“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll unchangingly be looking for someone else to fill the void inside you, but no one will overly be worldly-wise to do it.” ~Lori Deschene

Two years ago, I sat in my vault with tears streaming lanugo my face. I had just found a reprinting of an old letter I’d written to an old boyfriend years before. In it, I was practically begging for his love, and moreover weeping and plane shaming him for not loving me well.

As I read, I was overcome by three insights, all of which brought up big emotions:

The first was that for well over the first half of my life, I had been so hungry for love, so needy for it, that in this and subsequent relationships, including my first marriage, I created a lot of pain and discord.

I was so drastic to finger loved that I constantly focused on how I wasn’t stuff cared for enough, how my current romantic partner was not loving me right.

Then I’d try to get him to do largest by complaining, criticizing, having multiple-hour long talks explaining what I wanted, and crying to him so he’d see how tightly I needed his love and he’d finally transpiration and requite me the worship I so wanted–which inevitably led to conflict, disconnection, and feeling less loved and connected!

The second insight was that I did all of this considering I simply didn’t love myself well. So the only way I could finger the love I needed (because we all need love) was from outside—which made it my partner’s job to fill that emptiness inside me. (I have since learned this is not a job anyone wants to do for too long, as it becomes burdensome, exhausting, and restricting, nor are many people well-equipped to do it!)

My big tears really came from this second insight. And such deep compassion for that old me. Tears of forgiveness, tears of remembering the pain I was in for many years, tears of joy, too, that I no longer suffer the way my old self did.

Because I now have such true love for this woman that I am, with all my human imperfections. 

The third insight was that I was now so happy—years into my second marriage—not considering my husband was the most doting of men, but considering I loved myself unbearable that I was worldly-wise to recognize and receive his love in the natural way he gave it!

In other words, I was worldly-wise to feel it, to take in his love deeply, considering I knew myself to be so lovable. Considering I love myself so much. So I was no longer pushing yonder the love I love. I just enjoyed it deeply!

After I processed all this, and the tears of recognition and forgiveness and love were complete, I walked out of that vault with such a sense of accomplishment. Really in triumph.

Because I had chosen to do the work it takes to learn how to really love myself. And it had paid off in such trappy ways.

The thing is, we humans don’t come naturally wired to love ourselves. We don’t come into this world feeling all warm and cozy well-nigh ourselves. To naturally finger unconfined well-nigh who we are, it takes a kind of nurturing in the early days of our lives by caregivers—and then a resulting modeling of self-love as we grow—that is rare in this world.

Many of us don’t get that. And we are never taught how to love and tightly revere ourselves (in large part considering our caregivers were not modeled that, themselves!).

It is plane harder for highly sensitive people, like myself.

As youngin’s we often get the signal from the world virtually us that we’re a little weird, a little abnormal—that something’s a bit wrong with us—and this makes it plane harder for us to finger good well-nigh ourselves.

So, as adults, we need to unquestionably learn how to have deep fondness for the humans that we are.

I am happy to say that loving myself now feels natural to me.

To be clear, this doesn’t midpoint I smittenly stare at myself in the mirror, or that I think I’m largest than anyone. But I truly enjoy who I am. I know I can rely on myself for a sense of security. And I finger truly lovable whether others find me so or not.

This makes it so much easier to love and feel loved in my marriage: to do the work and take the risks it takes to have one of the most ever-evolving, tightly loving, fun, joyful, passionate marriages I know of.

I spend a lot of time simply enjoying the love I finger from my husband, and the love I am hands worldly-wise to finger for him, considering I am so rooted in love for myself.

I want the same for you in your relationship!

I notice that many highly sensitive people know they should love themselves more, but many say they don’t know how.

If you finger the same, I want to help take the mystery out of it for you.

Here are five pieces of the process I used to develop real love for myself.

1. Understand where self-love comes from.

Loving or not loving yourself starts in the thoughts you have well-nigh who you are, what you believe well-nigh your goodness and worthiness (or lack of it), and ideas you have well-nigh what makes a person lovable or not.

Of course, most of the non-loving thoughts you currently think well-nigh yourself come from what you were taught to believe well-nigh yourself by caregivers, teachers, friends, and acquaintances—even magazines and movies!

As young, impressionable beings, we unconsciously take on other people’s ideas well-nigh us, and messages we receive from our society—many of which are simply misperceptions and misunderstandings—and these ideas harden into who we think we are.

For example, many highly sensitive people think they’re “too sensitive” or “too emotional.” We got that message from others! But when we think that well-nigh ourselves, we finger self-aversion, not self-love.

The wondrous news is that your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs are not fixed, and they are not fact. Plane though we all have a natural negativity bias (meaning it’s easy for our brains to find fault with ourselves) we do not need to believe what our brains tell us. Nor do we need to protract to regurgitate other people’s critical, judgmental—and frankly wrong—ideas well-nigh ourselves, now that we are grown adults.

