yourself. If you are not able to give yourself the love that you so truly
deserve and need, how are you going to give it to another?
Many people were not loved like they should have been during childhood and into adulthood. If this was the
case for you, how would you know how to love yourself? Most of the time, learning to love yourself is not easy
and cannot always be self-taught if you were never given the love you needed during formative years.
Sometimes allowing others to love you until you learn what it is like to love yourself works. Allowing God to
love you and opening your heart to that love is going to be very important as well.
Brene Brown is one of my favorite authors, and she talks a lot about vulnerability and essentially loving
ourselves. Loving ourselves is more than just a feeling you have about yourself — it is so much more.
Brene Brown talks about setting boundaries as a way of showing love to ourselves. She states, “Daring to set
boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”?
Having strong boundaries is one way to show ourself love. I have worked with countless people who struggle
with “people pleasing” and setting boundaries, and in all honesty I have struggled with that myself.
Showing up for ourselves in terms of what feels right and what feels wrong is a way of loving ourselves. I can
think of countless times I have allowed things and people in my life that were not good for me. This was not
showing self love. Having the boundaries and showing up for myself and what I believe to be right for myself
and not allowing anything less is one way I practice self love today.
Learning to Love Yourself
Learning to love ALL of yourself is difficult. This means body, mind, soul. Yes, all of yourself. For many people,
learning to love your body is a challenge. We live in a time where having the perfect body and “look” is
idealized. Billions of dollars are spent advertising what we “should” look like. If you do not fit into that mold of
how you “should” or “should not” look, this is where we, as a society, get into trouble.
I see the things on TV telling me that I should not have wrinkles, I need a youthful face, a certain body type,
not to have fat, that I need makeup to look a certain way, and the list goes on. Have you found yourself having
negative self talk regarding what you look like? I think most of us can answer “yes” to that question. I know I
can find myself comparing my body and how I look to this idea of what I “need” to look like.
Learning to shut the chatter off from the outside world and love yourself for who you are today is what’s
important. The fact is that there is no perfect. Everybody has been created differently, and most importantly, in
God’s image.
Start a new recording in your head that you are beautiful and perfect no matter what you look like and what
kind of body you have. This will not be easy, but starting a positive dialogue with yourself is going to be a first
step. Get rid of that self judgment.
Quotes to Inspire You
For me, quotes can really inspire me to make some changes in my life. Have you ever heard a quote and your
heart just says, “YES!”? I keep a folder on my phone of inspirational quotes for myself and to send to friends
when they are struggling or might just need a reminder that they are loved AND to love themselves, too.
Here are some quotes I have picked up along my own journey:
“Love yourself so much that when somebody treats you wrong, you recognize it.” ~ Rena Rose
“It’s not your job to like me. It’s mine.” ~ Unknown
“Loving myself will work miracles in my life.” ~ Unknown
“Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it.
You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.” ~ Anna Taylor
“Stop hating yourself for everything you aren’t, and start loving yourself for everything you already are.”
~ Unknown
“As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health — food, people, things,
situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy
egoism. Today I know it is, “LOVE OF ONESELF.” ~ Charlie Chaplin
“I have decided to stop saying yes to people and situations that don’t support my well-being. Instead, I will say
yes to my happiness, and yes to my growth, and yes to all the people and things that inspire me to be
authentic and whole, while at the same time accepting me just the way I am. My yes, from here on out, is my
pledge to live honestly, my commitment to love myself fiercely, and my cry to create my best life possible.
Yes.” ~ Scott Stabile
I have to say one of my favorite songs right now is “You Say” by Lauren Daigle. I had the opportunity to see
her perform it live, and it was so powerful. The song speaks about how despite our feelings about ourself and
how we can get down on ourselves, God thinks we are perfect.
After all, what God says about us is what truly matters. We are children of God and like I said, He created us
perfectly, in His eyes. If you have a moment, I encourage you to look up the lyrics and listen to the song, “You
Say,” by Lauren Daigle.
God Wants You to Love Yourself, Too
Having a successful faith life is going to start with you learning to love yourself. This does not mean we are
worshiping ourselves or being narcissistic.
God does not want us to go through our lives filled with hate, disappointment, or insecurities about ourselves.
God has created us perfectly in His image. In this day and age, it is difficult not to compare ourselves to others
or the idea of what we should look like. God designed you and made you perfectly the way you are, and He
loves you just that way.
Here are some Bible verses telling us of God’s love: 
“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.” ~ Song of Solomon 4:7
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not
hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.” ~ Psalm 139:
13-15
“For no one has ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, as the Messiah does the
church.” ~ Ephesians 5:29
“To acquire wisdom is to love oneself; people who cherish understanding will prosper.” ~ Proverbs 19:8
Something to Try at Home
This may seem like a silly exercise, but it is more challenging than you think. Take a moment, when you are
alone, to look in the mirror. Take a really good look and do not look away for thirty seconds. Say out loud,
“Your name, I love you” several times.
Now ask yourself, was that uncomfortable? What feelings came up for you? Were you able to look into the
mirror the entire time, or did your eyes glance another direction? I know, for some, it is much easier for them
to tell other people that they love them, but to tell that to themselves seems foreign.
Try to tell yourself every day that you love yourself, and if you can, do so while looking in the mirror. You
matter too and your life is just as important and precious as others. Give yourself the love that you freely give
to others.
In Conclusion
Learning to love yourself is not an easy task to take on, but it is a vital one. It is something you will have to
practice your whole life but it will get easier the more and more you work towards loving yourself.
Sometimes we need help getting to a point of self love, and maybe the reasons are deep rooted in the past and
need to be worked through. Reaching out to a counselor might be a good idea. We did not learn these thoughts
and patterns overnight.
