I love myself

Life in Recovery
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hi beautiful souls! i just changed my screen name from “ilovemyself”, which i created about 3-4 years ago when i first downloaded the app. in this new chapter of life and sobriety, i wanted to update my screen name as well. so now i’m simply julialuna :smiling_face:

in honor of “i love myself”, i am wondering what that means to you all? as someone who has struggled for a long time to understand what “love” really is, sometimes when i say “i love myself” it can feel phony, and can bring up feelings of insecurity, toxic attachment, fear, doubt and all those lovely emotions we all know so well. perhaps saying “i love myself” is like a magic trick that illuminates all the shattered parts of myself that then raise their hands and say “okay well love me then!!” :joy::raising_hand_woman:t2: understanding what “self love” is and how to do it, feels like a lifelong journey. i’m glad to be taking the steps and sobriety definitely feels like one of the biggest steps i can take right now. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

well, how about you? what does “self love” mean to you? how is it integrated in your daily practice or mindset, if at all? how is it different from loving anything or anyone else, and how is it the same? what is love??? baby don’t hurt me :notes::joy: hope you are having a wonderful day, friend, and i hope you’re feeling love today :raising_hand_woman:t2::two_hearts:

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Really good question, and love the new user name. I am coming to grips with me still, spent many years trying to ignore me. I guess my relationship with myself feels a bit like a parent/teen relationship. I love myself, but infuriate myself with my behaviours. I don’t particularly like myself because of them. I am not sure I realised that before. I have very high standards and have not met them.

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Been loving myself for a long time now ,and i usually finish my talks at meetings by say if nobody today has said they love you im saying it now

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@Ray_M_C_Laren i love how your example of self-love involved sharing it with others! that’s so beautiful :smiling_face::dizzy:

@JennyH i love this distinction you’re making, that you know you love yourself but you’re not sure how much you like yourself - one reason being that you haven’t met your high standards. this is an amazing gem to uncover and i’m so glad you did here because i feel like it’s extremely relevant to my inner conflicts as well! that’s why i’m curious about how we define love, it seems so very conditional in the human experience. well, here’s to us being on the journey of learning how to love ourselves enough to actually like ourselves! :joy::two_hearts::dizzy:

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I am so sorry for what you went through as a child, and into adulthood. I am so glad that you see you have value :people_hugging:

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@Looking4Support my heart is bursting reading your story - thank you SO much for sharing this today.

one interesting thing i noticed is actually an magical sort of paradox, you stated, “ my value in life has not a damn thing to do with someone else in this life” - and - “my life has value when i can share what i’ve learned and experienced with others” - this is so important!! i think what you’re saying is that our value is not given by others, it’s given to others. part of learning to love ourselves is accepting that we are valuable, a process that happens within , by ourselves, irregardless of anyone’s opinion. then we express our own value by sharing the love we’ve uncovered and building the community support that each and every one of us so deeply needs. i am amazed that you were able to go through what you did, and discover such a depth of truth and beauty. i feel honored to read your story, thank you again for sharing it, it is so powerful, inspiring and thought-provoking!

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This topic is close to my heart. I just changed my name to SelfLove_42.

I’ve struggled with this most of my life.

I was the fat kid everyone made fun of. I would go somewhere and 5-10 kids would also pick on me. I felt abandoned by my mom. I came home one day and she told me she got married over the weekend and basically, i had no future with her. I didn’t realize how much this hurt me to my core.

I was a person who when you hurt me with words, i would also have a quick line back to give it right back to you. But i didn’t want to do that either, i just wanted to be around people who accepted me for me. Went to college and was again, befriended by people who really didn’t respect me.

People would often pinch my moobs or jiggle them, they still do to this day and i’m in my 40’s. I still go in the mirror and look myself over, turn sideways, heck i lost 30 lbs and right now i’m wearing a compression shirt to make my chest look smaller.

Sorry if this is OVERSHARING, but i’m defining why Self Love is still a journey for me.

Being a porn addict, i think i turned to porn for acceptance/to cope/to escape. Ive told then truth about this addiction, i’ve lied about this addiction, it’s been one of the things that’s held me back for so many years. Every time i relapse, it makes me hate myself. I’ve had good streaks over the years, today i’m 64 days free. But still working on the self love. If i truly love myself, why do i struggle with much with body checking, sometimes i feel like a 42 year old with the mind of a teenager.

