Why You Must First Love Yourself
Everyone has heard that you have to love yourself before
someone else can love you. The reason for this is simple -
our ideal partner is a reflection of us.
We attract people that are like us. Not just in terms of
romantic, sexual/physical attraction. We attract them
metaphysically - these people tend to turn up in our lives.
Each of us has a unique belief system, a way of seeing
the world that is slightly different to everyone else's. It's
almost like our ego has a fingerprint. What turns us on,
what turns us off. What we feel is important.
Our political preferences, tastes in food and music, and so
on, all arise out of this belief system. Our particular
thoughts and feelings resonate with different aspects of
the world around us. If your thoughts are dark, you like
heavy metal. If your thoughts are happy, you like cheesey
music. We like certain foods, like for example, coffee,
because of the way they make us feel.
The types of people that come into our lives are affected
by our beliefs. We meet people who have made the same
sorts of choices we make. Where to live, which bar to go
to, which supermarket to shop at. All these choices reflect
our values and our way of being from day to day, minute
to minute.
When you enter a seminar or lecture theatre, where do you
sit? On the front row where you can ask questions or the
back where you can fall asleep without being noticed? Our
personality is reflected in the places we turn up... and so
we end up being surrounded by people who are the same
way.
Romantic compatibility has a lot to do with this. Why do
we always ask our love interest what sort of music they
like? We want to know they are on our wavelength. We
want to know they are drawn to the same emotional
experience, so we can trust that they will understand us.
It seems like this is easily faked. All you have to do is
listen to someone talk passionately and agree with them.
Find something from your own experience that is similar
emotionally and share it. But this can be hard work. It's
much easier if your passions really are similar
emotionally. That way, things just happen.
The problem comes when you are romantically attracted to
people who are not on your wavelength. This means,
people who are not right for you, but who have something
that you respect, or admire, or just desire. You want to be
with the other person to feel good about yourself, to fill
some hole inside you or to change what other people think
about you. These relationships are doomed to failure from
the start, because of the amount of energy it takes to
maintain them.
Do you like yourself? Would you be attracted to someone
who was the opposite sex version of you? Are the people
you are attracted to your mirror in terms of life philosophy,
success, social hierarchy?
The right person for you has similar political and religious
views. Their life philosophy, work ethic, wit matches yours
perfectly. There are certain adjustments to make across
the genders, for example power in men roughly equates to
looks in women. But the stress in the relationship is
directly proportional to your differences. A certain amount
of stress is healthy and keeps things interesting, but only
up to a certain breaking point.
When you think of the men or women who naturally come
into your life, the ones who have the same interests and
world view as you, are you attracted to them? The girls or
guys who you know you could get, and just be with, just
by turning round and saying you wanted them, are they the
sort of person you want? Are they the sort of person you
want to be? If you're honest with yourself, you'll probably
realise that the things you don't like about them are the
things you don't like about yourself. So you reject that
person and look for the qualities you want to see in
yourself, in someone else.
If you like yourself, you will like the people you naturally
meet, and they will like you. If you don't like yourself, you
will waste energy trying to get with people who aren't like
you, or you will settle for being with someone you don't
like.
There are two solutions to this.
The first, and most
important, is to learn to like yourself. The second, is to
turn yourself into the person that you want to be.
If you want to like yourself, one way to do it is to realise
that you are the perfect You that anyone could be. No-one
else can do the things you do quite like you. No-one sees
the world quite the same way. No-one has precisely your
talents, ambitions, or lack thereof. No-one screws things
up the same way, no-one makes the same mistakes and
faux pas'. At being you, for all your faults and weaknesses,
you would get an A+. It's ok to be the way you are - it
must be, because the way you are IS the way you are.
Once you adopt this philosophy or one like it with regard
to yourself, you will start seeing others the same way. The
truth is, you probably are attracted to the opposite sex
equivalent of you, it's just you're also turned off to them,
for the same reasons you're turned off from yourself.
Accept yourself, and you will accept them.
Many people think that their drive to improve themselves
stems from the things they don't like about themselves.
Feelings of inadequacy, dissatisfaction, or just dislike and
hatred for yourself actually won't change, no matter how
much you improve yourself. It is the feeling that needs to
be dealt with, not whichever reason you rationalise at the
time for feeling it.
It's actually easier to change and improve yourself once
you accept yourself. The same negative feelings of self-
non-acceptance lock us in to being those things that we
want to change. Change the feeling first, and the specific
details will sort themselves out.
Look at the sort of person you want to get together with.
You can become the sort of person who they would want
to be with, assuming that you're not already. If the person
they want to be with, is the sort of person that you don't
like, then you'll have to let go of those feelings, because
those feelings keep you from being like them.
Take the school computer nerd, who wants to get with the
cheerleader. But the cheerleader likes the football players.
She's physically active, she parties a lot, and is confident
in herself. So she looks for guys who are physically active,
party a lot, and are confident in themselves. It makes no
sense that she would want to be with a guy who locks
himself in his bedroom, is anti-social, and can't look her
in the eye when he speaks.
So to get the girl, the nerd must become the football
player. He can still play to his strengths with computers,
and he needn't play football. But he needs to adopt their
way of being in terms of inward qualities. If he is truly
attracted to the cheerleader, then he wants those qualities
for himself anyway, and he dislikes the contradicting
qualities he already possesses.
The nerd that truly doesn't want to become the football
player doesn't truly want the cheerleader. He wants the
bookish girl who is already on his wavelength. Either way,
the solution is rooted in self-acceptance. If he accepts
himself, he will accept the bookish girl. If once he accepts
himself, he finds that he wants to become a footballer, he
can have the cheerleader too.
Once you accept yourself you will realise your true motives
for wanting someone you can't have. If you want to be
with them to compensate for your own shortcomings, you
will no longer want them. If you want them because you
want to be like their ideal partner, then you will become
that person. So there is never a need to change yourself
for someone else.
"Who taught you how to succeed in loving someone else without teaching you how to love yourself first, you ain't loving yourself,you ain't loving anybody" by Rapstar keiss
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