How do you love yourself/ increase self worth?

[AGoodYearfortheRoses]

I see this all the time, you’ve got to love yourself first and be happy as you are or a relationship will never work. But how on earth do you do that?

I think you start by noticing and focusing on the good things or things you really like about yourself. If you have low self esteem, you likely have been focusing on just the things you dont like.

Loving yourself means treating yourself well, making yourself a priority in your life. It's alsoabout accepting you are not perfect but you have plenty to offer.

Absolutely no idea! Reading with interest! I think it's a myth that you need to love yourself to find love to be honest. Tons of people in good relationships have low self-esteem and poor mental health. What I do think is true is that you need to be kind to yourself to cope with being single. There is no-one to cook you a nice meal or encourage you to stop work and relax, so you need to be able to do it for yourself.

Self compassion comes before self esteem and self love.

Give yourself a break from the inner critic saying you shouldn’t do that, you should be this, you are not enough - you are too much. Push out all of the negative intrusive thoughts about yourself and replace with positive ones. Know who hurt you or hurts you and emotionally protect yourself from them.

Know when you are feeling vulnerable and insecure and tell yourself it’s OK to feel like this for a bit but that you will soothe and care for yourself to build up your confidence again little by little.

It’s not a myth you have to love yourself to find a relationship but if you want to find a good and healthy relationship, you have a far better chance or finding that if you know your own value.
It is a myth that good nice men come along and sweep up poor vulnerable fragile women and build up all their self esteem. what happens is that abusers spot it and take advantage of someone feeling low

Loving yourself is basically just another way of saying value yourself, build up your own self esteem and don’t try to look for a relationship to do all the work you need to do. Work our where your weak areas are, build them up. Go to counselling if you want to. Read books. Make sure you have good friends. Take care of yourself. Do things that make you happy. Etc

It’s about accepting first that really only you can make yourself happy. You can’t rely on anyone else to do it.
So, do things that make you happy or make you feel good about yourself.
It’s whatever works for you. It can be anything from eating well, clearing out clutter or listening to music to learning a new skill, travelling, reading a book you’ve always wanted to read or doing courses.

Recognising the negative thoughts for what they are - just bad thoughts, not fact, once you recognise them you can learn to observe them, and then find ways of changing / turning them around.

Identify things you like and then do things because it's interesting to you and no other reason. Make yourself interesting to yourself.

In lockdown, I’ve been wfh so saved 2 hours commute.

The morning hour has gone, sorting Ds but I’ve used the hour in the evening (5.30 - 6.30) for me.

I’ve given my ageing bod some tlc - manicure, pedicure, an extra run per week, 30 mins yoga, soaked in a bath, moisturised. This week I found time to plan winter clothes - what do I actually need? I’ve cleared my makeup drawer and bought a couple of new bits.

I’ve taken boots to be reheeled, stuff to be dry cleaned. Sewn buttons back on. I’ve done my tax return, rather than the usual January shambles, Rewritten my cv. Cleaned my car properly.

I want to go into the Autumn term calm and organised. I want to feel more glossy and less my usual dishevelled self.

Watching with interest as I also struggle with this. I'm aware it's about valuing yourself and talking kindly to yourself and replacing negative thoughts with positive ones and I have worked very hard to do that....but....but ...it's so hard to keep doing over and over in the moment. I find I very quickly fall into these spirals of critical thoughts and by the time I notice it it's very hard to pull myself out of. It's like a trace. I'm working in catching them early but it's a challenge.

Sorry you're also struggling with this OP. I'm trying metta meditation at the moment which is helpful (when I remember to do it)....I don't know if that sort of thing is up your street but it might be worth a try. And fyi all my relationships have been terrible because of low self esteem. I've basically put dating on hold until I can feel confident that I have a strong foundation of self love. However long that may take

I think there are two aspects

a) find some things, no matter how small, that you can do, and praise yourself for doing them. Learn to be good at something, anything

b) treat yourself well - in my case, I started using the scent I had been saving 'for best'. I'm ready to bet most people have quite a few things that fall into that category. Don't wait - it's worth it today

And on a slightly separate note, do an act of random kindness every day (this feeds back in to point a) as well). It needn't be big, but I found it really beneficial to do things like writing to my aunt, making a small donation to a local appeal, releasing some books into the wild etc,

Oh, and go for a walk every day, even if it is only 5 minutes round the block. More if you can - or some other form of outdoor exercise, ideally somewhere that's green

It is a myth that good nice men come along and sweep up poor vulnerable fragile women and build up all their self esteem. what happens is that abusers spot it and take advantage of someone feeling low.

