‘Loving Yourself First’ Might Be Easier

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I ran across this meme in the socials:

Stop telling people that no one will love them until they love themselves. Stop planting the idea in peoples brains that they are unworthy of love because of their own struggle.

Strictly as worded, I agree! Let’s not tell anyone that they’re unlovable. It isn’t true, and it isn’t helpful.

One click over from that, though, is a lesson in self-determination that was crucial to my evolution.

For years, I hungered for someone to love me, mostly without fulfillment. I believed myself unworthy and sought love and approval to convince me otherwise.

It only worked rarely, and briefly, and with devastating whiplash on the back end.

On the other hand, my long winding journey to finding my own self-worth and self-esteem made others’ love and approval easier to come by, to receive, to take in fully, and to be nourished and uplifted by.

Others’ positive regard for me was never enough of a headwind to turn me around, but became a powerful tailwind once I changed heading.

I now understand why.

Whose Side Am I On?

Human connection is a vital nutrient and love has exceptional healing powers. I was always worthy of love and connection, as are you.

But by hanging the burden of my self-worth on it, I was actively sabotaging love and connection.

I argued for my inadequacy with the full ferocity of my own conviction, desperately hoping to lose the argument to someone whose belief in my worthiness was stronger.

I call this enlisting someone to battle my demons, while I fight on the side of the demons.

In the end I always won the argument, and lost the person.

I wanted someone to change my mind but I was dug in. I wasn’t willing to fight for my own self-worth; quite the opposite. I wanted them to fight that battle and rescue me. It became their job to prove something to me about me, that I didn’t believe about myself.

Finding someone to take on that battle is different from finding love or connection. It’s much harder. As a friend once put it:

When you struggle with low self-worth, your bid for connection becomes a bid for validation. People are happy for connection, but may not want the responsibility of providing validation.

My strategy of bootstrapping my worthiness from others’s love and approval was doomed to fail. It’s just a vastly different ask.

Energetic Debt

I think of it like an energetic debt:
Hey man, I’m about a hundred gee’s in the self-esteem hole right now, can u help a guy out?
Oh wow, sorry to hear! I’m just here for Thursday night chess and axe throwing, I don’t have that kind of identity-building clout just lying around. I wish you the best tho!

The emotional hole of worthiness deficit is real, and painful, and getting out of it is legit a monumental undertaking. I speak from personal experience as well as professional.

And frankly I don’t think the impulse to source one’s self-worth from others’ approval makes you a bad person. It’s understandable. May we all have someone close we could ask to top off our worthiness account by an extra 100k.

But that’s the thing. The deeper you are in the hole, the harder it is to get out, but in equal proportion, the harder it is for someone else to do it for you, or lift you out of it. And nearly impossible for them to have any long-lasting impact.

What you’re looking for isn’t a romantic or intimate partner, but a deep pocketed benefactor. One who will commit to subsidizing you long-term. Even those who valiantly try are unlikely to succeed.

They Better Win… Or Else

I regularly work with clients in relationships who struggle with this. They insist their partner holds the power to make them feel good or bad about themselves. Meanwhile, Partner feels pretty helpless in the situation. Honestly, they wish they could endow their beloved with high self-esteem. But nothing works—not for very long, anyway.

And I’ve been that guy, convinced that a woman’s love was the answer… and then when someone loved me, all I could feel was cognitive dissonance. Instead of feeling grateful, I fought. I became resentful that they were doing it wrong, loving me wrong. To the degree I put my worthiness in their hands, some part of me made my unworthiness their fault.

And that’s the thing about getting enrolled into battling someone’s demons, while they side with the demons. If you decide to put on your armor and love them right out of self-hate, you’d better win decisively. Slay their demons for good and free them once and for all. Love them all the way out of the hole.

Because when you fall short of total victory—which is very likely—you are now the enemy. Paradoxically, the person you tried to love into self-love will now see you and treat you as the bad guy.

. . .

So yeah, by all means, stop telling people that no one will love them until they love themselves. It’s not true.

But they might find love and still not love themselves.

So support them to face their demons of self-loathing. Help them understand that with or without love, self-love is going to be an inside job.

Let them know that loving themselves first might actually be easier. Don’t leave them waiting for a love that might not free them anyway.

. . .

I work with couples. Let’s talk.

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This post was previously published on The Craft Of Intimate Coupledom.

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