Are we called to love ourselves?

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Maria1993

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Hey everyone, I would like for you to shed some light on this for me.

I know we must love others. But must we also love ourselves? Ive always struggled with self confidence when I was younger…I mean I still am young, but I just want to know if we should love ourselves… like I know the difference between being arrogant and prideful, but it’s kind of weird trying to love others when I don’t really “give myself a chance”… Sometimes I feel "undeserving " but I thank God for everything… 🙂
But I feel this is like another barrier I’m dealing with…

So I am wondering, when we are called to love others, must we also love ourselves?

Thanks in advance and God Bless…
 
It’s a very good question.

You will hear a lot from the society about “loving yourself.” It is said that before you can love anyone else, you have to love yourself.

I do not believe this to be true. In fact, I think the current idea of “loving yourself” is narcissistic and prideful. Many people seem to never progress from “loving” themselves to truly loving others. The selfish attitude of “I deserve this” seems to arise from “loving” ourselves too much.

I think we should turn our eyes less to ourselves and more to God. “Remove that which is me, and replace it with You,” is one of my fervent prayers.
 
What I mostly mean is to be comfortable with yourself…
Like to see what God sees in us. 🙂

I know I am a sinner and fall short from the Glory of God.
But that us why I need him. And I don’t hate myself, I just want to be able to be comfortable with myself…you know?

I truly don’t deserve much, but whatever I get comes from the hand of God.
 
TheRealJuliane said:
It’s a very good question.

You will hear a lot from the society about “loving yourself.” It is said that before you can love anyone else, you have to love yourself.

I do not believe this to be true. In fact, I think the current idea of “loving yourself” is narcissistic and prideful. Many people seem to never progress from “loving” themselves to truly loving others. The selfish attitude of “I deserve this” seems to arise from “loving” ourselves too much.

I think we should turn our eyes less to ourselves and more to God. “Remove that which is me, and replace it with You,” is one of my fervent prayers.
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I agree with your assessment of society and its tendency to encourage narcissism. Thwe whole fashion industry seems to revolve around it. So too does the use of You Tube! There is nothing more off putting than someone who is full of themselves.

However, surely the clue to all this is in the Commandment “Love thy neighbour as thyself”.

“Love thy neighbour AS THYSELF”.

We are asked not to simply love our neighbour, or to simply love ourselves. We are being asked to love in a very specific way. We are asked to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. So the question is, how do we love our neighbour, or perhaps in what way do we love our neighbour? If we can figure out how we are supposed to love our neighbour, then we have a pointer towards how we are supposed to love ourselves.

I have had this argument with others on CAF before this, so I’ll put it out once again. There is just no way that I can love some dude down the road who is mean to his cats, drinks like a fish, swears like a trooper and is lazy as all hell. Nor can I love some dude on the other side of the world whom I’ve not only never ever met, but who I’ve never even heard of. It just doesn’t make sense to me that I should love someone I don’t even know.

However, I recognise that even the mean and nasty bloke down the road is a human being and I assume that the people on the other side of the world who I am yet to meet are also humans, so I accord each one a certain basic respect because of their membership of the human race and people I know better I can accord even more. After all, we are taught that God made us in His image and, despite the fact that the bloke down the road is trashing his, that makes us pretty special and unique.

That being the case, shouldn’t we then accord to ourselves, as a minimum, a basic respect simply because we are human beings? However, we can know ourselves a whole lot more and so perhaps come to respect ourselves as much as we do the people to whom we are the closest. Perhaps as we come to know ourselves even better, we can come to love ourselves just the way we love the people to whom we are the closest and that love for self must include respect and honour.
 
Maria1993 said:
Hey everyone, I would like for you to shed some light on this for me.

I know we must love others. But must we also love ourselves? Ive always struggled with self confidence when I was younger…I mean I still am young, but I just want to know if we should love ourselves… like I know the difference between being arrogant and prideful, but it’s kind of weird trying to love others when I don’t really “give myself a chance”… Sometimes I feel "undeserving " but I thank God for everything… 🙂
But I feel this is like another barrier I’m dealing with…

So I am wondering, when we are called to love others, must we also love ourselves?

