The Key to Self-Love is Self-Respect
Maybe We Should Focus on That
When our thoughts, our beliefs, our words, and our deeds align, we respect ourselves. When we don’t respect ourselves, we can’t love ourselves.
These days, we hear a lot about self-love. All over social media, on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, influencers apply the term as a euphemism for everything from getting a massage or taking a mental health day, to treating yourself to ice cream or taking part in an ayahuasca ceremony.
Just like the words narcissist, trauma, and gaslighting, the term self-love has been overused to the point where it has become relatively meaningless compared to before it became so ubiquitous in our lexicon.
Now, it is used to describe just about any act one might regard as being good to themselves. Being nice to yourself. Trying to stay positive. Going to therapy. Taking a vacation. But who knows what it actually means?
No doubt, many of us could have better relationships with ourselves. This notion that we may not love ourselves enough, and that that is why we may not be the best versions of ourselves, definitely has merit. There are varying degrees of this phenomenon, from a deficiency in self-esteem to flat out self-hatred.
I can tell you, as a man who was confronted with this idea, that I needed to learn how to love myself, it seemed altogether baffling. It begged the question for me, as it does for many: “How am I supposed to do that?” And, if you pose this question to a professional - a therapist, say - let me know when you get a cogent response. I won’t hold my breath.
Invariably, the answer mystifies. It is always vague, and generally features a succession of maybes. Like, “maybe you could go ahead and wear that favorite shirt of yours, instead of saving it for a special occasion,” or “maybe you could go to a yoga class,” or “maybe setting a firm boundary with that co-worker would be an act of self-love.”
Here is another maybe.
Maybe we should be done with this fixation on self-love, and, instead, focus on self-respect.
Think about it. Self-respect is concrete. It means something. And, if you can respect yourself, it stands to reason that you are far more likely to love yourself.
If I ask myself, “what do I need to do to love myself today,” I can come up with something. I might say I could stop being so critical of myself. Something like that. Or I could recite affirmations in the mirror, like Stuart Smalley did.
I can much more quickly and easily tell you what I need to do to experience a sense of self-respect today. I can keep my commitment to exercise. I can meet that deadline I established for myself. I can treat the people around me with kindness. I can do what it takes for me to feel proud of myself.
The way I respect myself is by keeping my word; by doing what I say I am going to do.
The way I respect myself is by listening to my conscience, and by heeding its instruction.
The way I respect myself is by accepting responsibility for my mistakes, for my failures.
I am 51 years old. I’ve spent more than half my life meandering down a circuitous path of personal growth. I’ve come a long way toward loving myself. I definitely do not hate myself, as I once did. I don’t hate myself because I respect myself.
My longest, most enduring love is baseball. I have loved it for as long as I can remember. By giving myself time to watch baseball; to enjoy it on a regular basis, I love and honor myself. I connect with myself. The same is true with writing. They’re both subtle ways I can remind myself who I am. But these are not ways I deepen my self-respect.
When I look in the mirror, often enough, I appreciate what I see. I don’t need affirmations. I look at myself, I see a good man. I know I am a good man because I behave like one.
Unlike other times in my life, I can look myself in the eye. When I look deep into my eyes, I see what I need to do to respect myself more; to love myself more. I see the ways I can be better.
Joan Didion wrote “character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.”
The simplest way to love myself is by accepting responsibility for my own life, and by living in a way that enables me to respect myself.
If I do not respect myself, I will not love myself.
I respect myself when my thoughts, my beliefs, my words, and my deeds align.
I respect myself by being who I say I am.
I respect myself more by being better than I was yesterday.
