People Who Say "You Just Need to Love Yourself" Don't Understand Trauma
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- čas přidán 19. 11. 2023
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If you grew up with neglect and abuse, the advice so many people give to "just love yourself" comes off as an impossible command, or even a criticism, making you feel judged. It’s been drilled into us by therapy culture and social media that THIS is our real problem, as if we just failed to know this and now that we've been told, it will all be OK. I'm sure it looks like this from the outside. In my experience, loving yourself is easier said than done. When it comes, it's the RESULT of healing -- not the prerequisite for it. What can you do to work your way toward positive self-regard? In this video, I outline the path.
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“Self-love isn’t the fix that’s needed. It’s the BYPRODUCT of the fix that’s needed.” Amen, sister.
ITEM ITEM
Honestly, one of the best lines and most important concepts, that I’ve heard in recovery and self development across 20 years!
Why do I feel like she is talking directly to me?
omg, this is so true
Absolutely! Love is a weapon of propaganda to fool you long enough to feel good and fall again the same way😢😭😔. But stay busy and being available is much more productive than hiding in shame 🙂🌅
If you’ve been abused as a child, you don’t know how to love yourself and don’t even know what that means. That’s why you need to PRETEND that you’re someone who loves themselves. You ask yourself, “What would a confident woman who loves herself do in this situation?” Then act like the confident woman and NOT yourself. You have to act in ways that are contrary to your traumatic training. Eventually if you keep standing up for yourself and act like you’re confident, you will be confident. Don’t act like you would act. Act like someone who’s never been hurt; act like someone who’d walk away at a moments notice if they were abused. It took me years of doing this before I realized that I did love myself by not destroying myself.
❤❤
Exactly. Even I would say more than confidence, is just simply self-respect.
Well said.
How can you love yourself if you do not know what love is? If you have never experienced love or seen it how can you imitate it?
How can you act confident if you have never seen it or experienced it? When you have been afraid from a very young age, how can you feel anything but fear?
Healing needs to come first along with calming the nervous system and learning new behaviors for dealing with emotional triggers.This is a hard long term process.
@@leonardcasteel6617 I totally agree with you..pretending never fixed anything..
My father who was verbally and physically abusive as I was growing up later proclaimed my adult life was so troublesome because I hated myself. He was right. He just failed to mention why that was so.
Oof. Or just absent, and spent decades in denial about all of the things that I went through at the other home, and in deep depression, and then drug and alcohol abuse, then recovery. Then horrible, chronic illness, then an abusive relationship with a borderline/NPD woman. Just denying reality ends up being the same as active an intentional gaslighting when you’ve been through the ringer… Even if the person on the other side doesn’t mean it
Sounds like my dad (who also crossed other physical boundaries) telling me I am unstable and ruining my relationships. When I finally met a good guy I married he started bullying him too. Glad that after my mums dead I could let him go and four years later and in my fifties I'm finally healing.
#metoo
Same here :( my father constantly put me down for as long as i can remember. And now he has the audacity to tell me “you have no confidence, its horrible”. I just wanna scream at him🫠
My father always told me I was ugly, useless, worthless and no one would ever have me and the sad thing is that at 58 I still believe him.
I am an attachment based therapist, this episode shows just how deep Anna understands attachment. Love her work. Keep it up Anna ❤
Thank you for your kind words, I'm sure Anna will appreciate this :) -Calista@TeamFairy
I think one hard part of self love for people like us is that it’s often TOUGH love that’s needed. We have to do the hard stuff, like recognizing our own self-defeating behaviors and making the changes. Ending relationships that make us miserable. Realizing that we’re not a very good person and starting to become better. Cutting out sugar because it makes us anxious. When people say “love yourself,” they often mean “do frivolous things like eat chocolate, go to a spa, or take a day off.” It’s like yeah, that stuff’s not gonna cut it. We have to make real changes… and it’s really hard work…
🎯
Yes, cutting sugars helps a lot with brain fog & anxiety.
Exactly, solid comment.
LOVE your comment, Kathryn Anne, every bit of it! Couldn't agree with you more, thank you! ❤
Sugar makes one anxious?? 😢I've been addicted to it since I could chew. I am anxiety then
It's hard to love yourself when the people who are meant to love you don't. ie close relatives
you ditch them and ignore them if you can't. you don't act happy around them, that's blood in the water. Unless you are very strong then just smile and shake your head. Never raise or lower your energy level to theirs. Never give their negative avenues a highway to roll in on. Do not respond. They may threaten this or that for just merely being you, assertive, and happy. It may really bother them that you're shining in any way. Can't give in and start arguing. Don't even allow it to engage.
