Why is it so hard to love yourself when everybody keeps telling you to just do it?
Not the narcissistic kind. The ordinary kind. Here is the problem. You have seen your own cupboard. You know every skeleton in it, and you compare that to everybody else's beach photos. They post the day out. They do not post the hell that started at teatime. We are the only person whose full history we have to sit with. So we sit in shame and call it honesty.
One thing to try: Go easy on yourself today. That is it. That is the love.
In this episode
(1:26) Not the self-love that means I am amazing
(2:39) Why it takes time, and where it starts
(3:45) When I thought I was a doctor and a vet and an oracle
(5:14) We are the only ones who see our own history
(6:24) The beach photo and the teatime nobody posts
(8:13) Go easy on yourself. That is love
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Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Why is loving yourself so hard when everybody keeps telling you to just do it?
I have spent seven years trying. Books, podcasts, videos, the lot. And I still find it incredibly difficult. Here is what I think is actually going on.
The heart of it
You have seen inside your own cupboard. Every skeleton, every mistake, every unkind thought.
You compare that to everybody else's beach photographs.
Trying to love somebody whose entire history you could see would be hard. That is the job you have given yourself.
To be clear about which kind of self love this is. Not the version where you announce how wonderful you are. The ordinary one, where you notice you have been cruel to yourself and ease off a bit.
Now the problem. When you go looking for something to love, you find the whole file. Every stupid thing you have said. Every time somebody shamed you and every time you did it to yourself. The person you were at school and the person you were at thirty.
I was a genuine so and so as a teenager. And well into adulthood I thought I knew everything. Somebody would ask an opinion and I would hand it over as fact and argue for it, on subjects I knew nothing about. I look back and wince. And I can still catch myself doing it.
Meanwhile you are comparing all of that to what everybody else puts out, which is the finished version.
They post the day at the beach. They do not post the hell that started at teatime. As we get older we only share ourselves after the work has been done on it.
If everybody put their skeletons on Facebook, the first thing you would notice is, oh, you as well.
One small thing to try
Go easy on yourself. That is the practice, and there is no technique attached to it.
Next time you catch yourself running the file, notice that you are comparing your full history to somebody's highlights, and that you would never hold anybody else to that.
Questions people ask
Does everybody feel like this?
Yes, and that is the part that is hidden from you by design. Everybody at my age has as many skeletons as I do, and almost nobody discusses them. You are not the exception you think you are.
Am I supposed to forgive myself for everything?
Not all at once, and not by declaring it done. Start with being less hard on yourself about being human, which is a much smaller ask and gets you further.
Have you managed it?
No. People see me as a loving person and I am mostly trying. I gossip and then feel guilty about gossiping and then cannot love myself for gossiping, which is quite a nice loop to be stuck in.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
self-worth · self-compassion · love
Read the transcript
If you want to be happy and free, just learn to love yourself.
It's that whole spiritual E foster out there and all we need
to do is learn to love ourselves.
And there's book after book written about this.
I've listened to podcasts, I've watched YouTube videos.
I've and over the year, over the last seven years, I have done
my utmost to love myself.
Yet I still find it so incredibly difficult.
Why?
Why is it so difficult?
And it's quite funny because we had a conversation between a couple
of friends of us yesterday and I think I know why it's so difficult
to love ourselves.
But that's what I'm going to cover on this quick, short podcast.
I'm Stephen Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms.
And I help you to find a little inner peace in life, especially
when you don't have it, especially when times are a little
bit difficult.
So if you could subscribe to the channel, that'd be awesome.
There's a little subscribe button just below and you can listen
and subscribe on your favorite platform, itunes, Spotify, Google,
whatever.
It doesn't matter which one you choose.
And you'll be notified when I put a new podcast out.
But I want to return to this self love and not a self love narcissistic
that I'm amazing, I'm really awesome and you know, I love myself.
Not that kind of one.
The kind of one that you have compassion for yourself that when
you say something wrong or when you have those voices in your
head that are just not that pleasant when you're hard on yourself
where you can just go, okay, let's not be so down on us, but why
is it so hard to love ourselves?
I've got a meditation that's about loving your inner child and
it really does have a profound effect if you listen to it for a
few weeks.
And I will link it below this podcast in the show notes.
So on Insight Timer, it's also on ORA and it will be on my other
podcast, Inner Peace Guided Meditations.
And that's the podcast that's just my meditations, Guided meditations
helping you with sleep or different aspects.
It's not on all the platforms yet, but it will be given the next
few weeks it's been submitted.
