What Does It Mean to Truly Love Yourself?

GreatDepression
GreatDepression Posts: 347 Member
in Motivation and Support
and what role should physical appearance play in someone's inherent self-worth? Being formerly obese, I feel the message I got most of my life from others is that I was less valuable due to my appearance.

Replies

  • DecemberPsalm
    DecemberPsalm Posts: 97 Member
    Self worth should arise from being a caring, kind person - it has absolutely nothing to do with one's appearance.
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
    I feel the message I got most ...

    Self worth is not a message you get from others. It is what you believe and tell yourself. To me, loving yourself is coming to grips with who you are at any given moment, and finding value there. Doesn't mean you are happy with everything about yourself.
  • shadowofender
    shadowofender Posts: 786 Member
    It took me a long time to figure this out and honestly I still work on it. I probably always will. But as someone who dealt with self harm, the path to loving myself has been littered with insecurity and set backs...
    To love myself is to accept myself as I am. I am overweight. I can be comfortable in my body and love how I look, but I also face the reality of the weight and the health issues. Which is why I'm losing weight. Does that make sense? Just one example/
  • jkal1979
    jkal1979 Posts: 1,896 Member
    To me part of loving yourself is not letting others opinions of you affect your own opinion of yourself. Focus on the things that you love about yourself while accepting what you don't like and working on improving those areas.

    That doesn't just go for weight, but for everything.
  • twinkles2121
    twinkles2121 Posts: 137 Member
    I feel the message I got most ...

    Self worth is not a message you get from others. It is what you believe and tell yourself. To me, loving yourself is coming to grips with who you are at any given moment, and finding value there. Doesn't mean you are happy with everything about yourself.

    Exactly this! Well Said.
  • candistyx
    candistyx Posts: 547 Member
    I don't really get the concept of "self-worth". To myself I am worth the fact I get to enjoy existing by being me. What more could there be, the universe doesn't give a crap. Some other people might give a crap but they're all insignificant ants, as am I, in the grander scheme of things. It would be no big deal if we all died tonight - but we'd care because living is awesome and it would be sad for it to end so soon.

    Sure it would be nice to do some good for someone too, but nothing I can do will ever be enough to really matter overall, there are 8 billion or so other people who could easily step in and fill in for me in almost every way - but none of them will be able to experience for me, only for themselves.

    Appearance is vanity, but so is most everything else we do to. There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.
  • GreatDepression
    GreatDepression Posts: 347 Member
    I don't really get the concept of "self-worth". To myself I am worth the fact I get to enjoy existing by being me. What more could there be, the universe doesn't give a crap. Some other people might give a crap but they're all insignificant ants, as am I, in the grander scheme of things. It would be no big deal if we all died tonight - but we'd care because living is awesome and it would be sad for it to end so soon.

    Sure it would be nice to do some good for someone too, but nothing I can do will ever be enough to really matter overall, there are 8 billion or so other people who could easily step in and fill in for me in almost every way - but none of them will be able to experience for me, only for themselves.

    Appearance is vanity, but so is most everything else we do to. There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.

    Hmm. Very nihilistic view of life. I've struggled with that way of looking at life in the past. I find that in my dark moments, that approach to life made me devalue the significance of the individual.
  • aedreana
    aedreana Posts: 979 Member
    I judge other people by one standard ONLY: how they treat animals. What someone looks like has nothing whatsoever to do with what kind of person they are. I judge myself totally by my own standard, regardless of what anyone else thinks of me. How much education anyone has, what kind of career they have, how much money they have, cannot intimidate nor impress me. I live by no one's doctrines but my own; I find all answers within my own heart. I am proud to be someone who lives according to her principles.

    And ants are NOT insignificant at all.
  • Mygsds
    Mygsds Posts: 1,564 Member
    I judge other people by one standard ONLY: how they treat animals. What someone looks like has nothing whatsoever to do with what kind of person they are. I judge myself totally by my own standard, regardless of what anyone else thinks of me. How much education anyone has, what kind of career they have, how much money they have, cannot intimidate nor impress me. I live by no one's doctrines but my own; I find all answers within my own heart. I am proud to be someone who lives according to her principles.

    And ants are NOT insignificant at all.

    Absolutely agree... To love a animal is to love yourself.
  • RebeccaP1972
    RebeccaP1972 Posts: 101 Member
    Honestly, I haven't learned to love myself yet (but I'm working on it)

    Yes the message I feel like I am getting is that the prettier, skinner, one is... the more valuable they are.
  • Scruffbyname
    Scruffbyname Posts: 3
    Starting out on my journey today and the first steps will be the most difficult I guess. It's comforting to know I'm not alone. I've had and have self-esteem issues since as long as i can remember, yet have no idea where their roots are.
    People ask me what it is that gets me down but theres' really nothing I can put my finger on in particular. Sometimes you just feel like there's a big hole in you.
    That said, I'd like to be there for all of you as you are there for me and hope that we can achieve our aims together.
  • allbarrett
    allbarrett Posts: 159 Member
    What do you care what other people think?
    - Richard Feynman
  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member
    Knowing who I am and what I stand for is my self worth. The fact that my society happens to detest who I am and what I stand for makes me love myself even more, because that is how I know that what I call 'I' did not simply arise, conditioned, out of the society I was raised in.

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