When people say "you should learn to love yourself" to me I look at them like they are speaking a foreign language.
That's understandable, especially if you've never felt loved or respected.
Learning self respect comes from learning to care for yourself. It's a process, a journey of self discovery and recovery 💙 When you learn to respect yourself first and foremost you'll find your tolerance for disrespect becomes low.
@@casperinsight3524 that is a great way of putting it. ❤
💙
I realized I feel that way about the words "time management" Like what does that mean exactly?? I know it means manage your time but how?! Exactly how am I supposed to know how long things take?! Could be CPTSD, could be ADHD, could be the brain injury... But I'm working on it. 🧡
I know it used to make me mad. I looked at it, it's very condiscending. They have no understanding.
“If you can’t love yourself, start by taking positive actions.” It just needs to be said that taking positive action when you don’t feel like it IS loving yourself in a concrete way, just not the fluffy half-spiritual way people talk about in song lyrics. Love is not a feeling. Love is about stepping up.
This
Or as a song lyric I remember from growing up put it: "Love is a verb."
I was watching a Jennifer Myers video where she responded to a coworkers question about why she has such good self-esteem, and she thought about it a moment and said "in order to have self esteem, i perform esteemable acts." Like she respects herself because she has built up years of evidence that she is respectable by spending those years behaving in accordance with her own values.
This echoes that sentiment nicely. It was a huge eye opener for me!
Thank you for sharing!
Nika@TeamFairy
Great share. When I started my self love journey, that was one of the things I settled on- to love myself would be to act in accordance with my values and to honor what feels good/right to me. Because my childhood required me to compromise my desires and to disregard my likes and dislikes for safety and acceptance. As an adult that looked like me continuing to make compromises and self abandoning for acceptance and to avoid rejection. And it left me having a lot of unrecognized resentment towards myself because I was choosing others over myself and people pleasing, which never actually pleases people so I ended up receiving the rejection that I was trying to avoid anyway. A self perpetuating cycle of shame. So yes, learning to love me was finding out traits and practices I valued and respected and doing them without compromising it anymore to get approval from others or to avoid rejection. And that's been working pretty well 😊
@@UrbanCommentBot thanks for adding! That's very insightful and I wish you the best
@@datroof2262 don't worry, you'll get some someday.
Very nice, I like it!
One of the most awful feelings I’ve ever had was when someone told me “You can’t really love someone else until you love yourself.” First of all, that’s a LIE. But the reason it felt so bad was because I already had the lack of love from my parents, siblings and clearly fair-weather friends… so they were not only DENYING my obvious actions of love but also saying that the lack of love in my life was my own fault.
❤ so true
It amazes me how clueless "normal" people are. The things they say. The platitudes, the quotes from "masters", the punishing tone of their voice, "Loving yourself is the fruit of recovery" (my paraphrase). No wiser words have been said. Thanks so much.
I totally agree! "Normal" people oftentimes don't even understand themselves nor their own feelings, yet feel compelled to throw around advice and platitudes that actually make matters worse.
Well said! Astute observation. @@misspeach3755
I DO love myself... That's what folks really seem to miss... How much of our parents' work we had to do for ourselves! Did you have to go to bat for yourself against an entire school district to get the teachers and education you knew you needed at an early age because your parents were too fucked up to do their job? Did you have to change your own diapers? Did you have to find your own food? Did you have to try to get the love and parenting you needed from adults from somewhere outside your home? All we've ever done is LOVE OURSELVES, fight for ourselves, advocate for ourselves and deep down inside we know that is SO WRONG & it makes us angry. I've spent my entire life loving myself. And so have you. Remember that.
Be careful not to confuse survival with love.
Right on, sister. Love is a verb. We, as children, are forced to do for ourselves what no child should ever have to do.
Survival is primal, it is not love. We truly love ourselves when we get past survival mode. When we ask our hearts what they dream about. When we plan for a future starting from nothing, even homeless and alone. We love ourselves when we figure out the meaning of hope. When we feel, when we set boundaries, when we enjoy life for the first time in late adulthood for some of us. When the pain no longer speaks, but hope and gratitude does the talking despite our loses.
@@aloysiusdevanderabercrombi470
Exactly, Children are taught what love is by experiencing affection, being tended to and comforted. If you don't have those thing's then you eventually figure out what to do in order to fill the missing pieces. Finding food, cleaning yourself off, self soothing, it's all part of survival.
THank you for clarifying that
I think being able to forgive ourselves and others is a critical part of learning to love. Gotta let go of some baggage too.... I'm still working on it, believe me!