It will take a little time, but I will link to it below in the
show notes.
But anyway, why is it so difficult to love ourselves?
There's lots of reasons about how we're treated as children and
how we have certain protection mechanisms and all that not to become
Too narcissistic in the way that, oh, my God, I'm amazing, and
all that.
Because that doesn't help and it doesn't get us very far.
So there's lots and lots of reasons.
But I think one of the reasons is this, and it came to me yesterday
in the conversation.
I think it's because when we look at ourselves, we can see all
of the skeletons, all of the closet, all the things we've ever
said wrong, all of the mistakes we've ever made, all the
times when we've looked at someone in a way that we probably
shouldn't have done, all the times when we said something that
wasn't all that lovely and spiritual when we were at school.
I used to be a real asshole when I was a teenager.
And even in my adulthood, Adulthood, adult life, I wasn't always
that nice.
I thought I knew everything.
I thought I. I thought I was a doctor, I thought I was a trained
vet or anybody come to me for an opinion or any advice, I would
give them my advice.
I would offload it and I would tell them as if it was fact, and
I would argue.
And I look back on that now and I shudder.
I was like, ah, really?
Was I really like that?
Yeah, I was.
And I can be like that sometimes.
Now I got to catch myself, but I can be like that sometimes now,
you know, sometimes I say something, even now when I know better.
Sometimes I'm really mean to myself internally in my mind.
Sometimes I'm really hard on myself.
Sometimes I really, you know, be up on myself.
So when we look at.
And if you think about it for yourself as well, when we look at
how to love ourselves and trying to love ourselves, we see
all of this.
We see every skeleton we've had in the closet.
We see every time that someone has shouted upon us, someone that
shamed us or we shamed ourselves.
Every time we feel guilty for not doing something, we see all that.
We feel all that.
That's all part of who we are.
Part of the experience is part of the story that we give ourselves.
So when we try to love ourselves, we're trying to love every
single bit of that.
And it's hard enough trying to love somebody else that you're not
that keen on, that someone that's hurt you.
So turning that love onto ourselves, it's really, really difficult
because we have a whole load of history and we're aware of it.
If we were to see everybody else's closet, if everybody was to
put all their skeletons on Facebook and social media and in
the public, first thing we'd notice is, wow, you as well, you
were a dumbass like me as well.
You made mistakes like me as well.
But the problem is we only ever see.
And as we get older, we only tend to share the.
After the work we've done on ourselves.
So we only ever really see the.
The improved version of everybody else.
And especially Facebook and social media now that's even worse.
We only ever see the highlights that people want to share.
They're not sharing with you the real struggles and the real pains
they're going through.
And you know, they're not sharing with you when they make a
mistake.
And they scream at their kids in the morning when really they post
on Facebook and say, oh, no, me and the kids have had a lovely
day.
We've been to the beach, we've done all those other things.
They don't tell you the way it come to tea time and it was a.
It was hell in the home.
So that's why we look at ourselves in this shame and we feel
guilty and we.
We can see all these things.
You imagine trying to love someone that you could see every
single skeleton of theirs, every single thing they've ever made
a mistake.
And I think that's why it's so hard to love ourselves.
You would find it really difficult to love someone that you
could see everything if they bear at all, if they.
Even in a relationship, even in the closest of relationships,
there's still an element of the other person you do not know,
you do not see, which is fine.
I'm not saying we want to see every skeleton, every closet and
put it all out there, but recognize that that's part of the
difficulty in loving ourselves.
And when we compare ourselves to others, we often think that we're
the ones that have done so many terrible things, so many more
skeletons than others.
But the reality is everybody's got them.
You know, if you get to the.
Get to my age, well, I'm nearly 50, you know, I've got as
many skeletons, if not more than everybody else.
And I, I may be working on it.
People may see me as a loving person.
I'm not really.
I'm trying.
I'm working on it.
I'm trying to open my heart as much as possible.
I'm trying to love myself.
I'm trying to love you guys.
I don't always achieve it, you know, so, yeah, and this spiritual
journey, we try not to gossip and then we gossip and then we feel
guilty and then we cannot love ourselves because we gossip.
Go easy on yourself.
That's love.
Just take it easy.
Just have a bit of compassion that you're human and be okay with
that.
Foreign.
I'm Stephen Webb.
This is Stillness in the Storms.
Hit us up.
That'd be awesome.
Whether you're on itunes, Spotify, or anywhere, be notified
when I bring out more podcasts.
I'm going to do more shorter podcasts like this.
Just my thoughts and we're going to do some interviews.
