You Are Capable of Loving

We are constantly bombarded by quotes on social media painting an image of what our outlook on life should be or what we are doing wrong. Last week I saw a quote that I’m sure many of you have already seen, “you cannot love unless you learn to love yourself first.” I couldn’t help but get frustrated by the quote. What do you mean you can’t love anyone unless you love yourself? What do the relationships between my family or significant others from the past mean, they aren’t as significant or meaningful because I somehow don’t love myself? After seeing the post I let a few days go by until I could see this clearly, and have a different opinion or emotion on the topic than just anger.

By evaluating my past relationships, I can say, yes you can love others even if you don’t love yourself. Although, loving properly is another story… Growing up I have been through a lot more than most children go through or should go through. I am a survivor of sexual and emotional abuse, grew up with severe anxiety and PTSD, and still struggle with eating disorders. So loving myself has always been difficult from a very young age. But I always felt like I loved everyone in my life unconditionally and reading that I didn’t felt like an insult to who I am.

There is a difference in the way you allow others to treat you when you do love yourself from when you don’t necessarily like or love yourself. Beginning with family, family are the first people you learn to love unconditionally. We are taught to believe family are the only ones that will be in your life no matter what, therefore you need to forgive and forget all mistakes. We’re taught to put up with the crap they put in our path and just deal. Truth is, family can sometimes be more toxic than friends or other “strangers” we let in our life. When you don’t like or love yourself you tend to allow certain behaviors and actions that do harm to your mental and emotional health. This goes along with intimate relationships, with a boyfriend or girlfriend. When you don’t love yourself you might depend on that person to love you just as much as you might love that person, because we don’t love ourselves we tend to rely or be dependent on another person to love us, so we put up with a lot more than a person would who fully loves themselves.

So can you actually love others if you do not love yourself? The short answer is yes. But you will not be in a healthy relationship, made out of respect, care, and unconditional love, once you love yourself you will then be able to set the boundaries that you want and not accept any less than what you deserve.