During one of my recent runs, I was thinking about how ways of broadening my own self-love. Instinctively, my mind started circulating through the characteristics I like about myself and how this makes me feel. And then I caught myself.
When we think about fostering self-love, the question we tend to ask ourselves is how can I become more lovable? How can I develop more of the qualities I like about myself and get rid of those I deem unacceptable?
But loving what’s easy to love is perhaps more akin to having a preference than loving. Love is profound, non-judgmental acceptance.
The real question then about increasing self-love is how can I love what I think is the unlovable? How can I accept myself just as I am?
When love is limited to the lovable, we reject what we believe is unacceptable about us.
Our less acceptable characteristics are survival mechanisms
Renowned addiction expert, Gabor Mate, says that the most important question about addictions is not why the addiction, but why the pain. The addiction, he asserts, is a response to the pain and often keeps us safe from something worse.
Our characteristics, personalities and behaviour develop in response to the circumstances we grew up in. As children, we learn to mould ourselves to the expectations of caregivers in exchange for their keeping us safe. In other words, behavioural responses such as anxiety, addictions, perfectionism, fear are often self-preservation mechanisms.
Conventionally, we believe that our unlovable characteristics have harmed us or kept us back in life. And that’s one of the main reasons why we’re so judgemental of them. But our less acceptable personality traits have served us. And if we can consider and recognise this, we can let go of some of the judgement that’s standing on the way of loving these aspects of ourselves.
When we reject something, we make it persists
Rejection is a judgement that something should be a certain way and not another. It’s the dual black/white, right/wrong perspective that’s so steeped in how most cultures think about the world.
Survival is at the bottom of this, too. We reject the unlovable because we perceive it as a threat to our survival. But how right are we in making this judgement considering humankind’s limited knowledge about life? And how correct are we in knowing what’s lovable and what isn’t?
We may think that being strong is lovable, but there’s plenty of evidence that showing vulnerability fosters a deep bond between people. We may think that we shouldn’t be nervous around people, but signs of our humanity often endear people. We may think that we should be composed and unemotional, but expressing bottled-up emotions often grounds us more firmly in the present moment.
And if there are any valid strategies for survival perhaps being present is one of the most important ones. The more unaffected presence we can have in any moment, the more connected we are with ourselves and the world around us. This present-moment groundedness is what gives us the best ability to react to any situation. As such, it’s not the rejection of the unlovable that equips us to deal better with life, it’s its acceptance.
In the words of Maya Angelou,
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
Judgement makes us contract around and hold onto what we’re judging, which prolongs the hurt. Ironically, when we relax and loosen around these behaviours and characteristics and we stop resisting them, they tend to just flow through us and dissipate.
Loving the unlovable is how we can foster deep self-acceptance. Not just because the unlovable may be more lovable than we’ve been assuming, but because it is what’s most asking for our love.