How do you practice self-love/compassion?

[73kittycat73]

I didn't know what section to put this in, so I thought I'd try Chat. Lately I have been reading a lot of self help books. At the moment I feel angry. Angry with God, angry with life, maybe angry with myself? Last night was particularly bad. I wanted to self harm badly. (I went through a stage of self harming as a teenager.) I realized I was doing my old abusers job for them, by getting so angry (At myself?) that I was digging my nails in my arms and scratching, and digging in my finger nails in my head.
I don't know how to love myself, to show myself love. Whenever I read about love it doesn't seem real/normal to me, it seems foreign. I just can't feel it. I have a cold black stone where my heart should be. It just feels fake and false. Really false. I don't know if I need to fake it until I make it?

How do you practice self-love/compassion. I really need some pointers.
Sorry, this is heavier than I expected, I will put it out there though as I need some help.

When things are really hard I try to behave as though I am my future self sent back in time to look after my current self. It sounds odd but it really works for me. I imagine what that old version would say to me, what she would get me to go and do.

At other times, when I'm upset about childhood things I imagine my younger self there with myself now. I give her the care she needed. I let her tell a safe adult (me) all about her fears and I listen to her

I'm sorry you are feeling so utterly horrible right now. It's great that you have recognized that you need to work on loving yourself. Well done, that's a really important step.

Thank you for your helpful reply, I really appreciate it.
I have found some online counseling by an organization called IESO. You have to be referred through Steps To Wellbeing, of whom I have just filled out a referral form. I don't know if they'll refer me on as I only had CBT from them at the beginning of the year and they like you to wait six months between therapies.

That does sound helpful

73 Kitty. No definite advice to offer sorry, except to say I am in a similar place and it feels a really strange concept to 'take care of myself'. I have read a lot of self help books too and I'm on a waiting list to see a psychotherapist (when lockdown eases).

I am middle-aged now and it seems strange to think this thing of looking after yourself is only just dawning on me. Like dug said, I think the first step is recognising what is happening which you have done.

Dugup, I think I am working along your lines - parenting the inner child? Is this what people with better self esteem do I wonder? If I could change one thing, it would be a feeling of improved self worth that comes from within. Right now, it is a bit of a mystery to me.