Thanks in advance and God Bless…
Click to expand...
When Christ said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” He wasn’t referring to everyone but you.😛

Yes, we must love ourselves. Christ is in us, too, after all.

Luna
 
It will be our life’s journey trying to reconcile how God could love us, sinners. We are called, day in and day out, to seek after this profound love, and be transformed by it. In due time, we will learn how to truly love ourselves, while at the same time hate our sin. We will be more eager to appreciate the good qualities that God has given us. We will see our human nature not as us, but as God’s image. We are not our own! And so, to love God is to love oneself, for sake of God. For this very same phenomenon, we are called to love others. God has given each and every one of us unique strengths that he will form and mold into a wonderful sculpture. In our pursuit of living as God’s benevolence, we will naturally want to share ourselves, for the sake of God. We will see ourselves not as God’s gift to ourselves, but as God’s gift to others.

We are called to love others as we love ourselves.
 
+JMJ+

This topic, loving oneself, has also been troubling me, and I have been thinking about it, for the past few years 😛 I think I have grasped just some aspects of the problem when looking at suffering and comparing it to the Catholic views on fasting and virginity.

Now most people think that we Catholics have a disparaging view on food because we like fasting. Actually it is exactly the opposite. We have a very high regard on fasting because food is so good! By fasting we sacrifice food for something higher, and since food is so good for us, we honor much what we sacrifice food for, for example loving God.

So it is with virginity. Consecrated virginity is actually held in a higher place by the Catholic Church compared to Sacramental Marriage because sex and marriage are so good! To give up so much, to give up the goodness and joy of sex and marriage, is to honor very highly the one we sacrifice them for, for example loving God.

And therefore, suffering is held so much value by the Catholic Church because we, our selves, are so good! For suffering is nothing more than our selves being denied. Suffering is us being kept from enjoying our selves. And yet, if we offer up our sufferings in conjunction with love, it is in suffering that we let others, including God, enjoy our selves.

Love transforms everything. That’s why hunger by itself is nothing but horror, and we feed someone who is starving and cannot feed him/herself. And that’s why we look at someone who is sexually frigid, or is denied to have sexual intimacy by disease, disfigurement, or whatnot as someone to be pitied. And of course pain by itself is not valued, but shunned and scorned. However, use love, and you transform hunger to fasting, frigidness into sacramental virginity, and pain into redemptive suffering.

And that’s why we ought to love ourselves, and (I couldn’t stress this enough) NOT ENJOY OUR SELVES. For what the world means when we should love ourselves is to enjoy our selves. But that is pride. To “love ourselves” is actually to take care of ourselves, even to deny our selves of legitimate pleasures, so that our selves may grow in strength, in wisdom, and in holiness. For how can we give ourselves to God and others for them to enjoy us if we have no selves to give?

God love you.
 
"Love thy neighbour as thyself"

To love someone in the objective sense is to desire their physical and spiritual well-being, and so loving yourself in the objective sense does not preclude humility.

In the case of our neighbour, we must love him and desire what is truly good for him even if he is a thief or has hurt us in some way. We must desire his salvation, and if he should find himself in physical need, say he were hungry, we mustn’t prevent him from eating and instead help him if we can. We mustn’t wish evil on him, for that would be hate.

Similarly with regard to ourselves, we must love ourselves in the objective sense and desire what is good for us physically and spiritually. A man doesn’t truly love himself if he is proud or arrogant, as those things are not good for the soul. A man doesn’t love himself if he engages in drug abuse as that wounds him physically.

Self-confidence does not mean a lack of humility. Recognising your own strengths does not make you are proud and arrogant if you acknowledge that all your good qualities are a gift from your Creator and not something that you have worked for and developed in your own capacity. Even if you’re an excellent pianist who has spent decades practising, it is God who made you in such a way and given you particular talents so that your efforts would bear fruit. All glory should go to God. That said, at the end of the day, you are still an excellent pianist 🙂

God loves you. And you can love yourself too.
 
Maria1993 said:
Hey everyone, I would like for you to shed some light on this for me.

