"You need to love yourself before others can love you."

For me it's true true true.

I've had any number of people love me, but my abject insecurity leads me to feel unworthy of that love, and I run away.

I think it's true, but only to a certain extent. I think it's true with romantic love, but you don't need to love yourself 100% in order for someone to love you. As long as you love yourself enough to make the effort to try to love yourself more, and to want to become a better person. It's important to have that effort, even if you are not quite to the point of fully loving yourself. (And who is, really?)
And, I might add, you have to feel deserving of the love you get. I think that's the clincher right there.

I think it's taken to literally, I think of it as accepting who I am and that's because I've learned that some of us believe we are the only ones that enjoy being different most people are just like us. Now the thing about them is they believe they're special but we know the truth because we live the truth every day it smacks us in the face as soon as we open our eyes in the morning or look out a window at the world rushing by, And that's because we go through life with our eyes open.

Aletheia said:

For me it's true true true.

I've had any number of people love me, but my abject insecurity leads me to feel unworthy of that love, and I run away.

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Yeah, that. I can never understand why someone would want to be with me. I used to bug my boyfriend all the time, asking him why he loved me. His answers were never satisfactory.

For those of you that say it's BS, you just don't understand what the quote really means.

I think its more you have to just accept yourself, because things you hate about yourself might be what another loves about you! and if you dont accept those qualities you hate, you wouldnt show them so how would that person know to love you?

Ive loved people who have had some terriable qualities that i hated about them! lol but they were honest about it and accepted that about themselves which i why i loved them!

I think you need to be comfortable in your own skin before people can love you is more accurate.

this_portrait said:

Am I the only one who really despises that phrase?

I used to try living up to it, don't get me wrong... But nowadays, I just think it's complete b/s. There are things I like about myself and wouldn't change for anything, but there are also a few things that I just can't stand about myself, but they're far too difficult for me to change. Hearing that phrase just seems to give me this idea that my mental health and self-esteem needs to be 100% perfect in order for anyone to even get along with me. I find that b/s, too, because I've come across plenty of people who I find have more mental health and self-esteem issues than me, yet they seem to have more people who care for them than I do.

Thoughts?

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Very much agreed. This is, more than ever, an era of "love yourself and screw everyone else... if you can be bothered to acknowledge their existance". True, in certain instances if you are too negative about yourself, then others can pick up more on your negative traits more easily and probably will only have that as their estimation of you. The aforementioned cliche is just too flawed in too many ways as far as I'm concerned.

elek2ronik said:

For those of you that say it's BS, you just don't understand what the quote really means.

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In terms of how it is largely interpreted, yes it is very much b/s. In terms of being able to love yourself before you yourself can receive the love of others? That I do agree with.

Azael said:

In terms of how it is largely interpreted, yes it is very much b/s. In terms of being able to love yourself before you yourself can receive the love of others? That I do agree with.

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you know what's interesting? After reading this post, I've just gained a new perspective on that phrase. Many people misinterpret it and saying it's "bs" because of what they think love is really about. I'm not saying that I completely understand it either, especially when it comes to connecting the word with my own life, but now that you mentioned the word "receive" and putting that into context with "love", it brought me the idea that love isn't something you just "receive". This brings me to the point that it is not merely a thing you expect to "get" from others, because that is something you can't control and will become almost impossible to "get." This gives new meaning to "Love isn't selfish". Just like how love isn't just a feeling you get. It's something you act on. It's an action word. It's what you DO, and therefore, what you show, you give. In order to receive love, you have to give it. So a question one might like to consider asking is: how else can you be able to love others if you don't know how to love yourself in the first place? Or maybe, how else can you demonstrate something that you don't really quite understand yourself?

When they say you need to love yourself, it's basically making a conscious decision to really accept who you are, as a whole and embracing the fact that you may be imperfect but you still value your life enough to become a better person. I think this phrase applies to everyone who may be struggling with self-esteem, depression or who may be trapped in an abusive relationship, as well as people in general who have made the choice not to love because they've given up hope in finding a potential soulmate, etc. ::

I just hate how people with SA use this phrase to justify avoiding dating or relationships of any kind.

You gain confidence in yourself by dating and meeting more people.

SM1010 said:

I just hate how people with SA use this phrase to justify avoiding dating or relationships of any kind.

You gain confidence in yourself by dating and meeting more people.

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If only it was that simple for people to just go out and date but even if meeting people doesn't help a lot to gain confidence, then at least finding out the steps to accepting oneself might motivate one person to do so. I still don't have the confidence to date but then again, it's the least of my concerns since my school and career preparation needs more attention and it's something that I have more control as opposed to people who just don't show interest in me, period. I don't have SA, well, at least not as much now as I did before but I don't believe that my lack of dating experience really contribute to the lack of confidence I had before. I've yet to hear from anyone's experience on how dating has helped boost their confidence over other means suggested by health experts or by reading some inspiration quotes online.

I hate that phrase. In order to help yourself through depression, you need support. I don't understand how people think you can just be OK and THEN make friends. Most of the time, it doesn't work that way at all. And thus, when depressed people can't find support, they get more depressed.

I have to disagree with this phrase.

I hate alot about myself, and my wife always picks up on the good things and makes me see them. I love her for that.

I hated myself and she STILL fell in love with me. dont know why,

The phrase should be you must love others before you love yourself. People tend to get out of this world what they put in to the world.

I'd say how much you love yourself depends on your quality of life. You can hate yourself and still have others like you, I used to be like that.

I think the words should be changed to the quote. It should be something more like, "If you don't love yourself, it can be harder for certain others to love you because you lack confidence in yourself."

I mean, I get the theme of the quote, it's just worded incorrectly.

I don't hate myself, but I'm having a hard time imagining anyone loving me (besides my parents, I mean).

I belive it. It is the self-confidence of some people that pulls others closer to them. If you are convinced that what you say is right people don't see the flaws in what you do. Because you never point them and make THEM believe you are right (even though sometimes there is no sense completely in what you say) by not letting anyone see you're mistaken. With a person with high self-confidence you feel safer and more appreciated: after all, the perfect person, who never seems to make mistakes, chose to spend time with you. And that is why people reach out to those who make an impression of those who can control every situation and have power over other (when usually it is just their high self-confidence that believes so and makes you believe so too).

I personally hate myself. And make a fool of myself so often, even though I dont consider myself stupid. And it makes people disrespect me but Im the only one to blame.

I am writing from my phone and I cant see the whole text at all and it makes kind of hard to form correct sentences haha. Sorry for that.

Loving yourself doesn't mean loving EVERY part of yourself just like loving someone else doesn't mean you love EVERY single part of them. Nobody, and I mean nobody loves everything about themselves. Everyone has problems and things they don't like about who they are or what they do, etc. Loving yourself is simply accepting yourself, faults and all. You don't have to love yourself unconditionally for others to love you, but you do have to accept yourself.

SM1010 said:

I just hate how people with SA use this phrase to justify avoiding dating or relationships of any kind.

You gain confidence in yourself by dating and meeting more people.

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It's not only sa people who use this, it's people in general.

The Lone Gunman said:

I have to disagree with this phrase.

I hate alot about myself, and my wife always picks up on the good things and makes me see them. I love her for that.

I hated myself and she STILL fell in love with me. dont know why,

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I envy you, You are a lucky guy. I hope one day i'll find a woman like that.

I hate it too but unfortuantely there is some truth to that statement. It's easy for others can love you even though you absolutely despise yourself; however, it's hard to be in a relationship with someone who hates who they are.