Makes sense, because if you can forgive yourself, its easier to forgive others. We tend to treat others in the same way that we treat ourselves.
It's just that when people say "love yourself", there is generally no explanation or definition of it that follows, because most don't understand what it means or how to do it. Its really just another way to say "self-respect", but even that does not negate all sadness, it just helps us make better choices and it requires an honest perspective change and action. You can still always LOVE others no matter what, but learning how to SHOW that love is what makes the difference.
@@Leoo117❤❤❤❤
Nah. Some people don't deserve forgiveness. Maybe if they have remorse? Then atone for the abuse? Maybe. But not necessary, nope.
You can absolutely be capable of love, both giving and receiving without forgiving an abuser.
I can honestly say, it's my friends who showed me that I was lovable. When i was a student in my early twenties, I was living by myself far from my family. I gradually made a group of friends and I was just AMAZED that they wanted to spend time with me, invited me to their homes etc. I thought "wait a minute, does this mean I'm not the ugly annoying piece of worthless shit my family has made me feel like I am my whole life? Either they're lying, or my friends are crazy for being so nice to me." That got me thinking and re-assessing reality. It took time to build some self confidence, but that was definitely the starting point. Their love was the first building block towards being at peace with myself.
I'm 35 now, those friends are still near and dear to me. :)
So happy for you that you found "your tribe" and allowed yourself to recognize the evidence in front of you through your friendships and inclusion that you are worthy of someone's time, attention and care. Of course you always were in truth but the CPST could never allow you to recognize it. It's a beautiful thing to learn and accept that positive evidence and leads to more self compassion. As each of these pieces start to come together, building on and reinforcing one another in healthy ways It's like before say you were living in (wizard of) Oz in black and white film, all dreary and then afterward when the beautiful colour film gets added and how different and amazing it is in comparison. Next step is recognizing the evidence that you have always been worthy of your own time, attention and care too. 'Self care is developing the habit of valuing yourself' (A year of self care by Dr. Zoe Shaw) and through that self love develops too. I hadn't recognized that was real self care and why it was essential to healing
That's beautiful! Thanks for sharing this :) -Calista@TeamFairy
A new age type told me that "you should never even get out of bed in the morning unless you first feel unconditional love for yourself, humanity, and the Universe. It's a choice!!"
Talk about magical thinking! What utter BS! And yes, I've been told a gazillion times that I'd never truly love anyone or be loved unless I were in love with myself first. Both my parents hated themselves, and I loathed myself, but I loved so many people and animals deeply. I felt unworthy of them, but I had loads of love for them!
And no, I don't know what to do.
Mood isn’t a choice, you can choose whether to try and change a mood, but yes, it’s BS and a bit victim blamey to say a bad mood is your fault and that nobody else makes you feel anything. If I make plans with someone and they bail on me, being upset is an appropriate response - whether I express myself to them or not.
My instinctual answer to that was always:"But how??!!"
And even now, I feel it takes a lot of time to figure out how to properly take care of myself. Loving oneself is hard work and requires discipline. Moving, eating healthy, sleeping enough, seeing friends, practicing stuff that is important to me, going to therapy, learning about communication, saying no to the wrong situations, somehow getting it into my thick skull that maybe I deserve to be loved... "You gotta love yourself" turns out to be quiet a complex operation.
I've always HAYED the saying, "Take care of yourself." Whenever I jabe heard this saying from one person to another, I found it to be so passive aggressive. To me, it's like, "I don't have the capacity to worry, think, or care about you - So you take care of you." Now I know it's because no one ever taught many people how to love themselves.
I hate it, too! And I fell the same about the saying as you do.
Definitely hated myself when I was younger and loved someone deeply but because I hated myself I self sabotaged that relationship. To bad we can't go back in time with a healed mind.
Glad you are here now.
Nika@TeamFairy
My therapist told me that I wasn't in any place to have successful relationships with anybody - friendship or otherwise because I don't like who I am. I feel like she sentenced me to a life of loneliness and isolation. Now I can't even imagine a future that doesn't involve me being alone and sad. Because of what she said, I can't even force myself to go out or leave the house. I spend my time trying to figure out how I can survive until my time runs out.
