Posted by finelinebob on August 15, 2006, at 3:08:05
In reply to Loving Yourself So You Can Love Others (?), posted by Poet on August 10, 2006, at 13:36:07
> My husband thinks that in order to love others, you have to love yourself first.
Sorry. Basic social psych. It's not true. We learn from experience. We can learn vicariously, from the experiences of others, but we learn so much more effectively when we experience it for ourselves.
In order for you to love others, they have to love you first.
We learn that at an early age, but we continue to learn it through our lives. And the lesson gets reinforced when someone loves us, or when we express our love for another and it is returned. Except now there's reciprocity -- people are telling us we are worthy of being loved.
So yeah, your husband is wrong. That old "you gotta love yourself first" "truism" needs to be tossed out the window with the "snap out of it"s and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps"s mentalities that essentially say you have a flaw in your character.
And if you can't find "proof" for why someone could love you when it's clear they do, then accept it on faith that you're worthy of being loved, particularly by yourself, until you can remove your blinders and find your proofs.
poster:finelinebob
thread:675427
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/esteem/20060725/msgs/676576.html