Working through the issues that have caused you to not love yourself will not be easy work, but it will be worth
it. Imagine living a life with the scope of what God wants for you and not the shades of self hatred. Learning to
love yourself matters because you matter.
Self-Love for Catholics: What is the Catholic teaching on loving yourself?

Self-Love. Does it kind of make your skin crawl just to say the word?
Depending on who you ask, the idea of self-love can get some very different reactions.
Even the Bible seems a little confused. On the one hand, Jesus commands us to love our neighbours as
ourselves. (Matt 22:39) On the other hand, St Paul condemns those who are “lovers of self” (2 Tim 3:1-2).
I won’t like to bag out the bible but mixed messages much?
In this post, I want to dig a little deeper into what authentically Catholic self-love looks like. First, we’ll cover
whether self-love is even a good thing. (Spoilers, it totally is and St Thomas Aquinas agrees.) Second, we’ll
look at why Christians have been nervous about the term, “self-love”. Finally, we’ll see how the commands of
Jesus actually enable us to love ourselves well in the light of God’s love for us.
As Catholics, Should We Even Love Ourselves?
Jesus said it. But Catholics through the generations have wondered: did He really mean it?
St Thomas Aquinas gives a resounding YES. He addresses the question head-on in the Summa Theologica.
Drawing on both the Bible and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Thomas says we should love ourselves for two
reasons:
Firstly, we should love ourselves because it enables us to love others. If we want to be friends with someone,
we have to treat them as we want to be treated. Which means, at the very least, we have to befriend
ourselves.
He actually describes loving yourself as the root or origin of loving others:
The love with which a man loves himself is the form and root of friendship. For if we have friendship with others
it is because we do unto them as we do unto ourselves, hence we read in Ethic. ix, 4,8, that “the origin of
friendly relations with others lies in our relations to ourselves.”
ST, II-II, q. 25, a. 4
This is the logic underlying Christ’s command. Love others as you love yourself. And the reason you can love
others is because you love yourself.
Secondly, we should love ourselves because we love God. To love God means loving the things of God,
including His creation.
Well, you and I are creations of God and loved by God. Should we love everything in creation except ourselves?
That would be messed up.
Among these other things which [man] loves out of charity because they pertain to God, he loves also himself
out of charity.
ST, II-II, q. 25, a. 4
What’s the Catholic Hang-Up with Self-Love
But if Jesus commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves, why are we so weird about self-love?
Why does it sound like a dirty word in many Catholic circles?
It’s not just us either. The Christian tradition has steered well clear of anything like “self-love”.
There is no section on the Catechism on Self-Love. There is no treatise entitled ‘Loving Thyself’ by St Bernard
or ‘The Internal Positive Dialogues’ of St Catherine of Siena. There definitely aren’t any ancient meditations on
“How Awesome a Monk Am I Today!” or “Eighty Affirmations for the Doubting Deacon” from the patristic era.
And if I’m honest, this is super frustrating.
Maybe you’ve found the same?
Through my struggles with anxiety and depression, I’ve had to learn to love myself well. I’ve had practice self-
compassion and consciously work on my self-esteem. (Even writing that feels slightly embarrassing – like I’ve
confessed a self-indulgent secret.)
Because a lot of us Christians are do-gooders and people-pleasers. We’re conscientious and a tad scrupulous.
We’d do anything for anyone… but give ourselves a break for a change?
And then St Teresa of Avila comes along and is all, “be gentle to all and stern with yourself.” And I kind of want
to scream. Because Teresa, I love you, I really do but that’s not helping right now!
So what are we supposed to make of it all?

Authentic Catholic Self-Love

But you see, the more I’ve worked on loving myself, the more I’ve realised that actually, Jesus gives us all the
tools we need to love ourselves authentically.
In our world today, there’s a distorted picture of what self-love looks like. Loving yourself, according to today’s
pop psychology, is all about:
High self-regard
Positive feelings
Achieving lots
We assume that if you think highly of yourself, you’ll feel good about yourself and this will empower you to get
the kind of life you want (or the kind of like everyone else thinks you should want.)
But none of those things are actually love.
Love is seeing the good and willing the good in the other.
When I love someone, I see their innate dignity, their good qualities, unique gifts as well as their particular
temptations and mistakes. I want the best for them, to take care of them, to see them flourish and become all
they can be. And I accept them as they are, forgiving their faults but always hoping for their good.
When I love myself, it’s exactly the same.
I embrace my inherent dignity as a child of God.
I acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses, seeing my good qualities and unique gifts – as well as my
temptations and weaknesses.
I take care of myself, nourishing my mind and body. (And reading plenty of good books!)
I forgive myself and receive Christ’s forgiveness.
I pursue holiness with all my heart because I know that, in all the passing goods of this world, being with God
will make me happier than anything else ever could.
How to Practice Self-Love as a Catholic
The reason that self-love doesn’t figure much in our tradition is that Jesus doesn’t want to leave us in the dark.
Instead of just telling us, “love thyself” and letting us figure it out for ourselves, He tells us exactly what we
need to love ourselves.
Jesus sets a radically different path before us than the standard HuffPost advice to “think nice thoughts about
yourself.”
He teaches us the beatitudes and tells us to practice the virtues.
Humility. Gratitude. Prayerfulness. Generosity. Self-Sacrifice.
These are the virtues which actually enable us to love ourselves because they bring us to God, who teaches us
what real love looks like. They free us from the vice-grip of comparison. And they enable us to become fully
human.
When you sit down and pray, placing yourself in the presence of the Divine Lover, you are loving yourself.
When you practice humility and choose gratitude over comparison, you are loving yourself.
When you get up early to pray, read good books, tackle your eating habits, and get regular exercise, you are
loving yourself.
