What It Means to Love Yourself (And Why It Matters) Self-love and egotism might both have to do with the self, but the difference between them is the size of a canyon. Loving oneself and being confident, in a healthy manner, is critical for stable mental health. Just like physical health, there are ways in which we can make ourselves susceptible to disease. Poor hygiene and exposure to the elements are common ways to set yourself up for sickness, like the cold or common flu.
In the same way, ignoring your own mental health, and falling into patterns of self-loathing or doubt is one way to develop a real psychological and emotional diagnosis. In the case of addiction and addiction recovery, understanding what it means to stay mentally healthy – and employ self-love as part of greater criteria for being emotionally fit – can help you stay sober.
What Self-Love Is About
Self-love is not about narcissism, nor is it about running away from your personal problems and mistakes by ignoring them in favor of “happiness”. Instead, self-love is about being at peace with yourself.
Think of it this way. Love is an expression of acceptance. When someone loves you, they are explicitly saying that there is something about you enough to make you a priority to them and in their lives. Typically, to love someone truly (and not in an abusive or abused way) is to realize that person has value.
Yet the way the world works is that there are absolutely no guarantees others will notice and love you. While we are defined by those around us, and shape and mold our thoughts around our environment, sourcing your only form of acceptance and validation externally is a recipe for disaster, pain, and self-doubt. Instead, self-love is the concept of looking in the mirror and telling yourself that you are there for you, no matter what. It is not about saying you are the best thing in the world, but it is about telling yourself that you are worth it – you are worth wanting the best for yourself, whether it is about pursuing that dream of yours or getting in shape or quitting drinking.
Self-love is about being able to think of yourself in a positive light, and actively wanting what is best for you. It should never be at the cost of others, but as a statement of how your goals and aspirations are worth pursuing. This is not a selfish pursuit.
Think of a complex piece of machinery, one integral to your everyday life. Your car, for example. If you do not service your car and take care of it, it will quickly ride itself into a deteriorating condition. Eventually, it will stall out, break down, or stop starting up. Much the same way, if you do not take care of yourself, you will soon be incapable of doing anything for others.
Understanding self-love, and actively employing it, is not just helpful for addiction recovery. At some point or another, it will be necessary for anyone wanting to lead an emotionally healthy life. For relationships, understanding your self-worth and being confident in who you are is important – in other words, if you want to be able to love others, you will have to first be comfortable with loving yourself.
This does not mean accepting all your flaws and problems as unchangeable – it means understanding that to change for the better, you must first agree that you are worth it. It also means being able to put your own worth at an equal footing as that of your partner – relationships come in all sorts of forms and shapes, and they accommodate numerous dynamics and roles – but without equal footing, the chances of emotional abuse are high.
If you only source your sense of belonging and value from how much you can do for others, rather than understanding that your value is inherent, then any event in which you’re incapable of contributing for one reason or another will be a crippling blow to you. Self-love is about knowing that you are still a valuable, worthwhile person, no matter what, and that to honor your value towards others, you must stay strong and healthy.
Shunning Shame
Aside from understanding the sheer importance of being valuable to yourself, self-love is also a mechanism through which to shun the shame and guilt of addiction. Long-term sobriety is not just a challenge of not consuming any drugs or alcohol – it is a challenge of being able to:
Forgive yourself after your drug misuse and accept the importance of getting better.
Actively remind yourself that you are worth the trouble of rehab, detox, and other treatments.
Remember that you are better than an addiction, and that life is much better when you are clearheaded and hopeful.
Addiction thrives off the emotions of guilt and shame, and it perpetuates these emotions through us knowing that what we are doing is bad, but we cannot stop. Breaking that cycle is incredibly hard, but it is even harder to move past those feelings of guilt and shame. Yet through self-love – through the idea that you have inherent value and the things you can achieve in the future are worth fighting for – you can set aside the guilt and the shame and make up for it with the potential and realization of a better version of yourself.
The thing about addiction is that it is not just about whether the substance continues to linger in your body, or whether your brain is still associating it with pleasure. It is also about whether your mind has moved on. If you continue to feel guilty about your addiction, you will have difficulty moving on.
Sure, remorse and guilt – and even shame – are incredibly important emotions. We are meant to feel a lingering sense of guilt and shame about the bad things we have done. Yet if you associate your addiction with a sense of moral shortcoming, then you will forever associate yourself with being weak and culpable for becoming addicted. This is just not how it works.
The only thing you are culpable for when struggling with addiction is your own recovery. This is on you. Getting addicted is often a matter of unfortunate circumstances, genetics, and half a dozen other uncontrollable factors – not will. Instead, feel grateful for sobriety. Feel grateful for those who supported you in you’re recovery. Feel grateful for the choices you have made to get better.