I originally wrote a completely positive message on this topic, but i wasn’t being transparent. Self Love is something i strive for, but it’s a daily battle for me.

Swimming is how i practice self love. It makes me so happy to swim. I’m not Fat, a porn addict, a lier, i’m just me, swimming, enjoying life, happy.

My wife loves me for me, she makes me happy. My kids love me for me. I just have to keep working on it.

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I love this point and can relate on MANY Levels. Trying to be a father figure when i didn’t have great role models. My dad had 9 kids by 7 different women. He was completely self absorbed for most of his life and still has NO IDEA OF WHO I REALLY AM. He’s never asked me what i like to do. Think about that. Later in life i told him i liked sports, he was like when you start to like sports? That tells you all you need to know. He was a breeder, not a real father. Me and my siblings just grew up in different households where he spreaded his seed everywhere.

Man this is a topic right here. I can go on and on, but man i appreciated your post. My wife knows me and i hate that i hide my porn addiction now(she knows about it but thinks i haven’t relapsed in years). I just dont want to lose my family. I’m breaking free and staying free.

It’s interesting, when i feel people dont accept me, i cast them off and it’s as if they dont exist. I make no time for people who have hurt me, including my father. I have to grow and get past this feeling.

Ive confronted both my parents about there behavior. My dad, who had the worst porn ive seen to this day in his house along with a loaded gun, just laughed at me. He put me in danger and ruined my life. My sister once grabbed his gun (when he wasn’t home of course) we were playing with it in the kitchen. I’m sure it was loaded. She pointed it at me. He was a neglegent father for sure. My mother apologized to me for abandoning me.

It’s funny my wife said just yesterday: “We’ve been together for 23 years, never once has your parents contributed to your life since you were 18.” Sad but true. Sorry for rambling, like i said this subject is just what it is, my life.

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I don’t know “self love” per say but I do love myself enough to change my wicked ways … of drinking. Been a week today and gosh dang it, I’m a much happier person!
I do pour my Love into my animals more then myself.
Self love is a tough one.
I will be reading the answers to your question from everyone fo sho :grin:

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This topic is one to return to, it’s too late and I need to think about it first… great shares from you guys, thank you…

I will ponder this and return…

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I found when I stopped drinking, my opinion of myself changed. I became proud of myself! Not only of my abstinence, but my fervor of my self-worth. At work, where I feel integral, and also at home, as a provider. I started cutting myself some slack! Im good enough, not only that, I’m excellent at what I do! I started believing in myself again. Something I had never really done for 35 yrs.

‘Showing up for myself’, I called it in my earlier days of recovery. Now its just how I feel, better about myself.

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@JuliaLuna interesting question and difficult to answer. I know I must love myself well but the tons of shame I have pull me down and sometimes I can’t stand even my image in the mirror. It’s like being upset with myself

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Few days ago I was thinking about my parents and how they let me grow up with feeling ashame of my body. I have deformed left hand. I was always hiding it. Always. And I newer ever heard from them I don’t have to, its nothing to be ashamed of, everybody’s different etc. I can’t understand why they weren’t telling me this when I was young. They let me think I should hide it. And it took me more than 30 years to realize - wtf, it’s me, it’s just a hand, different then anybody else have but who cares. It took me more than 30 years to start wearing shirts with short sleeves, to stop hiding my hand in pocket all the time. I used to hate summer. It might seem not so serious but it blocked me on so many levels. I could never fully love myself, even if I kind of like myself for who I am, I always wanted to be somebody else, somebody who can wear whatever she wants, dance like nobody watching, play volleyball etc. It took me 30+ years to accept my body and just recently I started to learn how to love myself, appreciate myself, stop with negative talk etc.
My parents were good ppl, I had great childhood, but I can’t understand why they let me hide it all the time, why they didnt talk with me about it. They are gone for 16 and 17 years now so I won’t get any answers.

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Thank u for this post. Self love is something that I have been trying to qork towards for quite some time (in recovery anyways). I have loved all the comments and sharing so far on this thread :slight_smile:

I think self love for me is the acceptance of self. Learning to love and accept me for me, with all my flaws and all. Its about showing compassion and being gentle with myself in my journey. As well as not allowing what others think of me, dictate the value i have on myself. That I alone determine my worth and value, not others.

