The First Step to Loving Yourself

A while back, I wrote an article that has gotten some traffic on Medium titled, I Healed My Depression When I Stopped Hating Myself.  While I feel that everything I wrote in that article is true, especially that I no longer suffer from depression, I am not sure that I communicated that learning to “not hate” myself really meant learning to love myself and that it was not an overnight process.

I know that I have more clarity now than I ever have, and I am not haunted by self-deprecating thoughts, but when I tried to tell someone how I changed, I was not able to articulate the steps. This article, and ones that will most possibly follow it, are an attempt to put into words how I went from suffering depressing thoughts, even contemplating suicide,  to being at peace in my mind by embracing self-love. 

There are three important steps that I took on this journey, and this article is about the first step.

The “I love myself” Mantra

I used a mantra, affirmation, call-it-what-you-will, to interrupt my thought patterns of destructive self-loathing and fear. This mantra was and is, “I love myself.” 

I first got the idea to love myself and say it from the late Louise Hay. In her book, You Can Heal Your Life, Hay suggested looking in a mirror and saying “I love you” out loud. I did this, and it was painful at first. Painful! I even wrote the words on my bathroom mirror, so I could see them every time I brushed my teeth or washed my hands. Many times I wanted to erase the words and forget the whole thing. If you do this and feel like I did, just take note. It simply means we have more work to do in the self-love area. 

A year after I started writing “I love you” on my bathroom mirror and looking into my own eyes as I said it, I made a tiny tweak to the process that I believe changed everything. The idea came from Kamal Ravikant’s book, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It. In Ravikant’s book, he documents his fall from success into a deep depression. He comes out of it by repeating over and over, “I love myself.” 

Of course, he does other things, but the mantra he adopted, “I love myself” was key to bringing him back to himself and away from the proverbial cliff he was barely holding onto. “I love you” while looking in the mirror seemed like a lie, so why did “I love myself” seem to work for me? 

I think I know the answer to that question. I read a lot. Many times I have several books going at once, and during the time I was reading Ravikant’s book, I was also reading Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion by Emile Coue, the French pharmacist who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries used autosuggestion with his clients to help them heal themselves. Through Coue’s book, I began to understand the power of the subconscious mind. Buried there, often so deep we are unaware of them, are beliefs and thoughts that literally run our lives. 

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ~Carl  Jung

When I was looking in the mirror at Louise Hay’s suggestion, through my resistance to saying, “I love you” to myself, I became aware of my subconscious self-hate, if you will. Hate seems like a strong word, but sometimes strong words are needed, and this is one of those times. I did not love myself, and I was hanging on to old criticisms and judgments, some so deep I had been unaware of them. 

However, when I lay in bed at night, after noting three things that went well during the day and practicing a little loving-kindness meditation, I decided to add twenty “I love myself” statements. Coue instructed his clients to repeat a phrase of wellness 20 times in the morning and 20 times in the evening. I decided to do this with I love myself. 

In a short time, I noticed a difference in my moods. I was feeling lighter, happier, more joyful. The “I love myself” statement written on my bathroom mirror no longer made me cringe. Why the change? 

Here is why I think this method worked. First of all, it worked as a thought pattern interrupt. Because I was saying, “I love you” repeatedly, I couldn’t think or say anything else, especially not the negative thoughts that usually hooked my attention. 

The second reason it worked, I believe, is based upon how the subconscious gets programmed in the first place, repetition. Whether I consciously loved myself or not, I kept repeating “I love myself” at least 20 times. I didn’t wait to believe it. I’m glad I didn’t because then I would have been stuck in an argument with my conscious mind, which would have been countering with, “Love yourself? Are you kidding me?” 

Over time, my subconscious got with the program, and I no longer have any resistance to saying I love myself. Not even a twinge. In fact, I can’t believe it took me so long to realize that if I am not on my own side, nothing anyone else says or does can convince me to love myself. 

By using the brain’s way of learning, I was able to interrupt old patterns of self-hate and replace them with something I needed, self-love. This was the first and biggest step in breaking the habits I had been practicing since childhood. 

Of course, there is more to loving ourselves,  and I will be writing about that soon. Until then, I hope if you are suffering from an unhealthy dose of self-loathing that you give this powerful tip a try, 21 to 30 days to be exact.  You won’t be sorry. I am sure of it. 

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash