Can you love someone else if you don’t love yourself?

 

Or perhaps you are considering this from the opposite angle. Can your partner love you if they don’t appear to love themselves? Great questions, right?

 

Common “wisdom” we hear tossed around is that definitively “No, You cannot love someone else until you love yourself”. I’d like to propose to you a different viewpoint.

 

First, we need to define ‘love’. It’s a word with more layers than a good lasagna. For our purposes here, I think there are essentially 2 meanings people have when they refer to romantic love.

 

1. The general feeling of appreciation for who someone is, what they stand for, how they act, and how they make you feel.
   
   
2. The deep desire for the absolute best for another person. Loving someone is often equated with wanting the best for them. This has nothing to do with what this person means in your life, but is that totally selfless feeling of well wishes for them.

 

Let’s start with the first meaning. Can you genuinely appreciate who someone else “is” without first appreciating who you are yourself? Absolutely. Now, from a philosophical (or dare I say from a spiritual perspective) one could argue that what you are actually loving IN THEM is the unmet potential IN YOURSELF. Fair enough. But regardless, you are still loving them as well. Let’s break it down to a small scale.

 

Have you ever admired a specific trait in someone else that you deeply wish you had more of yourself? I know I have. Me personally, I can’t dance for shit. I can bob to a rhythm and anything beyond that is above my pay grade. :) But I’ve been around, and I've dated people, who could own a dance floor and I friggin' loved them for it. I wanted to be like them in that way.

 

So this is the same exact principal. We are just expanding it beyond an isolated character trait to include your entire view and feelings towards a whole person. You don’t actually have to feel a certain way for yourself before you feel it for another person. Make sense?

 

Alright, good deal. So in this regard...at the level of character traits, behaviors, etc...you can absolutely love someone else for who they are if you don’t really love who you are so much.

 

But the plot thickens…

 

Can you sincerely wish the best for them if you aren’t also in love with yourself. I would propose to you that this is where things get spicier.

 

First, life is not always binary, black OR white, a 1 or a 0 (for you tech people). Things tend to exist on a spectrum. So when most folks say that they love themselves (or inversely, that they do not), they seem to be actually referring to what their dominant feeling is towards themselves. Now, almost every human being alive (outside of those suffering from some higher level mental health crises) do wish themselves the absolute best (referring back to our 2nd meaning of love). People wish themselves happiness and to overcome suffering. The sticking point lies with that other definition…do they appreciate who they are and how they behave in this life?

 

And this is how the 2 meanings connect here…

 

If you genuinely love someone else for who they are, but struggle to love yourself as much as you love them, then it will greatly impact your ability to sincerely wish the absolute best for them.

 

But why?

 

It’s actually rather simple. If you are struggling to love yourself fully, this results in foundational feelings of Not Being Good Enough. And when that belief system is in operation, it gives birth to the fear of losing someone who you PERCEIVE to be “better” than yourself. This means anytime they improve their life it has the potential to act as a threat to your security to keep them in your life.

 

So while you love them and in some ways absolutely do want to see them completely happy and living up to their highest potential, part of you will be scared that if they do actually do that, then at some point, they will now also perceive themselves to be better than you in some way and ultimately leave you.

 

So this creates a tug of war. You do love them for who they. Truly. And you do want the best for them. But you’re also scared that if they become the best version of themselves they will leave you. And this is where it becomes difficult to fully love someone when you don’t fully love yourself.

 

But again, it is not black and white. It’s a spectrum. So rather than thinking you CANNOT love someone else until you love yourself, it is actually far more accurate to think of it this way…

 

The depth of your self-love is a limiter to the depth you can love another person.

 

When you are truly in love with yourself, there will be no fear of abandonment caused by feelings of inferiority in some way. There is a knowingness that you are plenty good enough. That this person is just as fortunate as you are to have crossed paths and be in each other’s lives.

 

This same principle I discussed here is actually discussed by Don Miguel Ruiz in his truly incredible book, The Mastery of Love. If you have not read this, I HIGHLY recommend it. Miguel is a truly insightful man and his wisdom can benefit literally everyone. In the book, Miguel discusses this principle from an entirely different perspective though. You could easily read the book and not even see the connection to what we discussed today.

 

Read my blog here for more info….

 

So what are we going to do with this information? Information that changes nothing, well changes nothing. Being exposed to a new perspective is only Step 1. Now we need to give it power.

 

So…

 

First, check in with yourself and really get real with the level to which you love yourself. What feelings bubble up naturally?

 

Now, let’s help you fall in love with yourself a bit more. I want you to think about a few things you have done in the past that if your partner (or someone you wanted to date potentially) did the exact same things…you would feel some serious affection for them. We have all done some great things! Many of us give ourselves NO credit but are quick to give it to others.

 

What are you coming up with? Now start a new Word document. Or a file in the Notes app on your phone. Or a Journal. Or write on a piece of paper you keep next to your desk. Anywhere. Start a page titled Why I Am Awesome. What Makes Me Amazing. Or Great Shit I've Done! Use your language. And set a phone reminder for sometime before bedtime that reminds you about this.

 

Seriously. Do this.

 

Everyday, add to this. Small things. Big things....That compliment you gave a stranger. The few bucks you gave to that homeless family. The time you could have reacted with anger to Karen at work, but instead took a pause and DID NOTHING. That’s a good one! Oftentimes Doing Nothing is the hardest effort at taking a higher path.

 

Two things will happen here…

 

1. You will start to fall more and more in love with yourself.
   
   
2. This is going to serve as a daily reminder to ACT like the best version of yourself instead of just thinking about it.

 

I love you all. And I believe in you.

Make Happiness A Habit.

 

Love & Light,

Rich

 

Photo Credit: https://www.pexels.com/@ian-panelo/

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