I have struggled alot with self love. From an early age i was told by my grandmother that being thin and beautiful would bring me happiness and success. I began to feel that I would never amount to anything if I was overweight. This brought on an eating disorder at a young age which then turned into drug addiction at age 15, since that was when i was introduced to drugs. I had soooo much self hate for myself. I hated who i was. I wanted to change everything about me, my friends, my school, my look, my name even (I legally changed it to Hillary at the age of 16… which has since been changed back to my birth name Dana). I couldnt stand being in my own skin. Being involved in drugs then began my issues with men, which began at 16 where again i hurt myself by entering the sex trade. My lack of self love and self respect showed when I would do the things I did for money and drugs. And this lasted for over a decade. I didnt see myself as a person back then. I abused myself and self harmed in various ways bcuz i didnt love myself.

But being in recovery… I found that self love started to flourish when i began making better choices. When i started caring for myself and doing the next right thing. When i listened to my inner voice and made decisions that were in alignment with my values, I began to see what it was like to experience self love. I try to watch my inner dialogue bcuz it can be soo harsh. But then I think… i would never talk to a friend the way i talk to myself, so why am i speaking to myself in this way? Maybe i need to be a better friend to myself. I am trying to work on acceptance (especially with regards to being slightly overweight now from getting clean) but this has been a looong process that im still working on. And im trying my best to not allow what others think of me, dictate the value i have on myself. I alone determine my worth and value, not others. Hope this all made sense. I feel like it was very jumbled. Anyway, thank u for the topic! It really made me think :slight_smile:

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@SelfLove_42 wow man thank you for such a raw and honest share, i appreciate that you also stated that you approached it wanting to be “positive” but then you went for “real” instead - i really respect that. i’m grateful that you are learning how to experience love with yourself after everything you’ve been through that made you feel belittled and broken. And that you know your wife and kids love you - that’s so beautiful. i’m happy for you :smiling_face: thanks for sharing

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this :clap:t4::clap:t4: i need to remember this constantly. thank you!! i love the Buddhist perspective, and any perspective that unites our vision with the wider total one that encompasses all things. it’s so easy to get caught in small-minded limited thinking, so easy to perceive separation, and so instant is the heart-wrenching and insatiable is our yearning when separation is perceived. i believe in the unity of Oneness and it brings me a lot of comfort when i realize i can just surrender to that and trust that i won’t be obliterated if i allow myself to just Be Love :joy::heart:

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@JuliaLuna appreciate your kind words. TS is very freeing to me. It’s a place i can unload and not feel judged. So thank you!

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ah yes thank you for this :clap:t4::clap:t4: i am feeling glimmers of this myself, in my early sobriety. loving something definitely feels like valuing it - so naturally when we “love ourselves” we recognize our value and appreciate it. thanks for this insight and i’m really happy you feel so great about yourself! i wish that for everyone!

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ah thank you for sharing this and bringing to light what was once a source of shame in the darkness. :heart: i am sooooo happy for you that you are liberated from that feeling of needing to hide your body. i am in the process of doing that with my body too. thank you for being a wayshower - even though we can spend decades feeling one way, it’s possible to change. i appreciate your inspiring story of learning to love and accept yourself and your body just the way it is :two_hearts: that’s beautiful :dizzy:

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:clap:t4::clap:t4::clap:t4::clap:t4::clap:t4::clap:t4::clap:t4: thank you so much for sharing your story, my heart is swelling in amazement and celebration for you, that you experienced such darkness and pain and worthlessness, and now in sobriety you’re learning how valuable you are, and demonstrating it through careful loving action - i mean it’s just beautiful. i’m so happy for you and to witness your transformation in your story is just so inspiring.

i innerstand your tale of woe, i also had extreme difficulty accepting and loving myself, in addition to hurting myself in all kinds of ways i too experimented a lot with changing my identity because i didn’t like or understand who i was - i was often very disgusted and afraid of myself. the alcohol and sex and general debauchery lifestyle also provided a chaotic distraction from the true work that i am now doing - facing myself, facing my choices, taking honest inventory and saying “it has to change now”.

i am in early recovery, and i really resonate with everything you said in the last paragraph as well. treating yourself with deeper care, valuing yourself and not letting others dictate how you feel about yourself, watching your inner dialogue and being intentional about what you allow to be said and received etc. this is profound work and it’s so beautiful and thank you for doing it because you deserve it. :heart: we all do. i’m right there with you :heart:

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