Do we love ourselves so that we love others?

[amalaloy]

Love thy neighbor as thyself!
Do I love myself? This is a question going in my mind for a long time. Just sharing my experience and thoughts.
From my own personal experience I always wondered whether I loved myself. I indulge in so many activities not because of my self love but because I love the effects or the outcomes of those activities even at the cost of physical harm to myself. I take a lot of stress and strain in order to maintain my status and social standing. I love my qualifications and positions achievements in my career and I identify myself with them. To the question of who I am, I definitely say that I am so and so based on my academics or so and so based on my career or so and so based on my social standing. I do things because I love the feeling or the material gain I derive from doing something even at the cost of physical or mental discomfort. Therefore I always think whether do I really love myself. Hope many of us would have the same feeling. Selfishness is a misnomer. Actually I love something outside me thinking that is me. Hence we see a lot of hate and sufferings around and broken families and what not, because we do not love ourselves in order to love our neighbor as commanded by Jesus.

 

[Savior2012]

Loving yourself is a good thing.

 

[tonyrey]

Love thy neighbor as thyself!
Do I love myself? This is a question going in my mind for a long time. Just sharing my experience and thoughts.
From my own personal experience I always wondered whether I loved myself. I indulge in so many activities not because of my self love but because I love the effects or the outcomes of those activities even at the cost of physical harm to myself. I take a lot of stress and strain in order to maintain my status and social standing. I love my qualifications and positions achievements in my career and I identify myself with them. To the question of who I am, I definitely say that I am so and so based on my academics or so and so based on my career or so and so based on my social standing. I do things because I love the feeling or the material gain I derive from doing something even at the cost of physical or mental discomfort. Therefore I always think whether do I really love myself. Hope many of us would have the same feeling. Selfishness is a misnomer. Actually I love something outside me thinking that is me. Hence we see a lot of hate and sufferings around and broken families and what not, because we do not love ourselves in order to love our neighbor as commanded by Jesus.

A very warm welcome, Amala, and a very good question!

I believe it is impossible to know precisely to what extent we love ourselves because we are too close to ourselves to be objective. It doesn’t really matter because we can only do what we believe is right. We’re not expected to be infallible but impeccable!

If we try to love our neighbour** as** we love ourselves we are bound to forget ourselves to some extent because we are putting ourselves in the other’s place. And by forgetting ourselves we are loving ourselves because we are not becoming too introverted. Nor does it matter if we love our neighbour** more than than** we love ourselves. It is better than loving ourselves too much - and finding ourselves on the slippery slope to perdition >>>>>\

 

[MarcoPolo]

Very true - if we loved ourselves as God so generously loved us, we would not sin.

 

[bmullins]

I think it’s important to realize that one has to have an understanding of themselves and a love for themselves in order to fulfill the condition of ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ Recently were were talking in a group to a lady who had divorced her husband after years of marriage. She indicated that she found herself in a place where she didn’t know who she was, or what she liked. All those years of being so and so’s mom, or so and so’s wife… she never knew who she herself was.

After the divorce she began to find out who she was. She found things that interested her, and made friendships. Now she has a relationship with her ex husband that is blossoming back into a possible reconciliation. She realized that she had trouble loving him before, because she didn’t even know how to love herself. Once she found who she was, she was able to see who he was again.

How can we ourselves show someone love, if we don’t know love in our heart? If we loath who we are, will we look at others in love? Or will we be jealous of who they are and what they stand for? Can we love what is in them, if we ourselves haven’t found that in ourselves?

 

[tonyrey]

I think it’s important to realize that one has to have an understanding of themselves and a love for themselves in order to fulfill the condition of ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ Recently were were talking in a group to a lady who had divorced her husband after years of marriage. She indicated that she found herself in a place where she didn’t know who she was, or what she liked. All those years of being so and so’s mom, or so and so’s wife… she never knew who she herself was.

After the divorce she began to find out who she was. She found things that interested her, and made friendships. Now she has a relationship with her ex husband that is blossoming back into a possible reconciliation. She realized that she had trouble loving him before, because she didn’t even know how to love herself. Once she found who she was, she was able to see who he was again.

How can we ourselves show someone love, if we don’t know love in our heart? If we loath who we are, will we look at others in love? Or will we be jealous of who they are and what they stand for? Can we love what is in them, if we ourselves haven’t found that in ourselves?

Thank you for that inspiring post.

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Love thy neighbor as thyself!
Do I love myself? This is a question going in my mind for a long time. Just sharing my experience and thoughts.
From my own personal experience I always wondered whether I loved myself. I indulge in so many activities not because of my self love but because I love the effects or the outcomes of those activities even at the cost of physical harm to myself. I take a lot of stress and strain in order to maintain my status and social standing. I love my qualifications and positions achievements in my career and I identify myself with them. To the question of who I am, I definitely say that I am so and so based on my academics or so and so based on my career or so and so based on my social standing. I do things because I love the feeling or the material gain I derive from doing something even at the cost of physical or mental discomfort. Therefore I always think whether do I really love myself. Hope many of us would have the same feeling. Selfishness is a misnomer. Actually I love something outside me thinking that is me. Hence we see a lot of hate and sufferings around and broken families and what not, because we do not love ourselves in order to love our neighbor as commanded by Jesus.

You gave a very good definition of loving yourself.

Loving yourself is taking care of yourself by eating, sleeping, bathing, wearing clean clothes, going to the doctor when you’re sick…