When you go to Confession even when you don’t want to, you are loving yourself.
And when you follow the command of Christ, “take up your cross and follow me”, you are loving yourself.
Because you know that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be
revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)
Conclusion: Love Yourself in the Love of God
The Catholic Faith is not against self-love. We simply don’t limit self-love to feeling good about yourself all the
time.
True self-love is about accepting and honouring yourself as a child of God.
And the best way to love yourself is to place yourself in the presence of Love and behold yourself through the
eyes of Love. It is cultivate the virtues which set you freedom from envy, despair, and the relentless game of
comparison.
When I love myself in truth, I see myself as God sees me.
Beautiful. Striving. Irreplaceable. Flawed. Beloved.
And that empowers me to love others because they’re not my competition. They’re my sisters and brothers.
Today, if I can encourage you to do one thing: love yourself.
Because God loves you like crazy.
Self-love – An essential human quality that is not narcissism, nor is it selfishness or indulgence.
As Nestell Bovee said:
“Both our first and last love is self-love.”
Self-love is empathetic and understanding of flaws, and appreciative of the good within each of us.
Self-love is not only important, but necessary for positive emotional health and various facets of success.
This article will guide readers in nurturing and boosting self-love by providing more than 40 useful activities,
worksheets, and resources. By taking advantage of this treasure trove of tools and information, individuals will
find themselves on a pathway toward a more fulfilled and joyful life.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free.
These detailed, science-based exercises will help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself
and will give you tools to help your clients, students, or employees show more compassion to themselves.
SELF-LOVE
The Inner Voice
Somewhere in our minds, removed from the day to day, there sits a judge. They watch what we do, study how
we perform, examine the effect we have on others, track our successes and failures – and then, eventually,
they pass a verdict. So consequential is this judgement, it colours our entire sense of ourselves. It determines
our levels of confidence and self-compassion, it lends us a sense of whether we are worthwhile beings or
conversely, should not really exist. The judge is in charge of what we call our self-esteem.
The verdict of the judge is more or less loving, more or less enthusiastic, but not according to any objective
rule-book or statute. Two individuals can end up with wildly different levels of self-esteem even though they
may have done much the same things. Certain judges simply seem more predisposed than others to lend us an
essentially buoyant, warm, appreciative and generous view of ourselves. Others encourage us to be hugely
critical, often disappointed and sometimes close to disgust.
The origins of the voice of the inner judge is simple to trace: it is an internalisation of the voice of people who
were once outside us. We absorb the tones of contempt and indifference or charity and warmth that we will
have heard across our formative years. Our heads are cavernous spaces and pretty much all of us have voices
echoing within them. Sometimes, a voice is positive and benign, encouraging us to run those final few yards:
‘you’re nearly there, keep going, keep going’. But more often, the inner voice is not very nice at all. It is
defeatist and punitive, panic-ridden and humiliating. It doesn’t represent anything like our best insights or most
mature capacities. We find ourselves saying: ‘You disgust me, things always go to shit with someone like you.’
An inner voice was always once an outer voice that we have – imperceptibly – made our own. We’ve absorbed
the tone of a kind and gentle caregiver, who liked to laugh indulgently at our foibles and had endearing names
for us. Or else the voice of a harassed or angry parent; the menacing threats of an elder sibling keen to put us
down; the words of a schoolyard bully or a teacher who seemed impossible to please.
We take in these voices because at certain key moments in the past they sounded so compelling and
irresistible. The authority figures repeated their messages over and over until they got lodged in our own way
of thinking – for better and for worse.
Exercise: An Audit of Our Inner Voice
We can catch the sound of what our inner voice is like when we prompt ourselves to finish certain sentences:
When I do something stupid, I usually tell myself…
When I succeed, I usually tell myself…
When I’m feeling lazy, my inner voice says…
When I think of what I want sexually, my inner voice says…
When I get angry with someone, my inner voice says…
Does the inner judge strike you as kindly or punitive?
Whose outer voice became your inner voice in the context of each question? (write down their names)
 
Why the Inner Voice Matters
Our level of self-love is very consequential across our lives. It can be tempting to suppose that being hard on
ourselves, though painful, is in the end quite useful. Self-flagellation can feel like a survival strategy that steers
us clear of the many dangers of indulgence and complacency. But there are equal, if not greater, dangers in an
ongoing lack of sympathy for our own plight. Despair, depression and suicide are not especially minor risks.
Afflicted by a lack self-love, romantic relationships become almost impossible, for one of the central
requirements of a capacity to accept the love of another turns out to be a confident degree of affection for
ourselves, built up over the years, largely in childhood. We need a legacy of feeling that we in some basic way
deserve love in order not to respond obtusely to affections granted to us by prospective adult partners. Without
a decent amount of self-love, the kindness of another will always strike us as misguided or fake, even as
strangely insulting, for it suggests that they haven’t even begun to understand us, so different are our relative
assessments of what we happen to deserve. We end up self-destructively – though unconsciously –
disappointing the intolerable, unfamiliar love that has been offered to us by someone who clearly has no clue
who we are.
We are highly alert to the dangers of people who have too high a regard for themselves. It is a serious put-
down to suggest that someone may be ‘in love with themselves’. Self-love seems connected up with narcissism,
vanity, selfishness and a blindness to the needs of others.
But for the most part, our real problems lie in a very different direction: with tendencies to be deeply and
unfairly hostile to ourselves, with a habit of taking exhaustive stock of our failings, of refusing to forgive
ourselves for idiocies and of being suspicious of anyone strange enough to think well of us. If we saw someone
else treating us the way most of us treat ourselves, we might think them despicably cruel.