I'm sorry that happened. Therapists aren't fortune tellers nor are they gods - though some believe themselves to be and are bad at their job. I had one that didn't expect me to survive what I was going through and offered up one solution and acted like if that didn't work, I was doomed. I'm still here decades later and I eventually thrived. Perhaps in spite of bad advice like that. It gave me motivation to be underestimated. What I learned from the experience is that person wasn't competent. His judgement of me said more about him as a person than it did about me or my future. A therapist isn't supposed to judge any way, they are supposed to listen and help you find answers inside of yourself. The problem was his lack of vision, not my value as a human being. If your therapist isn't a fit (and it definitely sounds like that's the case) there are many others out there who can give you the caring supportive environment you deserve to help you build connection. They are just one person with an opinion, and there are billions of people out there with billions of opinions. One person doesn't define your life or condemn your life or future. Good luck to you.
If you haven't already, try Daily Practice bit.ly/CCF_DailyPractice Through writing and meditation, you can better connect with yourself in a loving, compassionate and caring way. We can change and control our lives despite the encouraging opinions of others. Good luck!
Nika@TeamFairy
@PriarieChickenco please don’t believe this ‘therapist’ you are worthy of love, you are worthy of being loved where you are presently. Sometimes the right people show us exactly how to be and heal.
00:00 🧠 Therapy culture often simplifies trauma healing by saying "just love yourself," but healing from childhood PTSD is a complex, deep process beyond a simple switch of self-love.
02:53 🔄 Love for oneself and for others are intertwined; it's possible to deeply love others even when struggling to love oneself. Self-love often grows from caring for others.
04:15 🔍 Extreme self-focus and self-centeredness, often stemming from unhealed trauma, can hinder forming caring relationships, leading to a cycle of reduced self-love.
05:26 🔄 Self-love isn't a standalone fix; it's a byproduct of profound personal change. It emerges when deeper issues are addressed, requiring sustained effort beyond simple affirmations or quick fixes.
06:52 🌟 Conditions for change: Pain, humility, and sustained effort are catalysts for meaningful transformation, breaking away from old patterns and embracing growth.
08:14 💪 Humility, accepting mistakes and strengths, counters shame and opens doors for positive change, fostering a more genuine relationship with oneself and others.
10:42 🛠 Engaging outwardly, caring for others, and embodying kindness contribute to self-approval and self-love, often more effectively than solely focusing on self-love.
13:23 🛡 Developing boundaries while being loving creates a protective force, reducing vulnerability to mistreatment and enabling a healthier, more open-hearted approach to relationships.
Thank you 🖤
Thank you!
Thank you
This resonated loudly with me!
Commit to honesty. Honesty in all areas of your life. I can thank a 12-Step program for starting me on this path. Once you taste a life lived in honesty, it becomes difficult to be anything else. Beginning of self love for me.
Thanks for sharing! -Calista@TeamFairy
The world isn’t ready for my honesty, lol!
I do try to stay honest but society isn’t ready for the honesty of people from abusive and neglectful backgrounds.
I’m trying to walk a fine line between letting other people know I come from this challenging background that not everyone can relate to or even imagine, yet not dump too much negativity on others.
I find it isolating allowing others to believe I come from a normal background and then all their advice and words of wisdom about abusive people in my life becomes meaningless. You would not believe the lengths coworkers and acquaintances will do go to to convince me that a certain narcissist and abusive person (such as my mom) really does love me deep down but simply has a different love language!!
Still struggling with how to get that honesty balance right.
Oh boy have I been working through this. 😅
I used to be pretty triggered When people would say "You have to love yourself" I heard it as if they we're saying "You have to love yourself, because no one else is going to" I know now that that is not true. I have a lot of people in my life who love me and I'm so grateful for that. But I do have to keep reminding myself. Its as if I forget or don't feel as if I can trust it. To help me change that I will say small blessings through my day and give thanks for them by name. And thank God for the people in my life.
But its all a work in progress.
I had to come to a place where I was so sick I HAD to take care of myself or I would die. I had to teach myself how to feel what I needed & then to give that to myself. I'm still working on it but I've come a long way. I have daily practices of affirmations, songs that lift me up, mirror work, gratitude, meditation, energy healing, prayer and fun to help me stay connected to myself. Learning to let myself enjoy things and have fun every day no matter what else is happening is really life changing for me. Also seeing that whatever I'm doing I am doing it for me. So If I'm doing my dishes I'm doing that because I want clean dishes. I grew up so afraid & with so much repressed anger. I'm thankful I've been able get through a lot of the things I have. Anna & other CZcams creators have been so so helpful even life saving. I'm so grateful that we can feel less alone with our symptoms and feel validated that we aren't bad people who deserved the things that happened to us. We are survivors & heroes. I wish you all the best in loving yourself & the life you have now. I know that the successes we all have were hard won. And we deserve to feel the honour & respect of those achievements. So if no one has told you lately I'm proud of you, I am. I am proud of who I am & all of us doing the work to heal & create amazing lives. Bless you ❤
Charlotte, I never understand when people praise me (I’m thinking “for what?) I have difficulty “seeing” how people perceive me. I’m a pretty quiet person who can get animated and chatty when I am very interested in a subject or have an opinion or advice (comparing notes). But I tend to be an Actions speak louder than words” type of person. So I really don’t know how I affect people.