I know we must love others. But must we also love ourselves? Ive always struggled with self confidence when I was younger…I mean I still am young, but I just want to know if we should love ourselves… like I know the difference between being arrogant and prideful, but it’s kind of weird trying to love others when I don’t really “give myself a chance”… Sometimes I feel "undeserving " but I thank God for everything… 🙂
But I feel this is like another barrier I’m dealing with…

So I am wondering, when we are called to love others, must we also love ourselves?

Thanks in advance and God Bless…
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There is no love for oneself. That is a misleading way of talking.
All animals are born with the principle of survival, of saving themselves, of loving life and hating death, of doing for their bodies the maximum.
The difficult thing is, for humans, to love the neighbors…
 
Maria1993 said:
What I mostly mean is to be comfortable with yourself…
Like to see what God sees in us. 🙂

I know I am a sinner and fall short from the Glory of God.
But that us why I need him. And I don’t hate myself, I just want to be able to be comfortable with myself…you know?

I truly don’t deserve much, but whatever I get comes from the hand of God.
Click to expand...
What you said sounds right. I see it that we should love ourselves because God created us and wants the best for us, which is our salvation. I rejoice that I am created, loved, and have the opportunity to make choices with my free will every day that can glorify the Lord!

I don’t believe that loving ourselves means that we should pamper ourselves and try to fulfill all of our material desires. That would be narcissistic. I understand that you didn’t mean that.
 
Dorothy said:
What you said sounds right. I see it that we should love ourselves because God created us and wants the best for us, which is our salvation. I rejoice that I am created, loved, and have the opportunity to make choices with my free will every day that can glorify the Lord!

I don’t believe that loving ourselves means that we should pamper ourselves and try to fulfill all of our material desires. That would be narcissistic. I understand that you didn’t mean that.
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That’s what i mean. 🙂
As in LOVE, not the narcissistic pampering…as in to be comfortable with yourself, to find worth in yourself. Because he made us…I dont mean as in “oh i deserve all this AND more, and i am so this and that.”
 
+JMJ+
Maria1993 said:
That’s what i mean. 🙂
As in LOVE, not the narcissistic pampering…as in to be comfortable with yourself, to find worth in yourself. Because he made us…I dont mean as in “oh i deserve all this AND more, and i am so this and that.”
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I think the best attitude is to meditate on this:

[BIBLEDRB]2 Corinthians 4:7[/BIBLEDRB]

And if you understand this, then I don’t think being “comfortable” with ourselves would be the attitude we have, but actually discomfort, as in awe at what has been given to us, and humility, and unworthiness, especially if we consider our own “earthiness” compared to the “supernaturalness” of our gifts.
 
nuntym said:
+JMJ+

I think the best attitude is to meditate on this:

[BIBLEDRB]2 Corinthians 4:7[/BIBLEDRB]

And if you understand this, then I don’t think being “comfortable” with ourselves would be the attitude we have, but actually discomfort, as in awe at what has been given to us, and humility, and unworthiness, especially if we consider our own “earthiness” compared to the “supernaturalness” of our gifts.
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Excellent! Thank you.
 
Wow, thanks for shedding some light on this for me everyone! 🙂
And I will keep that Scripture in mind!
 
We can enjoy ourselves. We can enjoy our children, our relatives and friends. We can enjoy nature. There’s nothing wrong with it. And we can certainly enjoy our accomplishments if we worked hard and earned then. I’m not talking about bragging. I’m talking about the satisfaction we feel when we have accomplished something that is worthy of the gifts God has given us.

Yes, Love thy neighbor as thyself. While growing up, we practiced that a lot more. And one more thing:

bible.cc/philippians/4-8.htm

Peace,
Ed
 
“My son, with humility have self esteem; prize yourself as you deserve. Who will acquit him who condemns himself? Who will honor him who discredits himself?” Sirach 10:27-28

Self debasement is false humility. It is motivated out of sin, for in your moments of greatest self abuse you are almost exclusively focused entirely on yourself. As my husband says, you’re being selfish. You are like a child who was given an art project assignment and when you saw saw another child’s work get praised and/or receive a small criticism, you immediately made a huge scene of tearing your project to shreds.

Giving that child praise and attention to prevent such an event from happening is still giving attention to the possible temper tantrum. It says nothing of the actual worth and meaning of the actual words of praise being said. A person with “low self esteem” knows that and sees right through such suggestions at therapy.