For the most part, it just feels more normal and therefore oddly more comfortable to be disliked or ignored. We
seek out partners who will do us the favour of not thinking any better of us than we think of ourselves. The
contempt isn’t necessarily pleasant, but at least it feels familiar, and in some ways right. If we are not modestly
but genuinely convinced of our own lovability, receiving affection will just simply feel like being bestowed a
prize for an accomplishment that we haven’t ever earned. People unfortunate enough to fall in love with self-
hating types must brace themselves for the recriminations due to all false flatterers. We will know there must
be something wrong with anyone who has the bad taste to get enthusiastic about someone like us.
Without the sufficient ballast of self-love, we will go on to reject positive treatment across a range of areas:
offers of friendship, of professional promotions and of praise will all set alarm bells ringing. We will blunder in
interviews, sabotage our work opportunities and grow strange and rude around possible new friends – in
attempts to bring our outer reality back into line with our inner assessments.
Changing the Inner Voice
It may, at this point, be tempting to say that we shouldn’t judge ourselves at all. We should simply approve
and love. But we should determine that a good internal voice is rather like (and just as important as) a
genuinely decent judge; someone who needs to be there to separate good from bad but who can always be
merciful, fair, accurate in understanding what’s going on and interested in helping us deal with our problems.
It’s not that we should stop judging ourselves, rather that we should learn to be better judges of ourselves.
Part of improving how we judge ourselves involves learning – in a conscious, deliberate way – to speak to
ourselves in a new and different way – which means exposing ourselves to better voices. We need to hear
constructive, kindly voices often enough and around tricky enough issues that they come to feel like normal
and natural responses – so that, eventually, they become our own thoughts.
One approach is to identify a nice voice we knew in the past and give it more scope. Perhaps there was a kindly
grandmother or aunt who was quick to see our side of things and who would offer us deft words of
encouragement. If we knocked our orange juice all over the carpet, they’d remind us that accidents can happen
to everyone (last week they themselves spilt a cup of coffee over the sofa). Instead of promoting a punitive,
critical voice, they represent a calm, understanding way of addressing failings. We can try to focus on this kind
of supportive approach and summon it on a regular basis; rather than waiting for it to pop (as it rarely does)
into our heads we can deliberately nurture and train it. When things don’t go as we want, we can ask ourselves
what this person would say – and then actively rehearse to ourselves the words of consolation they would most
likely have offered (we’ll tend to know immediately).
Traditionally, religions have attempted to help us in the task of providing us with benevolent voices. They have
lent us reassuring, kindly often maternal figures whose voices they suggested we absorb into our own minds.
Buddhists, for example, were introduced to the goddess Guanyin, a reassuring deity a little like the Virgin Mary
who could hear us in our distress, meet us with tenderness and strengthen us to face the tasks of life.
Guanyin’s implicit thesis is that being loved and worldly success are two separate things. You deserve
compassion not because of the excellence of what you do, but because you exist. Achievement should not be
the currency of kindness. The root of extreme stress is usually not purely the fear that one might fail. Rather it
is the incendiary thought of what failure will mean: that we deserve to be ridiculed and abandoned. When the
threat of that emotional catastrophe is lifted, one is better placed to get on and cope with the practical tasks
before us.
The other major strategy for changing the voices in our heads is to try to become an imaginary friend to
ourselves. This sounds odd, initially, because we naturally imagine a friend as someone else – not as a part of
our own mind. But there is value in the concept because of the extent to which we know how to treat our own
friends with a sympathy and imagination we don’t apply to ourselves. If a friend is in trouble our first instinct is
rarely to tell them that they are fundamentally a shithead and a failure. If a friend complains that their partner
isn’t very warm to them, we don’t tell them they’re getting what they deserve. We try to reassure them that
they are essentially likeable and that it’s worth investigating what might be done. In friendship, we know
instinctively how to deploy strategies of wisdom and consolation that we stubbornly refuse to apply to
ourselves.
There are three key moves a good friend would typically make which can provide a model for what we should,
with a new commitment to self-love, be doing with ourselves in our own heads. Firstly, a good friend likes you
pretty much as you are already. Any suggestion they make, or ambition they have about how you could change
builds on a background of acceptance. When they propose that you might try a different tack, it’s not an
ultimatum or a threat. They’re emphatically not saying you have to change or be abandoned. The friend insists
we are good enough already. But they want to join forces with us to solve a challenge they feel we would
properly benefit from overcoming.
Without being flattering, good friends also constantly keep in mind certain things we’re getting right. They don’t
think anything wrong with the odd compliment and emphasis on our strengths. It’s quiet galling how easily we
can lose sight of all of our good points when troubles strike. The friend doesn’t fall into this trap; they can
acknowledge the difficulties while still holding on to a memory of our virtues. The good friend is compassionate.
When we fail, as we will, they are understanding and generous around our mishaps. Our folly doesn’t exclude
us from the circle of their love. The good friend deftly conveys that to err, fail and screw up is what we humans
do. We all emerged from childhood with various biases in our character which evolved to help us cope with our
necessarily imperfect parents. And these acquired habits of mind will reliably let us down in adult life. But we’re
not to be blamed – because we didn’t deliberately set out be like this. We didn’t realistically have a lot of better
options. We’re indelibly required to make big decisions before we ever really understand what is at stake or
how our choices will play out. We are steering blind in all our large moves around love and work. We opt for a
move to a different city – but we can’t possibly know whether we’ll flourish there. We have to select a career
path when we’re still young and don’t know what our later needs will be. In long-term relationships we have to
make a commitment to another person before we understand what it will be like to tie our lives so deeply to
theirs.
The good friend knows that failures are not, in fact, rare. They bring, as a starting point, their own and
humanity’s vivid experience of messing up into play as key points of reference. They’re continually telling us
that our specific case might be unique but that the general structure is common. People don’t just sometimes
fail. Everyone fails, only we don’t know about it.
It is ironic – yet essentially hopeful – that we usually know quite well how to be a better friend to near
strangers than we know how to be to ourselves. The hopefulness lies in the fact that we do actually already
possess the relevant skills of friendship. It’s just we haven’t as yet directed them to the person who probably
needs them most – namely, of course, ourselves.  
Another strategy behind self-love is to rethink our attitudes to self-pity. We learned self-pity when we were
young. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon; you were nine years old. Your parents wouldn’t let you have any ice
cream if you didn’t do your maths homework. It was achingly unfair. Every other child in the world was playing
football or watching television. No one else has such a mean mother. It was just awful.
We’re all – in theory – dead against self-pity. It seems deeply unattractive because it reveals egoism in its most
basic form: the failure to put our own suffering into proper perspective against the larger backdrop of human
history. We lament our tiny disasters and look coldly on the grand tragedies of the world. A problem with one’s
fringe or a wrongly cooked steak dominates the mind while we ignore work conditions in China and the Gini
coefficient of Brazil.
No one likes to own up to self-pity. And yet, if we are honest, it’s something we feel quite often. And in fact it’s
often a rather sweet emotion.
The fact is we do deserve a great deal more pity than other people are ever very likely to bestow upon us. Life
is, in truth, horrendously hard in many ways – even if one does have a top notch data plan and an elegantly
designed fridge. Our talents are never fairly recognised, our best years will necessarily drift away, we won’t find
all the love we need. We deserve pity and there isn’t anyone else around to give it to us, so we have to supply
a fair dose of it to ourselves. The operative cause might from a lofty perspective seem ridiculous – poor me, I’ll
never drive a Ferrari; it’s so sad, I thought we were going to a Japanese restaurant and they’ve booked a pub.
But these are just the convenient opportunities for immersing ourselves in a much bigger issue: the
fundamental sorrows of existences, for which we do – genuinely – deserve the most tender compassion.
Imagine what things would be like if we couldn’t pity ourselves. We would be that far worse category of mental
discomfort: depressed. The depressed person is someone who has lost the art of self-pity, who has become too
rigorous with themselves. If you think of a parent comforting a child, they often spend hours on a very minor
thing: a lost toy, nonou’s broken eye, the children’s party to which one was not invited. They are not being
ridiculous, they are, in effect, teaching the child how to look after themselves – and giving space to the
important idea that ‘small’ upsets can have very large internal consequences.
Gradually we learn to mimic this parental attitude with ourselves and come to be able to feel sorry for ourselves
when no one else will. It’s not necessarily entirely rational, but it’s a coping mechanism. A first protective shell
which we develop in order to be able to manage some of the immense disappointments and frustrations that
life throws at us. The defensive posture of self-pity is far from contemptible. It is touching and important. Many
religions have given expression to this attitude by inventing deities who look with inexpressible pity upon
human beings. In Catholicism, for instance, the Virgin Mary is often presented as weeping out of tenderness for
the miseries of the normal human life.  Such kindly beings are really projections of our own need to be pitied.
Self-pity is compassion we extend to ourselves. A more mature aspect of the self turns to the weak and lost
parts of the psyche and comforts them, strokes them, tells them it understands and that they are indeed lovely
but misunderstood. It allows them to be, for a while, a bit babyish – since that is actually what they are. It
provides the undemanding, confirming love every baby, but far more importantly, every adult, needs to get
through the anguish of existence.
We can connect ourselves more regularly to models of a good inner voice, that is wiser, more constructive and
more nuanced than the one we currently posses. If the existing voice is like that of a dismissive and hard to
impress father or an impatient, censorious mother we might turn instead to the voice of a more kindly and
sympathetic, such as that of the mind-twentieth Century British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. Winnicott was
especially interested in people who are hard on themselves and who feel they are always failing to live up to
ideal standards. He often worked with parents who in reality were trying very hard to look after their children
as well as they could but who were very anxious and distressed that they still weren’t doing a good job.
Winnicott encouraged them to think in terms not of being an ideal mother or father but of being ‘good enough.’
He was seeking to provide these parents with a more sane and appreciative inner voice that could be fair to the
great efforts they were really making and be more forgiving to their inevitable mistakes. So that they would –
in consequence – be nicer for their children to be around. Winnicott was picking up clearly on the terrible irony
at the heart of a punitive inner voice. It says it’s trying to make us better. But actually the burden of being
constantly criticised from the inside has the opposite effect.
It’s not that we have to turn specifically to Winnicott. We might locate the inner voice we need in a generous
and encouraging writer, in a benign grandmother or a good friend. We need to continually ask ourselves: what
would they say to me now? How would they judge me – in a way that’s nicer than the way I judge myself. We
are setting out to deliberately internalise the better voices we have encountered, so that they become the ones
we hear in our times of need.
Self-love – An essential human quality that is not narcissism, nor is it selfishness or indulgence.
As Nestell Bovee said:
“Both our first and last love is self-love.”
Self-love is empathetic and understanding of flaws, and appreciative of the good within each of us.
Self-love is not only important, but necessary for positive emotional health and various facets of success.
This article will guide readers in nurturing and boosting self-love by providing more than 40 useful activities,
worksheets, and resources. By taking advantage of this treasure trove of tools and information, individuals will
find themselves on a pathway toward a more fulfilled and joyful life.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free.
These detailed, science-based exercises will help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself
and will give you tools to help your clients, students, or employees show more compassion to themselves.
