No one teaches you how to love yourself. There is no class. There is no definitive manual (though many self help books claim to be). In theory I suppose you are supposed to learn by example from your parents and how they love you. But what if your parents didn’t have the ability or desire to love you the way you needed to be loved? What then? You go through life begging for other people to love you hoping that they get it right, that they succeed where your family, for all their good intentions, failed. The problem is they don’t know how to love you either. They don’t have an example to follow. They look to you to show them how to love you.
And yet we think that when we have our own children we will know better…that we will do better than our parents did. I can’t count the number of times I told myself “I will never say “fill in the blank” to my daughter”, or “My daughter will have this.” Or “I will make sure my daughter knows that” and I have felt filled with love and conviction for this person that doesn’t exist yet, and probably wont for years. I believe myself when I say these things. I know that I will do everything I can to protect this as yet unnamed little soul and give her every beautiful experience and feeling that life has to offer and that I will do everything I can to make her strong enough to face the not so beautiful experiences and feelings. I will make sure that she survives. This moves me to tears. But how do I know this when I know that I don’t really know how to love myself?
I think that the answer is that is easy to love children. It feels natural to want to protect and care for someone so amazing and so full of possibility. If it is so easy to love children why is it so difficult to love ourselves? Why doesn’t the survival instinct translate the same way the maternal or paternal one does? I have no answer for this. What I can say is that from now on I will endeavor to love myself the way I would my child. I will take care of myself the way I would my child. I will be the mother that my mother wasn’t however hard she tried. I will tell myself everyday that I am beautiful inside and out. I will tell myself everyday that I am proud of myself, that I have faith in myself that the world is full of possibilities for me. I will tell myself that I am gifted and able. I will tell myself that it is my responsibility to develop these gifts. I will tell myself that asking for what I need is not selfish as long as you listen when others ask. I will tell myself that the world needs strong gifted people and that it is a disservice to myself and to humanity every time I take and action or affirm a belief that says that I am otherwise. I would not tell my daughter less. And hopefully when I do welcome that wonderful little girl soul ( or boy-soul ) into the world they will be better off because Mommy has practiced and has already successfully raised herself.
I expect child rearing to be hard...but at least this way I get to skip the terrible twos right?