The Courage to Love Oneself
If you wish, you can watch the video here. Or follow the guided meditation.
In the last post, we looked at love expressed in our intimate, tender relationships that stretches us and helps us grow.
As we continue to explore the courage to love, knowing there is nothing to hang on to, we turn inwards towards the courage to love ourselves.
For many, love for ourselves can feel elusive, foreign, even wrong. We may carry messages from our childhood or the cultures we've grown up in that we're not good or perfect enough to be worthy of love. Many of us grew up feeling unseen or underappreciated, and may have absorbed the belief that to love ourselves is somehow self-centered or indulgent. And yet this kind of love is neither inflated nor self-important. It's honest, grounded, and tender. It's the courage to meet ourselves as we are, with no pretense and no need to fix or change anything, to be worthy of care.
Basic goodness at the core.
Just like in our relationships, self-love isn't about controlling or idealization. It's about seeing clearly and loving anyway. At the heart is recognizing that we, like every other being, want to be happy and free from suffering. Though we may act out of confusion, sometimes harming ourselves or others, there is a basic goodness at the core, even when we feel cut off from it. Rather than idolizing perfection, we can turn toward this human being, this life, this experience, however imperfect or confused, and feel the caring kindness right in the effort we make.
Intention matters.
Self-love recognises that our intentions matter. Even when we stumble, simply that we try is worthy of appreciation. We can start small, noticing that we got up today, fed ourselves, went for a walk, or showed up to work, to family, to our daily responsibilities and tried to be kind. When our heart was heavy, maybe we reached out to a friend or allowed ourselves to be held by someone. These gestures are themselves acts of love that matter.
Offering ourselves kindness.
Sometimes this love for self shows up when we make space for our mistakes and allow ourselves to be messy, confused, or off track. It surfaces when we stop punishing ourselves for not being what we think we should be, and instead offer ourselves the same compassion we would offer to a dear friend. Because underneath the layers of judgment and pressure, there is still this human being, alive and aware, still desiring to be free, still capable of deep kindness and connection.
A doorway to wisdom.
Just as with the courage to love others knowing we can't hold on, we can’t grasp on to a fixed idea of who we are. We're not solid, and not defined by our worst moments or our best moments. We are a process, living beings in motion, responding, evolving, changing. And when we bring this awareness to ourselves, we begin to soften the grip on ourselves as an object of blame or constant fixing. We begin to hold ourselves with more spaciousness, more honesty, more tenderness, and we start to feel at home in our own being. The love we offer ourselves becomes the foundation for how we show up in the world.
When we feel at home in ourselves even a little bit, we're less reactive, less needy, and less likely to seek wholeness through others. We begin to relate with more generosity, clarity and a greater sense of freedom. Our journey along the path can deepen. Loving ourselves is itself the expression of wisdom and compassion, not separate from loving others. In fact, the more we love ourselves wisely, the more fully we can love without clinging or making demands.
Appreciating yourself.
So I invite you to take moments to appreciate yourself, not in a forced or performative way, but gently, quietly, and with honesty. Look at the ways that you care, the ways that you have tried, the ways you have shown up, even when it was hard. And this appreciation, this courage to turn toward yourself, is already love in action.
Up next …
In the next post, we'll look at the way self-love naturally leads to interconnection and seeing that the boundaries between self and other are not so fixed, that we are part of a larger, independent, interdependent web of life. But for now, we can start with a moment of tenderness toward the one who's been with you through it all: you.