You can decide what you want to believe well-nigh yourself—no matter what others have unsaid well-nigh you, and no matter what you have believed well-nigh yourself up until today. The nomination is truly yours.

2. Supervise your old thinking.

Start by disbelieving all the crappy things your smart-ass tells you well-nigh yourself, like: ”You’re too anti-social, too grouchy, etc.,” or the sneakier first-person version, like: “I’m not smart enough. I’m too reactive. Something’s wrong with me.”

To start “disbelieving” such things, take some time to question the negative beliefs you’ve unexplored well-nigh yourself that came from others, as well as the ones that come from the flaw-seeking part of your brain.

For example, my parents told me I was the “artistic one” while my brother was the “intellectual one.” Though they didn’t intend any harm, I took that to midpoint I wasn’t smart. That was something I told myself for thirty-five increasingly years of my life, until I took the time to investigate how true that was. Turns out, I’m both originative and intellectually smart.

Your turn: Ask yourself, “Whose negative thoughts well-nigh me am I yoyo without questioning?” And “How were they wrong well-nigh me?” (I promise, they were wrong! Remember, they had flaw-seeking brains, too, that overlooked so much of your amazingness.)

When those negative thoughts well-nigh yourself come up then (and they will, considering they’ve been programmed in there), gently alimony de-programming them by telling yourself some version of this: “There goes my flaw-seeking smart-ass then in judgment-mode.” Or “That’s an old, outdated, painful thought. But it’s just a thought, not a truth.”

3. Create a “soft landing” inside yourself for the moments when nonflexible feelings flare.

Think of this as a friendly zone in your own throne and heart reserved for meeting yourself with the warmth you would requite a dear friend when she’s upset or hurting. A metaphoric place you can retreat to repletion yourself. As if you had the coziest snuggly wrap inside your heart you could wrap yourself in when needed.

So then, plane when you’ve made a mistake, like we all do, or said something you regret, failed at a goal, been judged by someone—or plane yourself!—or you’ve washed-up something you don’t finger good about, you can turn toward yourself and be met with kindness and warmth from within.

To uncork to create that for yourself, wordplay these questions: How would I be there for my weightier friend or child if they were hurting? What would my vein be toward them? What would I say? How would I be with them?

Then do and say these word-for-word things to yourself when something’s gone “wrong.” This will help you build a loving relationship with yourself plane when you aren’t living up to any of your higher standards. This is the whence of unconditional self-love.

4. Choose to focus on what you fathom and enjoy well-nigh yourself.

It can be as simple as asking yourself, “In what ways am I likable (or lovable)—to me?” Let your smart-ass go looking for lots of little answers. Nothing is too small.

As you find things to revere well-nigh yourself, you will finger increasingly good feelings toward yourself, since emotion follows thought.

You’ll need to be intentional well-nigh all this for many weeks or months. Over time, this will rewire your smart-ass so you naturally and effortlessly see your goodness and finger really good well-nigh who you are. If you are an HSP like me, this article will requite you some unconfined starting places.

5. Set small, performable goals for yourself that prove it’s possible to wilt someone you love and revere increasingly and more.

Keep in mind, you do not need to modernize yourself to love yourself. You are lovable exactly who and how you are right now.

But, not only is it a gesture of self-love to follow through on your goals for yourself, rhadamanthine increasingly of who you want to be grows your conviction and pride in yourself by leaps and bounds, and naturally inspires increasingly self-love.

For example, if you’d finger unconfined well-nigh stuff a increasingly patient person with your loved ones, purposefully grow your patience, perhaps by putting yourself in some situations that gently test and strengthen your patience muscles. (i.e., playing a workbench game with a four-year-old). I’ve had three of them, so lots of patience-strengthening-practice and now increasingly reason to finger good well-nigh myself!

—

Has learning how to love myself made it so that I never worry or finger awkward? Or that my husband and I never have conflict? Or that we have a perfect sense of love and joy all the time?

Of undertow not.

But I love myself through all of it. I know I unchangingly have my own safe, gentle stovepipe to turn when to for wool support and love through the good times and the bad.

And I can requite my husband love way increasingly freely considering I have so much of it inside myself, and I’m not needing to get it from him all the time (like that hurting younger me did.)

I can focus on stuff the person I want to be, and on loving him as he is fully. So he feels self-ruling and unscratched and happy virtually me (no shaming criticisms landing on him), which ironically has him loving me all the increasingly obviously day in and day out!

Learning how to love myself has moreover made a major impact on other areas that tightly matter to me in my life. I can do mettlesome things in the world that I used to when yonder from—like hosting my own podcast and helping people in way worthier ways than I overly would have before.

I’ve moreover genuinely healed relationships with some of the increasingly challenging people in my life, like my father, and old lovers who for so long I’d thought had washed-up me wrong. And instead of feeling sadness, hurt, or longing when I think of these people, I finger love. Which feels so fulfilling and good.

All considering I chose to learn self-love, and alimony choosing it every day.

This is all possible for you, too, when you put in the intentional effort to learn to love yourself.

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