This Article Contains:
Our 5 Favorite Self-Love Exercises
2 Exercises for Your Group Sessions
4 Helpful Worksheets
Daily Self-Love: 3 Activities and Sheets
Self-Love and Self-Compassion: 12 Useful Techniques
A Look at Radical Self-Love Exercises
Science of Self-Acceptance Resources
A Take-Home Message
References
Our 5 Favorite Self-Love Exercises
While you may want to practice greater self-love, the question of how to get there may feel a bit overwhelming
– but it doesn’t have to be. There are many self-love tools available, and we’ve compiled a generous list of
them right here.
To begin with, here are five of our favorite exercises:
1. The Self-Esteem Check-up
This worksheet provides readers with greater insight into how they feel about themselves. The exercise
contains a list of 10 statements referring to various aspects of self-esteem, which are then rated on a 1–4 scale
in terms of agreement.
This instrument is useful to see where a person falls in terms of key indicators of self-love – an essential quality
for the enhancement of positive wellbeing.
2. My Love Letter to Myself
This exercise promotes self-love by having individuals write love letters to themselves that emphasize their
most valued attributes. The first step is to identify the top eight qualities they love most about themselves.
The reader then lists eight ways in which these attributes have benefited them in life.
The final step is for readers to note several ways to honor the above qualities.
This exercise is a loving way for individuals to practice self-love and self-kindness that will benefit them
throughout their lives.
3. Emotional Wellness Quiz
The Emotional Wellness Quiz helps individuals identify the degree to which they recognize, accept, and manage
feelings. Readers respond to 16 feelings, indicating how often they have experienced each one over the past
month.
Scores are created for positive feelings, negative feelings, and all feelings combined.
This quiz helps readers to recognize their emotional IQ, which is an essential step toward enhancing it.
4. Who Am I?
The Who Am I worksheet enables individuals to enhance self-awareness by responding to six open-ended
questions followed by several debriefing prompts. Readers first examine the fundamental question: “Who Am
I?” In doing so, they can examine their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by responding to three questions, for
example:
Other people frequently view us differently from the way we see ourselves. How do you think your closest
friend or family member would describe you in one paragraph?
Three additional questions are included to identify external self-awareness, for example:
Now, try to forget others’ perspectives. If you were writing to your past self, what would you choose to include
about who you are now?
Finally, readers debrief by considering several aspects of their responses, for example:
What stands out from your answers?
What steps can you take to keep building your self-awareness?
This tool provides a simple way for individuals to practice introspection into both internal and external self-
awareness, crucial for enhanced self-love.
5. Self-validation and Self-respect
The goal of this exercise is to help clients improve their self-confidence and self-esteem. The first step is to list
three self-validating statements they have used in the past week.
The second step involves answering some questions that can help the client implement the process of validation
on themselves.
A few questions include:
What was the situation?
What did you say?
What was the outcome?
This exercise can help the user become familiar with using self-validation as a positive method for improving
self-confidence and self-esteem.
2 Exercises for Your Group Sessions
There are quite a few useful ways to enhance self-love and self-acceptance in a group format.
Such exercises, which may be utilized by counselors and teachers, are both fun and beneficial to everyone
involved.
Here are two examples:
1. Things I Love
This worksheet involves having individuals share and discuss the things they love. Group members are
instructed to work through a list of 10 categories and examples, which are provided in the worksheet.
By going through each category and sharing responses out loud, this exercise supports group cohesiveness and
meaningful connections.
2. What I See in YOU
This group exercise is designed to enhance positive self-regard by providing each group member with insight
into how others perceive them. This activity is based on the premise that individuals often hold negative self-
appraisals that are inconsistent with how others seem them.
Group members are instructed to sit in a circle and, following a moment of reflection, say something positive
about each person one at a time. After each compliment, the recipient is then asked to repeat the phrase with
an “I” statement, for example:
Positive statement by group member “I” statement by Mary
“Mary is really compassionate.” “I am really compassionate.”
“Mary is considerate of others.” “I am considerate of others.”
“Mary has an infectious laugh.” “I have an infectious laugh.”
This powerful exercise helps individuals to realize the wonderful things others see in them and ultimately to
work toward internalizing these qualities.
Download 3 Free Self Compassion Exercises (PDF)
These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you to help others create a kinder and more nurturing
relationship with themselves.
Download PDF
4 Helpful Worksheets
Here are four more helpful worksheets designed to promote self-love:
1. My Personal Beliefs
This worksheet helps individuals identify the beliefs and judgments they hold about themselves. The first step is
to explore self-appraisals by responding to 10 open-ended questions.
The second step involves debriefing on those responses, which is aided by several prompts.
This exercise adds value by enabling people to first recognize their self-appraisals and then to replace them
with those that are more self-loving.
2. I Will Survive
This worksheet helps readers appraise their coping skills and support systems used to deal with stress and
adversity. Readers first identify a personal challenge they dealt with in the past. This involves writing freely
about the event, as well as any feelings associated with it. They then consider how they survived the challenge
and the personal resources they used to get through it.
For the second part of the worksheet, readers reflect on their external social support system. They first
consider a meaningful goal or wish and write about it. Lastly, readers then consider a compliment they received
that is related to the above goal or wish.
This instrument is a valuable way for people to recognize the strengths they have used in the past to overcome
difficulties. In doing so, they will be in a better position to draw upon such strengths when encountering future
challenges.
3. Exploring Character Strengths
The goal of this exercise is to help people recognize personal character strengths, which are described in terms
of six virtue categories.
After reflecting on how they effectively dealt with past experiences, readers answer 10 open-ended questions
designed to reveal character strengths.
Peterson and Seligman (2004, p. 4) noted that “character strengths are the bedrock of the human condition
and that strength-congruent activity represents an important route to the psychological good life.”
This exercise provides an easy way for individuals to identify and nurture these powerful qualities.
