Love Yourself?

Healthy self-love and self-care. How do these phrases strike you? Can you respond with confidence that healthy self-love is a foundational human need that impacts every aspect of our lives? Or do you rather cringe somewhat inside upon hearing the topic of “self-love”? Wherever you are along this spectrum, I’ll share that in my own upbringing, I carried a lot of confusion around the ideas of self-love/self-care. Somewhere along the lines, I learned to equate self-love with selfishness and self-centeredness. Worldly people caught up in an ego-centric existence talk about “self-love/self-care”—while Christians, on the other hand, are called to lives of humble service to others and so any focus on self must be disordered and sinful.

As I consider these thoughts to which I used to subscribe, I am saddened by the well-intentioned but deep misconception herein, one that keeps us entrapped in an existence far less than the true flourishing, freedom, and fruitfulness to which we are called by God. Consider one of the key passages in all of Scripture from the lips of God in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ: “Love your neighbor, as yourself” (Mark 12:31b)—that is to say, love your neighbor as you love yourself. Let’s just slow down and pause for a moment here, and just sit with the possibility of loving yourself… you, as you are right now—not you in just your “good” moments or the you that sometimes you like to pretend that you are, but the real you, with all your strengths and all your weaknesses.

This call to love and accept ourselves is actually pretty radical and not an easy task, if we’re honest with ourselves. But God calls us to this, and in fact, our capacity to truly love others is contingent upon working through the (often) many subconscious inner blocks we have put up as defense mechanisms in order not to feel the pain we carry from our many (often early) unprocessed life losses—e.g. the loss of security we needed from having a safe, nurturing maternal presence and a strong, protective paternal presence. All of us, whether we like to admit it or not, have places of pain in our hearts from unmet core needs (whether of security, love, acceptance, protection, etc.), and in order to try to make sense of our pain, we’ve often (again subconsciously) blamed ourselves for what happened to us, internalizing that there must be something wrong with me, that it must have been my fault that I was not loved, protected, defended, when needed. I must not be loveable, we conclude.

But take heart, friends, for the Lord wants to replace every false belief about ourselves with the beautiful truth that we are his beloved children, just as we are, right now. The more we can be honest with ourselves, with safe people in our life, and ultimately with God in prayer, the more our self-protective layers can gradually be removed, and we can experience the healing love and acceptance for which our hearts desire. I know in my own life as deeper layers of my heart have gradually opened (in counseling, in prayer, on retreats, in support groups) parts of me that I never knew existed have come to light—gifts that I did not even know I had have been unleashed, and desires and callings beyond my wildest dreams have emerged. (I’m not exaggerating!) I pray that you too find those safe relationships in which to reclaim your fierce and beautiful hearts, for the world is waiting for you. People need you. The Church needs you. God needs you.