To friendship and love of others I say, you cannot sell what you don't have.
You can do it for a while but, the long lasting stuff, you need that personal foundation.
Easily said but difficult to do for many.
It requires a level of self awareness and an acknowledgement of your strengths and weaknesses and how they impact yourself and others. But like a doctor, the first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis.
Something something Jungian shadow work or something.
Introspection and self awareness are prerequisites to love yourself. Or, at least, to become someone you can love.
Loving yourself means you have acknowledged your weaknesses. Whether or not you strengthen them, it enables you to empathize with others as their own weaknesses manifest.
The world becomes much more cozy once you realize others are not much different than you.
I think it can also be the other way around - self love leads to willingness to introspect and to be self-aware - because you love yourself, so of course you care enough to pay attention. If you think you’re worthless or broken, why bother waste time digging into yourself to find out who you are and why you do the things you do, what you really want? What benefit could there be - as a matter of fact, couldn’t there only be the risk of pain?
I don't think it's possible to "love yourself" if you want to word it like that. Understand yourself? Maybe. Accept yourself? Sure. But love as a concept is shared.
I started carrying around a photo of myself as a kid. I'm sitting against a wall, by a pillar, at our state capital. My eyes are shut. I was kind of a shy kid.
When I start to get frustrated and talk to myself in that short, abrasive, condescending tone, I think of that photo and of myself, as still that kid.
It helps me to be more compassionate towards myself in those moments. I'm still that shy kid trying to make sense of the world.
As someone who's had to do extensive work on myself to survive I can relate to a lot of things said here. I have gone through a lot of material on psychology and spend a lot of time thinking myself when I read or go through the material. This was after 3 years of medication and 20 years of suffering and reaching the point of wanting badly to end my life due to multiple factors growing up.
What I would suggest if you wanted to start working on yourself building healthier relationships with yourself and others:
First is find a suitable therapist. Shop for a therapist like you shop for clothes. Do a session or two and see what you feel. What you need depends on what you are going through. Depression panic anxiety marriage health etc. But don't continue therapy where you don't feel good. There wont be a perfect fit but 'good enough' is someone you can talk to and is compassionate and helps you to do well. They will also assign small homework and that is important. The right therapist will be on your team and slowly nudge you in the right direction (though with your knowledge not sneakily). This builds trust.
Second would be start working on your body. Your body is just as important as your mind. And the two are very interlinked. Yoga, Mindfulness, being more present (ditch your phones and social media accounts), exercise, food, etc. all contribute to your mental wellbeing which will help you create a good relationship with yourself. Once you give the body the love it needs, it will give it back to you.
Third would be to do some reading on mental health and books by psychologists. The thing is you will get lot of insights on your own life reading all that. But be careful too, it might bring up intense memories (like trauma) that can be dangerous. So go slow. Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, Bessel van Der Kolk, Gottman, Richard Shwartz, David Burns, beane Browne etc. Such authors are actively doing work on the cognitive side of things. Some have extreme theories so look for things that apply to you.
I will admit that I was skeptical of the whole 'change your thoughts and things will change' and to some extent I still think that it's not the whole story. But you have to do the self work and your mind is a big part of it. I am very far from building healthy relationships in my life but I think I am having a good relationship with myself lately. I may have gone a few notches down in depression and things have improved.
There is a lot more to share tbh on this but these things are something I did in the last two years that seem to have helped.
> It is commonly, and truly, said that you can only love someone as well as you love yourself.
> I’ve worked with patients [...]
I wish it was clear from the start that they're looking at it through a pathological lens. The advice is worded as some generic fortune cookie wisdom, and I personally think that's a pretty big leap.
In general people should care about themselves and understand their impact on others. But that doesn't need to be "love", and the author seems aware of it, as the nitty gritty parts he describes are more varied than some single umbrella approach.
The "love yourself" meme has been used and abused for so long, I personally found it grating and inadequate for the people we wish to actually help. I'd wish we retire it.
Skilled essay, but not an argument. Opens with "As Jung notes" as an appeal to authority, then more name-drops.
Misses clear definitions (what counts as "friendship with self"?) and the mechanism (how X->Y). Anecdotes/quotes != proofs.
IOW, prestige != proof. Two quick checks 1) strip the names - does the reasoning still stand? 2) Flip to counterexamples - does the thesis survive? We all know people who are hard on themselves but deeply loving to others.
Nice essay but treat it as a opinion to test, not a truth to inherit. The thread reads as if the case were already proven.
If you scroll down the dilog box for this service you will find a link to "vendor preferences".
Click this, and you will find dozens of companies, with many having "legitimate interest" switched on. I find this deceptive (hiding this, essentially, and also using "legitimate interest".
