How to love yourself

[trenton]

The reason I do all of this work is because I want to love myself.  I am not entirely clear what it is like to love myself, but I think if I did it would help me to avoid causing myself to needlessly suffer in various ways including intense guilt, lying to myself, clinging to masks, and maybe something else.

My questions are how do you love yourself and what is it like?  Do you ever insist on causing yourself needless suffering, if so how and why does this happen?  How do you tell when you love yourself?

[Sempiternity]

If you haven't already, watch all of this:
 

 

[Javfly33]

Check out the Six Pillars of self-esteem, by Nathaniel Branden.

[BETGR164128]

@trenton I don't think you have to love yourself, you just have to stop hating yourself, or at least for now notice that you're hating yourself and let that go. I noticed that the days when I hate myself the least my dreams at night are much nicer, the characters in my dream support me, love me..so I figured that the characters in the dream are me. They punish me when I punish myself in my waking life, and the support me when I stop hating myself so much in my waking life. I'm starting to think the characters in my waking life are also me because they are beginning to act differently towards me the less I hate myself. Don't let this freak you out lol. 

Edited March 4, 2020 by BETGR164128

[trenton]

@BETGR164128 I noticed the same thing happen to me.  Except for me it is dreams during the day.  I see imaginary people in hypothetical scenarios who act like me, make all the same comments and questions I would, and they emphasize the emotional state I am in.  For example, I was late to work on a school project and I imagined how much everyone would hate me, but this never came to fruition.  They were not judging me I was judging myself.

As for real people, I found a similar situation.  The more I where masks and entrench myself in self deception, the more they are disinterested in what I say.  I will see how people act when I don't hate myself.

[BETGR164128]

@trenton Im finding life a lot more beautiful and mysterious the less I pretend I know what's going on. I'm thinking at the moment that what I believe I know is just the past being projected onto what is and distorting it. 

[Commodent]

Read "Whatever arises, love that" by Matt Kahn.

It's as simple as giving a heartfelt "I love you" to everything that arises.