Do You Love Yourself?

by Bamboo Forest

There are many things we’d never do to others, but are more than willing to do to ourselves.

  • If your roommates had a big day tomorrow, would you blast your music knowing it would keep them up?
  • If your friend was trying to lose weight, would you put a big platter of donuts in front of him while he’s working?
  • If you saw someone writing a term paper, would you sneak up behind them and caress their cheek with a feather every couple minutes to distract them from getting work done?

Unless you’re evil, you wouldn’t do any of the above.

We tend to be considerate to others, but sometimes we’re absolutely evil to our own sense of well being.

Isn’t that messed up?

Ways we can be cruel to ourselves

  • if you had a big report to do, you might procrastinate, wait till the last minute, and as a result give yourself tremendous suffering by pulling an all nighter and finishing with a job that’s below your ability.
  • You might choose to stay up late to watch a movie even though you know you need your sleep for the big day tomorrow.
  • Knowing how important it is to you to lose weight, you may still decide to indulge in fattening foods not on your diet.

When we make decisions that compromise the quality of our lives, we have to be honest with ourselves and really ask the question: do we even love ourselves?

Further, what are the signs of someone who loves someone else?

Think about the above question and then begin to apply the answer to yourself.

Being kind and considerate to others is of course an obligation.

So why wouldn’t we give that same honor and respect to ourselves?

Think about it.

Bamboo Forest is an Email Life Coach, helping people work on something in their life over the course of a month through email. He’s also the founder of Tick Tock Timer.

Photo by NeilsPhotography

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

The Vizier February 5, 2011 at 1:24 am

Hi Bamboo Forest,

This is an interesting way to deal with our negative habits.

I like how you suggest that we should consider whether our actions are an act of self love before we act on them. There is certainly merit in what you say. This is especially so when we consider it in the light of what we would do to others. It is true that if we do not indulge in activities that harm others, we should not do so to ourselves as well.

I think one important aspect should be awareness. It is easy to go through life like a zombie and not be aware of what we are truly doing until it is too late. By cultivating awareness of our actions, we can consider whether they are an act of self love and act in a better way.

Thank you for sharing this lovely article! 🙂

Irving the Vizier

Reply

Bamboo Forest February 5, 2011 at 8:28 pm

@ The Vizier: Agreed. Cultivating awareness is absolutely essential in living a successful life.

In some ways, or perhaps in all ways, to the degree we succeed in life is to the degree we’ve cultivated awareness.

Reply

Scott McIntyre | Vivid Ways February 6, 2011 at 1:32 pm

Hi Bamboo Forest,

This has been an area I’ve been thinking over for a while now.

To add to your examples, we can say some hurtful things to ourselves that we would never dream of saying to anyone else. And, if we overheard another person speaking in this way to a friend, we would call it bullying.

I really do believe that it’s a worthwhile investment to regularly spend time reflecting on who we are and what we’ve achieved. Crucially, we need to allow ourselves to actually celebrate these things.

It’s an alien concept to most of us… we’re normally so used to knocking ourselves down.

It’s not at all easy to learn to love (or even like) who we are, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try.

Reply

Bamboo Forest February 6, 2011 at 9:04 pm

@ Scott: Good point on how we wouldn’t say mean things to others but will sometimes do that to ourselves.

For example, unless we’re not very nice, we wouldn’t tell someone they’re not capable of achieving something, yet sometimes we won’t hesitate to tell ourselves this.

Appreciate the insight.

Reply

Togrul February 15, 2011 at 6:56 am

Hi Bamboo Forest,

I read your article and realized how “bad” I loved myself…Thanks for awakening me…I need to really start forming completely different approach to the relations with inner me.

Cheers,
Togrul

Reply

Bamboo Forest February 15, 2011 at 7:52 am

@ Togrul: Thanks for visiting.

All of us can probably improve in this arena.

Reply

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