4. Setting Valued Goals
This worksheet supports individuals in identifying personal values and creating goals toward achieving them.
Readers first respond to open-ended questions assessing core personal values.
Next, from a list of 10 value domains, readers identify the top three they feel are important.
Readers then provide examples of how each of the values functions in daily life, as well as goals for achieving
each of them. This worksheet offers a straightforward and meaningful way for people to reflect upon the values
they hold dear and to create actionable ways to bring them to life.
Daily Self-Love: 3 Activities and Sheets
To become a self-loving individual, self-love practices need to become a regular activity.
By adding them to your daily routine, you will find that self-love comes naturally and is ultimately internalized.
Here are four ways to make self-love a daily habit:
1. Self-Love Journal
This worksheet guides individuals in engaging in daily journaling that promotes self-love and self-compassion,
as well as healthy emotional self-expression. Readers are directed on how to journal and are provided with 10
prompts, for example:
List three things – or people – that you’re grateful for today.
What is one personality trait that you feel proud of?
Self-love journaling is a terrific way for individuals to remind themselves of their unique and wonderful
attributes, which often go unnoticed as people go about their lives.
2. Self-Compassion Pause
This simple meditation provides an excellent way for individuals to uncover a more self-compassionate way of
relating to themselves. Readers are instructed to follow 15 steps that can be spread out across numerous
sessions. A few examples of statements that they can repeat include the following:
May I be filled with love and kindness.
May I be happy and at ease.
May I be safe.”
Several guided meditation instructions are also provided, for example:
Bring awareness to your breath for a few moments, paying attention to each inhalation You may place one
hand on top of your chest and feel the warm sensation this may bring.
By regularly practicing this meditation, individuals are more likely to experience self-compassion during difficult
times.
3. Catch Yourself Being GREAT
This fun worksheet uses positive reinforcement to boost positive self-regard. Readers are first asked to design a
reward jar, using pens, stickers, or other art supplies. In doing so, a simple jar is transformed into a lovely
object in which important messages will be stored.
The second step is to print the “Monthly Good Deeds” calendar and fill it in for the corresponding month. Then,
each time they do a good deed for themselves or someone else, individuals add a gold star for that particular
day. Examples of good deeds are also provided.
For the next step, each time a good deed is added to the calendar, a specified amount of money is inserted into
the jar. By the end of the month, the money is used toward a special reward.
This exercise is guided by classic behavioral research by B. F. Skinner (1948), who demonstrated that desirable
responses are increased when associated with meaningful rewards.
Subsequent studies have found an abundance of evidence supporting the power of positive reinforcement in
increasing prosocial behaviors in both children (e.g., Lucyshyn, Dunlap, & Albin, 2002; Ramaswamy & Bergin,
2009) and adults (e.g., Martin, 2005; Robison, 2006).
VIDEO
How to practice self love – Psych2Go

Self-Love and Self-Compassion: 12 Useful Techniques

There are many ways to bring more self-love and self-compassion into your life. Many of these practices are
easy and even free, with invaluable benefits.
Here are 12 ideas:
Avoid labeling yourself: We often go through life with self-defeating labels that we may have connected with
ourselves long ago (e.g., I’m not lovable, I am unsociable, etc.). Think about any labels you may be carrying
and work toward substituting them with positive ones.
Don’t deprive yourself: If you are trying to diet or do something else difficult, be careful not to cut out too
much pleasure from your life. This often leads to feelings of self-deprivation, which may sabotage your goal.
Listen to your gut/establish boundaries: If something doesn’t feel right deep in your gut, LISTEN!!
Make your needs clear: Few of us are mind readers. If someone in your life is letting you down, make sure they
are fully aware of what you need.
Nurture yourself: This may be done a thousand ways. Think of what brings you peace and do more of it.
Prioritize your health and happiness: It is often the case that people are so busy caring for others that they
place their own needs on the back burner. Don’t do this. You are of no value to anyone else if you are sick or
miserable.
Remind yourself of your positive qualities each day: By using positive affirmations, you will feel better about
yourself and your ability to take on the day.
Make peace with your past: By letting go of old hurts, you aren’t letting those who caused you pain off the
hook. Instead, you are allowing yourself to move forward in a way that enables you to embrace the present.
Reward yourself: This is psych 101, as we are all guided by positive reinforcement. If you want to do more of
something, reward yourself. The reward doesn’t need to be significant, just meaningful.
Don’t sabotage your health and happiness: Watch for destructive thoughts or behaviors that you may use
unconsciously (e.g., causing chaos in a relationship out of fear of abandonment).
Watch out for black-and-white thinking: Do not fall into the black-and-white trap. For example, if you’re trying
to eat better and have a piece of cake, that’s okay. You are not a failure. Enjoy your cake, and continue to
nurture yourself with healthier food next time.
Take care of your body through healthy eating: Remember that everything you put in your body is either
fighting disease or feeding it. Do the necessary meal planning to ensure that you have plenty of healthy food on
hand that will nurture your body and soul.
A Look at Radical Self-Love Exercises
Radical self-love is the purest form of self-love.
Taylor (2018, p. 6) described it as “deeper, wider, and more expansive than anything we would call self-
confidence or self-esteem… Including the word ‘radical’ offers us a self-love that is the root or origin of our
relationship to ourselves.”
Here are four ways to enhance radical self-love:
1. Self-Love Sentence Stems
This exercise may be used as a way to either inspire self-love journaling or as a standalone practice for those
who prefer not to journal. Instructions are simple; the reader simply fills in the blank in a series of 20
statements.
By responding to these statements, individuals are better able to nurture and practice greater self-love, self-
kindness, and self-compassion.
