You don’t need to be ‘good enough’ to love yourself

Last week I posted this on my Facebook page:

Loving yourself is not conditional; it doesn’t need you to be good enough, for you to like or approve of yourself. The nature of love is that it transcends those things.

It was an understanding that arose from my Calm Sitting, the closed eye meditation practice that we teach in Mind Calm.

We all know that love is unconditional. We love our children even when they are having a tantrum in Tesco or staying out too late as teenagers. Mothers travel hundreds of miles to visit their sons in prison. We love our pets when they leave hair on the carpet and much, much worse. We love our friends when they let us down – everyone is human. We love our parents even when their inability to understand social media frustrates us, and we love our siblings through all the rivalry, the bickering and competitiveness.

But what about self love? Many of us are beginning to feel more comfortable with the idea of loving ourselves, or at least the concept that we should take care of ourselves. But my perception is that self love tends to be conditional.

Thousands and thousands of words have been written about how to love ourselves. There are suggestions to look in the mirror and say, ‘I love you.’ Suggestions to focus on the things we like about ourselves rather than the ones we don’t. And much talk about approving of ourselves, letting go of perfectionism and deciding that ‘good enough’ is ok.

But what would happen if we applied this approach to the way we feel about our nearest and dearest? Do we need to practise saying ‘I love you’ to our toddlers, or to think about the qualities of our teenagers in order to care about them when they stay out too late? Do we really, ever, feel that our love for those we care about deeply is contingent on approval? I would suggest not. We may lose the odd friendship because we feel betrayed or there is behaviour that we just can’t condone, but love doesn’t ask for approval, for ‘good enough.’ It just is.

So here is my suggestion. Stop trying to get that sense of ‘good enough’ about yourself so that you can love yourself. Let go of the idea that your Inner Critic is stopping you from feeling that love. Love is there anyway, right now. Just like your love for your child, which doesn’t go away however despicable their behaviour; your love for yourself is there, inside you, right now.

Decide that you will love yourself even when you don’t approve of yourself, even when you fall far short of ‘good enough.’ Just like you would with another whom you adore. Decide that you will stop, right now, putting off loving yourself because you are waiting to be perfect, to win your own approval. Would you want your child, your closest friend or your dog/cat to feel unloved whenever you disapproved of them? My guess is no.

Do it now. This world needs more love. And if we are failing to love ourselves then we are depriving our world of what it needs. Let me know what happens.