As such, it is in true humility that we see ourselves as we are, that we love ourselves and that we do not confuse vain-glory with love.

Humility isn’t thinking you’re horrible. It is thinking of others more than you think of yourself.
 
+JMJ+

Hmm, the discussion seems to be steering towards humility, so let’s go there.

As twoangels has said, humility does not focus on the self but on others. However, how humility gets there, how humility gets to self-forgetfulness, actually starts from a very basic and probably overly-obvious assumption: humility starts from the fact that we are only human. Humility and human come from the same Latin root: humus, meaning earth. The very word humility reminds us that we are only human, that we are made from earth, and to earth we shall return (Genesis 3:19). Humility also reminds us that we are earth-bound, and that, in the greater scheme of things, we are small.

Humility, in other words, reminds us of our limits. But it is precisely because of our limits that we can start having self-forgetfulness. I love this image from Scott Young’s blog post on humility and confidence:



It graphically represents our concepts of ourselves (the circle) versus what we don’t know. Inferiority focuses on the negative things about ourselves. Conceit focuses on the positive things about ourselves. As twoangels reminds us, both are forms of pride, for both focuses too much on the self. Humility, however, knows the limits of self, and therefore humility does not focus on the self but on the outside, on the “I don’t know.” Scott Young illustrates this with the following:

Let’s say you are planning to start a business. There are three ways you can view the problem:
  • Confident – I’ll be great. I’ve done similar ventures before and kicked *** in all of them. Yay!
  • Insecure – I’ll do horrible. My grade school teacher said I would never amount to anything. Boo hoo.
  • Humble – This is completely new to me and there is still a lot of information I have to learn. Hmmm…
And it is from here that we can start to have awe, and wonder, and imagination, and ambition, and all the things that make humanity great. As G.K. Chesterton said:

Hence it became evident that if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Even the haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are the creations of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are the creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest star are the creations of humility. For towers are not tall unless we look up at them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger than we. All this gigantesque imagination, which is, perhaps, the mightiest of the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible without humility to enjoy anything – even pride.

Orthodoxy

continued next post
 
Now humility must be tempered with something else, or we may find ourselves overwhelmed by the hugeness and uncertainty of the world around us. It is here that Scott Young falters, for although he is right that what is needed is courage, his source of courage is actually again from self-confidence, what he was trying to go past to get to humility in the first place in his article. He says:

[Courage] may sound synonymous with confidence, so I’d like to draw the distinction. Courage is: “no matter what happens, I’ll be able to deal with it.” Confidence is: “everything is going to be great. (because I’m great)”

Well sorry, but that is still too synonymous for my taste.

To get to the bottom of the mystery of courage, we have to look at those paragons of humility and courage: children.

I think you will agree with me that children are the most courageous people on the entire earth. They will play with and put into their mouths things we cringe to even touch carelessly like knives, they will climb objects much higher than themselves with no regard for their safety, they will reach up for things that would surely fall on them and hurt them.

Well, maybe the reason for those is that they could not appreciate the danger they are in. But I think there is a different reason, based on a few observations.

First, look at children on the first day of school, or when there is a stranger. Secondly, why do children cry? Thirdly, to whom children go to when there is a bully, or when they get scrapes, or when they have any other difficulty?

All of this point to one thing: children have parents and/or guardians to go to who can hide them and kiss their booboos away. I think that is the reason children are so courageous: they know they cannot help themselves when push comes to shove, but they know people who can, and they can depend on these people. This is further evidenced by what happens to children who are victims of abuse: they do not know who to depend on, and thus they start to be fearful of everything and anything.

And that is the secret of Christian courage: we have Someone much bigger and wiser than us that we can trust to give us the comfort, wisdom and power to tackle this big, frightening, wonderful world we live in, because this Someone loves us so much that He died for us. This is the source of Christian self-esteem, confidence, and courage: not who we are or what we have done, but God’s unmerited love for us.

And Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3

The person who is bound to God, who has this uninterrupted conversation, can dare to respond to these challenges, and no longer has fear. For the person who stands in God’s hands always falls into God’s hands. And so fear vanishes, and in its place is born the courage to respond to today’s world.
Pope Benedict XVI
 
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