To Love yourself...what Does It Mean?

I've heard this statement before, and I disagree with it. Loving yourself doesn't actually come first.

1. Work on being a person who is worthy of love and respect.

2. Love and respect yourself because of #1.

3. Enjoy the natural admiration and love from others which occurs, without any further effort, due to #1 and 2.

4. Repeat 1-4....because continual improvement is paramount to living authentically.

I think if you care about yourself and take care of yourself you are able to offer everyone around you a whole fulfilled person.

I think if we are needy and giving up ourselves to be someone we really don't want to be then we are shorting ourselves and it will start to show.

I always see women who get in a relationship then they change into what they think their partner wants them to be. They give up themselves to become someone that other person likes more. But in the end that person liked the person the friend used to be so they go out and cheat, they treat them bad, etc....

Telling someone to get a life is right. The person needs to be growing, enjoying life, having some fulfillment of their own, they don't want to improve themselves.

They become boring and uninteresting anymore. Not the same person. If they care about themselves they should want to be happy and content and fulfilled on their own, inside.

It helps when I pluck my eyebrows. That sounds like a joke but it's not.

No, I don't love myself -- that's far too corny for me. I'm happy enough with myself, and I don't spend a lot of time critiquing myself, but I reserve "love" for other people.

To me, "loving yourself" is new-age-y drivel. But maybe I'm jaded.

p.s. It's a proven fact that for most people, true happiness comes from giving to other people, and not from ruminating about oneself. Those other people can include your husband and kids.

I can only answer for myself:

Loving myself means being accepting of myself, warts and all. It means being real with myself. Knowing that I, just like everyone else, have both strengths and flaws, successes and challenges. Loving myself means admitting that I am not perfect and accepting that it is okay-- that no one is perfect. Loving myself means being real, not glossing over my inadequacies, but doing the work to better myself (or make myself feel better), knowing it's not easy, knowing that some things really stink, that I make mistakes and wish that I could do it over again-- but striving to do better next time.

Loving myself means being kind to myself as I see signs of aging, accepting that my body can be 'worked on' (exercise, diet) but will likely never be that hourglass shape it used to be. Can I be honest? Loving ourselves is HARD some days. Silly me, yesterday I realized that I am now that 'rectangle' body shape that I was hoping I wouldn't become-- and I was so bummed out about it feeling so bad about myself.... but part of loving one's self (for me, anyway) is feeling sorry for myself for a day and then getting back on the horse, getting back to doing what makes me feel good in my body. Today I've walked three miles and met a friend I adore for coffee because it makes ME feel good. Not because I might lose weight or wear a cuter dress at the holiday party-- but because it nurtured my soul to be out in this sunny, crisp gorgeous autumn morning.

Loving oneself also sometimes means doing some very, very hard work, digging through the past and sorting out the old, bad messages I received-- those damaging moments which informed me that I wasn't good enough, pretty enough, *anything* enough. Some of us live through parenting as children which truly destroyed our self-esteem, even if the parents we had were 'well-meaning' or not-- stuff happens. For my individual path, loving myself has only come in the last 10 years or so, when I was finally able to gain ground on the past and see that I wasn't a bad person, just had a bad situation handed to me early on. For some of us, being Okay with ourselves is counter-intuitive to how we have been raised. A lot of growth has to happen before we can go forward with love, in love, for ourselves and for others. When we allow someone to empathize with us, with our struggles, when we forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made and learn that knowing better and doing better are small changes we make, not always huge, dramatic Oprah Winfrey type revelations.

When we can accept ourselves as having value, just for being, period. I think that is a great moment when we can do this without comparing ourselves to anyone else. That my creative pursuits/expressions- in writing, cooking, how I keep my house and garden, how I help my son and husband through life... that all of this has value, even if no one else says so-- that it has value to me, for me. Measuring myself up to what I deem to be my best or highest self-- self-love changes how we perceive the world, and, I believe, can help us be more at peace with our world.

I know this is lengthy, and hope some of this is helpful. Overall, self-love is a process of growth, acknowledgement and acceptance.

ETA: tip of the hat to Dawi and Christy Lee-- they both make excellent points!

You don't need to love yourself in order to make someone else love you. You need to love yourself because you need to love yourself.
It's not really that complicated. It's simply a matter of recognizing that YOUR needs, wants, and dreams are every bit as important as anyone else's, even your spouse and kids, and sometimes YOUR needs/wants/dreams have to come first.
Many women, once they marry and/or become parents, put their own needs and wants on the back burner, fully intending to take care of them later, but later never comes.
You have to make sure that your spirit gets fed, whatever that takes.
You know how they tell you on an airplane, in case of a crash, put YOUR oxygen mask on first, THEN help someone else with theirs? Same principle.