So true.

I think what's so hard is that the things people are suggesting are exactly the things that are impossible to do when you have rock bottom self Esteem. I struggle to cook myself a nice meal or tidy my flat because I don't think I deserve it. It's a vicious circle. I do try. But is it very easy to say 'don't think negatively and treat yourself well' and very hard to do. (and I've read every self-help book and had every therapy going).

I agree ValencyRedfern - depression and self loathing are exhausting, paralysing and debilitating - that’s why self compassion and acceptance are the start point.

Then it’s little things incrementally:

“I am feeling low because x,y,z - I am too drained to cook. That’s perfectly understandable”

That’s self compassion and acceptance. What you are not doing is putting another expectation, disappointment and negative on yourself.

@ValencyRedfern then start with a bath, clean pjs and some music.

After everyone else is in bed and you don’t feel hurried or in the way.

Or just open the window and listen to bird song for 5 mins in the morning The important thing is it is YOUR five minutes.

I think if it is at the point where you cannot find any value or worth in doing anything for yourself at all, then it is the point where you need professional help. So no, it’s not that easy to say to someone who cannot envision doing anything for themselves at all, but for other people who aren’t sure where to begin, taking care of yourself is where it begins and you can do that yourself

I think the starting point is just very basic self care. As a pp says, bath, quiet time, comfy pjs, that kind of thing. Honestly just babying yourself I suppose - slowing down and spending time just resting and being physically gentle to yourself.

Make that a habit over a few weeks, and then build in something very simple like writing in a journal or doing a simple guided meditation. Over time, the habits lead you to know yourself better. Which in turn causes you to develop compassion for yourself, which leads over time to better self esteem.

Habit formation and self care apps abound that can really help with this sort of thing. Ultimately, in order to change your thoughts you're going to need to change your habits to support those thoughts, so if you start there, you are already miles ahead tbh.

Self care and self love is about becoming, through habit and over time, the loving parent to the child that's still within you. As we all know, parenting is a long game and consists of years of tiny little interactions, paying attention, being patient and forgiving. Same goes for parenting yourself.

That’s a lovely way of describing how to claw your way out of the pit Rvby a bit like couch to 5km for self care.
It can be as simple as I will brush my teeth today.

From therapy at the moment, I am doing one thing - every time I find myself saying something horrible to myself, which I do constantly, I have to say something positive. So I found myself saying 'God Perm, you are such a jack of all trades and master of none at work' and then made myself say 'yes, and my broad range of experience means I can cover all sorts of parts of this job and my boss deploys me all over the place and values that flexibility'. It's surprisingly powerful.

Say to yourself

) If I don’t look after me, who else will?

2. It’s not me, it’s you. (This isn’t a lack of responsibility but more an acknowledgement that other people are fuckwits so why put up with their shit?)

Fake it till you make it.
Don’t criticise yourself to/in front of a potential partner.
Don’t accept treatment from potential partners that is less than ideal.

I think when you're starting out it about being very gentle on yourself- we're all our own worst critic and our inner voice can say horrible things to ourselves; things we would never say to another person in a million years. I was advised to try and catch myself when my inner voice began to say "Your so stupid/incompetent/lazy" etc etc etc (choose your weapon of choice!) and its surprising how often these things go through your head. By becoming aware of what is going through your head on autopilot you can begin to take small steps to challenging those beliefs. I know it all sounds very hippy dippy but its surprisingly useful to start changing how you think about yourself. I also love the "Note to Self: Treat yourself like a small child"- google it! Good luck, its an ongoing process but you'll get there