2. Spotting Self-Love
This worksheet helps readers to recognize self-deprecating beliefs and then to replace them with self-kindness.
Readers are instructed to read two vignettes, followed by two differing responses.
Each of the responses is then rated on a scale. Once they assess the responses, readers note their preferred
responses and rates, and then write down the steps they might take to respond more consistently with their
favorite answer in the future.
The vignettes provide readers with challenging situations.
For the final step in the exercise, the readers consider their reactions to the vignettes by responding to several
questions.
By including vignettes, this worksheet provides readers with realistic, relatable examples of ways to enhance
self-love.
3. Stacking the Deck – Radical Self-love Cards to Brighten Each Day
With this fun exercise, individuals create self-affirmation cards as a way to inspire, motivate, and enhance self-
love. Readers are instructed to collect a stack of blank cards, art supplies (e.g., pens, stickers, photos, cut-
outs, etc.), and positive affirmations, for example:
“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” (Buddha)
“You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” (Brené Brown)
Readers then decorate each card using a positive affirmation on each, along with artwork. The beauty of this
exercise is that it results in creative and unique positive affirmation cards that individuals may take with them
to promote self-love wherever they go.
Science of Self-Acceptance Resources
Helpful resources to improves self-acceptance.
The Science of Self-Acceptance Masterclass©
To support clients in enhancing self-acceptance, PositivePsychology.com offers the Science of Self-Acceptance
Masterclass©. This innovative program provides practitioners with a research-based approach that will help
clients divert their unhealthy attempts to increase self-esteem (an often unachievable goal) toward the much
more useful construct of self-acceptance.
Taught by a highly experienced psychologist and researcher, Dr. Hugo Alberts, this course promotes healthy
relationships with the self by acknowledging that low self-acceptance is the basis for many psychological and
emotional issues. Dr. Alberts notes that despite high self-esteem, achieving a meaningful and contented life is
an unrealistic objective in the absence of self-acceptance.
The masterclass contains eight modules of live recordings; a comprehensive science-based handbook; and
numerous audio files, worksheets, exercises, illustrations, PowerPoint slides, and other useful resources.
Overall, by guiding individuals in how to change approval-seeking narratives, the masterclass promotes a deep
and long-lasting sense of worthiness.
Along with the masterclass, several self-awareness books substantiate the importance of self-love.
Here are five examples:
1. The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook
The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive –
Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, 2018
This science-based workbook provides readers with numerous resources and activities aimed at enhancing
greater self-kindness and self-compassion.
It contains an eight-week mindful self-compassion program, which includes guided meditations and practical
exercises, and various vignettes focused on common issues.
The goal of the book is to provide readers with valuable tools aimed at promoting self-compassion and the
numerous positive outcomes associated with it.
Available from Amazon.

2. The Strength of Self-Acceptance

The Strength of Self-Acceptance: Theory, Practice and Research – Michael Bernard, 2013
This book acknowledges the link between self-acceptance and positive mental health outcomes. It includes a
comprehensive collection of research supporting the benefits of self-acceptance.
Insight from numerous leaders in the area of self-acceptance is included (e.g., Maslow, Rogers, Ellis, etc.), as
well as knowledge drawn from Buddhist philosophy and Christian scripture.
The book provides a valuable research-based tool for practitioners intending to enhance positive fulfillment and
self-acceptance in their clients.
Available from Amazon.

3. The Happiness Trap

The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT – Russ Harris and Steven Hayes,
2011
This book describes the research-grounded psychotherapeutic approach of Acceptance and Commitment
Therapy (ACT).
Rather than trying to change oneself, the technique outlined in the book guides readers in how to develop
mindfulness that will allow them to live in the moment. In doing so, ACT helps individuals to minimize self-
doubt and stress, thereby enhancing life satisfaction and meaning.
Available from Amazon.

4. How to Be an Imperfectionist
How to Be an Imperfectionist: The New Way to Self-Acceptance, Fearless Living, and Freedom from
Perfectionism – Stephen Guise, 2015
This book contains simple science-backed techniques and is based on the premise that continuously striving to
be perfect is a damaging mindset fueled by self-doubt and the need for approval.
The author describes the freedom that comes with being an imperfectionist. In doing so, individuals can remove
the limits of perfectionism, enabling them to achieve positive wellbeing by accepting their flaws and mistakes.
Available from Amazon.

5. The Self-Acceptance Project

The Self-Acceptance Project: How to Be Kind and Compassionate Toward Yourself in Any Situation – Tami
Simon (Editor), 2016
This book contains a powerful collection of essays aimed at helping readers avoid the endless self-judgment
and lack of satisfaction associated with low self-acceptance.
Numerous experts and spiritual guides contributed to the book, providing insights into such areas as removing
the trance of unworthiness (Tara Brach), reconnecting with a sense of aliveness (Mark Nepo), moving from self-
criticism to self-compassion (Dr. Kelly McGonigal), and practicing compassion for the self-critic (Dr. Kristin
Neff).
With its 19 essays, the book provides readers with the inspiration and practices needed to establish meaningful,
loving, and compassionate relationships with themselves.
Available from Amazon.

A Take-Home Message
Rockwell (2019) speaks of the necessity of creating a radical self-love movement with the power of mindfulness
and love as the healing balm.
Unfortunately, without this healing balm, many of us grapple with feelings of low self-worth, guilt, and
inadequacy that do nothing but enhance misery. Yet, we can turn these thoughts around in a way that is both
kind and loving to the self. Doing so is worth the effort, as the benefits of practicing self-love are well supported
by scientific literature.
This article has provided numerous worksheets, activities, resources, and ideas to get you started on your
journey to greater self-love. Remember, not only is there is no selfishness in self-love, but as the Dalai Lama
said:
we can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.