This is a hard one to answer, but here it goes:

To love yourself is to know yourself, your inner thoughts, dreams, desires, goals, and body rhythms . As with the growth of a child, we are constantly changing. Basic morals of right/wrong, good/bad, up/down and are what we draw upon to keep us on the straight and narrow. Situations and challenges are placed in our way to make us stronger.

To love yourself is to love all the bumps, baggage, body, and warts.

You know you and you love in the present not the girl of yesteryear.
You cannot control others and you don't try.
You work on you so that you can move to the next level of happiness.
You are not arrogant and rude to others.
You change the things that can be changed and accept those that can't
You enjoy your spouse, children, family, and friends and they enjoy you. You are happy with you and enjoy life as it is.

This my take on loving yourself.

the other S.

E.:

When you love yourself - you are confident. You know what you want or need in life. It's not about looking good on the outside - it's always a plus - but knowing who you are...what can and cannot tolerate...it's more than just loving yourself - there's sooo much that goes into it. We are constantly changing and evolving as people. It's not just one moment or one thing, it's adapting to situations, maintaining your morals, values, integrity - so that others can look to you and respect you, admire you, love you.

You are able to express yourself.
You are able to care for yourself and not be clinging to others for happiness.
Loving yourself allows you to accept love and friendship from others.

Hope this helps.

I'm not sure if I can answer this question satisfactorily.

I believe that we all need to love ourselves. However, we should not strive to love ourselves with the agenda of making others love us. This loving ourselves in order for other to love us, negate the entire loving ourselves objective.

Love is so subjective. It means different things to different people. I can be sacrifice. It can be self worth. Love can be caring, spoiling, an overwhelming emotional sensation. It can be misconstrued in attraction and can often be misguided especially in situations of betrayal.

Personally, I live by respect. There are things you would not do to yourself and things you would not put up with if you have self respect. If you have respect for others, you would do the same.

There is also forgiveness. We are all humans and we need to forgive ourselves sometimes (maybe a lot of times). We also need to forgive others. This does not mean that we can keep letting people in our lives who hurt us over and over again. I once told my husband that although I love him, I do not have to be with him. There was an issue at the beginning of our marriage that I just would not put up with. He was not bad, he was just clueless.

I always refer to life as my favorite cake. My husband the icing and the kids the chocolate chips in my chocolate chocolate chip cake. The cake is better than good in itself but the chips definitely make it better and the icing, sweeter.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Where did you read that because I have never heard that.

You just can't expect others to make you happy because it is fleeting. Husband brings you flowers :), flowers wilt and you throw they away. :( He brings you chocolate :), you eat it all. :(

You see inside yourself what he loves about you. :)

All loving yourself is is being able to see why others love you.

That moment when I look in the mirror and smile at myself. I find loving my self is like loving my family. I love them, always and fiercely, but there are times where I don't like them too much. And just like loving other people, you need to remind yourself every now and then.

I find that taking a "time out" for myself helps. A time of day where I'm not mommy or wife. A time to think about who I am and where I am in life. I think to myself, "Yeah, I'm good." And I know for certain I am.

I think loving yourself is not allowing others to mKe you feel Bout yourself. If you need to lose weight do it but don't wear fat lady mumus and cry in your ice cream. Don't be around folk put you down because you are on your 5th child yet are single...

I have been searching for the answer to this my whole life through. It's very encouraging and validating to know that others family or friends appreciate us and what we do, but I feel to love ourselves means doing what we love, enjoy, and do things that help us to excel in every aspect and by doing so we find ourselves and also learn to love ourselves.
I'm sure you've heard that should the oxygen mask drops down, you have to put it on yourself before assisting your child or the person next to you. It's the same basic idea. It doesn't make you weak or selfish in doing so. Remember (I'm speaking to myself here too) if you can't find time to get your hair done, or go buy a new pair of shoes, or hire a professional organizer, or even get a bubble bath in peace and quiet. Schedule it. quite simply because your worth it, and you need to show yourself appreciation for your efforts and holding down your life and hopefully will not disappoint you and will start feeling the love of self that you are searching for.
Also, track your efforts and progress and what you did to reward yourself, and how you felt before, during and after eaach experience. You can use it as a guide to refer back to, and you can add tools that will change not only your feelings towards yourself, but how others and how their perceptions of you will change. They will gravitate towards you and that's an awesome feeling.
Doing all this will also be setting a good example for your children. They will appreciate and understand what true self worth and esteem really is, and will attract the right people as well, and have a healthy love of self and a deeper respect for you later in life and the deeper they understanding why you are doing, what you are doing.