If I really want to read what the site says I laboriously click no to legitimate interest, though usually I just close the page.
It's a nice reminder that the art of producing meaningless slop with way more style than substance has existed for ages, and it wasn't invented by LLMs.
Everyone tells what but not how. From years of healing I have learned that picking up random quotes or texts from internet won’t help at all. You should read or go to a professional. Anger,Sadness, Misery cannot just go away when you say you would. It takes a change in mindset, knowledge, and convincing.
17 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 41.4 ms ] threadYou can do it for a while but, the long lasting stuff, you need that personal foundation.
Easily said but difficult to do for many.
It requires a level of self awareness and an acknowledgement of your strengths and weaknesses and how they impact yourself and others. But like a doctor, the first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis.
Something something Jungian shadow work or something.
Loving yourself means you have acknowledged your weaknesses. Whether or not you strengthen them, it enables you to empathize with others as their own weaknesses manifest.
The world becomes much more cozy once you realize others are not much different than you.
I started carrying around a photo of myself as a kid. I'm sitting against a wall, by a pillar, at our state capital. My eyes are shut. I was kind of a shy kid.
When I start to get frustrated and talk to myself in that short, abrasive, condescending tone, I think of that photo and of myself, as still that kid.
It helps me to be more compassionate towards myself in those moments. I'm still that shy kid trying to make sense of the world.
I'm 47.
As someone who's had to do extensive work on myself to survive I can relate to a lot of things said here. I have gone through a lot of material on psychology and spend a lot of time thinking myself when I read or go through the material. This was after 3 years of medication and 20 years of suffering and reaching the point of wanting badly to end my life due to multiple factors growing up.
What I would suggest if you wanted to start working on yourself building healthier relationships with yourself and others:
First is find a suitable therapist. Shop for a therapist like you shop for clothes. Do a session or two and see what you feel. What you need depends on what you are going through. Depression panic anxiety marriage health etc. But don't continue therapy where you don't feel good. There wont be a perfect fit but 'good enough' is someone you can talk to and is compassionate and helps you to do well. They will also assign small homework and that is important. The right therapist will be on your team and slowly nudge you in the right direction (though with your knowledge not sneakily). This builds trust.
Second would be start working on your body. Your body is just as important as your mind. And the two are very interlinked. Yoga, Mindfulness, being more present (ditch your phones and social media accounts), exercise, food, etc. all contribute to your mental wellbeing which will help you create a good relationship with yourself. Once you give the body the love it needs, it will give it back to you.
Third would be to do some reading on mental health and books by psychologists. The thing is you will get lot of insights on your own life reading all that. But be careful too, it might bring up intense memories (like trauma) that can be dangerous. So go slow. Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, Bessel van Der Kolk, Gottman, Richard Shwartz, David Burns, beane Browne etc. Such authors are actively doing work on the cognitive side of things. Some have extreme theories so look for things that apply to you.
I will admit that I was skeptical of the whole 'change your thoughts and things will change' and to some extent I still think that it's not the whole story. But you have to do the self work and your mind is a big part of it. I am very far from building healthy relationships in my life but I think I am having a good relationship with myself lately. I may have gone a few notches down in depression and things have improved.
There is a lot more to share tbh on this but these things are something I did in the last two years that seem to have helped.
> It is commonly, and truly, said that you can only love someone as well as you love yourself.
> I’ve worked with patients [...]
I wish it was clear from the start that they're looking at it through a pathological lens. The advice is worded as some generic fortune cookie wisdom, and I personally think that's a pretty big leap.
In general people should care about themselves and understand their impact on others. But that doesn't need to be "love", and the author seems aware of it, as the nitty gritty parts he describes are more varied than some single umbrella approach.
The "love yourself" meme has been used and abused for so long, I personally found it grating and inadequate for the people we wish to actually help. I'd wish we retire it.
Misses clear definitions (what counts as "friendship with self"?) and the mechanism (how X->Y). Anecdotes/quotes != proofs.
IOW, prestige != proof. Two quick checks 1) strip the names - does the reasoning still stand? 2) Flip to counterexamples - does the thesis survive? We all know people who are hard on themselves but deeply loving to others.
Nice essay but treat it as a opinion to test, not a truth to inherit. The thread reads as if the case were already proven.
This service can have cookies switched off, though "legitimate interest" is left on.
"Legitimate interest" sounds innocent, yet it is not.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
If you scroll down the dilog box for this service you will find a link to "vendor preferences".
Click this, and you will find dozens of companies, with many having "legitimate interest" switched on. I find this deceptive (hiding this, essentially, and also using "legitimate interest".
If I really want to read what the site says I laboriously click no to legitimate interest, though usually I just close the page.