There is another influence on whether we can love ourselves, it is whether anyone in our childhood showed us that we were lovable.
When your family went to your school plays it shows that you were worth someone’s effort.
When they went to your games or graduations they reinforce that worth.
When they didn’t go to ANYTHING you did it tells me that I am not worthy of love.
I spent decades with that feeling infesting my background thoughts and it wasn’t until I realized that it was buried in me that I could expose it to God’s love and receive that healing.
💙
I think doing this work is like being a light warrior - you’re trailblazing a better future for everybody, blessings to you 💚🙏
That's a beautiful perspective!
True. I have never felt very lovable. I have never felt i am worth the effort for somone to love me. I always hide or avoid anyone who is remotely nice to me
Thank you for this comment it was like a light bulb moment. In childhood when things made me feel I was not worth the effort and then how I either replayed that theme with others or take it to the other extreme and break out everything I can think of to get someone to make me feel I am worth their effort.
Exactly, that's how I grew up and that's the message I received 😕
"Humility is a gentle acceptance of reality". Beautifully spoken. Thank you.
I feel this way about forgiveness, too. Sometimes we hear "we have to forgive to heal," but that's backwards: Forgiveness is the result of healing 🙏
Yes.
Wow, i never thought healing comes first, i will do some reading about that important step to forgiving, thanks😊
8:11 "Humility us a gentle acceptance of reality." Great truth. ❤
You are absolutely right--I have CPSTD myself and am writing about this in a faith-oriented book on reclaiming joy after CPTSD. One notion in the book is that the idea of reparenting, which people associate with learning to love the self, actually can only reinforce the idea that no one but you is going to care for you, that you cannot depend on anyone else to heal. I tie that to the idea that if trauma comes from relational experience, it also must be healed in relational experience. We cannot truly reparent ourselves, but must be taught that we are worthy and learn regulatory skills and acceptance through new experiences that serve as a counterweight to what we experienced as kids. We still have to have others model what we never got, and because we're prone to look at the negative, we need a LOT of that modeling and reassurance for it to sink in! Inner child work is only a doorway to understand what to seek and ask for from others, and to better understand other people in empathy.
53 years and I am finally starting to learn how to love myself.... I have survived a lot of Traumas-(Sexual Abuse,Bad Car Accident,Verbal Abuse,Murder of a dear female friend,etc).. And I am still alive and have not turmed to drugs,alcohol or cigarettes to self medicate.... It has taken a lot of strength on my part!!
Did anyone else’s relationship also end because of your OWN behavior due to cptsd (angry outbursts, dysregulation being abusive, etc)?
I was with a great guy who eventually couldn’t take how I treated him. Now with a lot of work I’ve become a completely different & better person but I find it hard to accept what I lost because of what I did.
I tell myself that I did the best I could with what I knew at the time & I forgive myself. I say it just wasn’t meant to be. I say I’ll find someone new. I fully accept that it’s over & I’m fine without him. There’s still just a deep feeling of remorse because I am responsible for the loss. I’ve never felt this before. It’s my first real regret in life.
I feel like this about 3 men actually 😅 that's tough but the meaning of life according to me is to progress so... We're exactly where we're supposed to be
Most people that I've lost weren't very good people. At the time, I was just jumping through hoops thinking that they were great and it was my fault that they didn't treat me well. I've met a kind man finally and it's a work in progress . Yes, I've been dysregulated at times but I'm improving. I'm sorry for your loss. Hugs. It's so hard ❤️
I am learning throughout my recovery that people will come and go for whatever reason…perhaps because of loss connection, misunderstandings, fill in the blank. I am learning to honor and love myself and accept that people will always come and go, but my Higher Power (whom I choose to call God) is my constant, so I have been putting more time and investment with growing closer to Him. I’m sorry about your loss also. I wonder if it’s harder for people who have grown up with trauma to have these difficulties of letting go? I don’t know for certain, but I send you big hugs. You ARE loved!
@@sophiahace9920 yeah I think it triggers more of the “abandonment wound” for us when a relationship ends. I wrestle between the idea that it’s my fault I pushed him away, & being upset AT him that he “abandoned” me by leaving.
I am also trying to lean into the flow of my life like you said. Surrendering to “gods plan”. Letting go & letting in. You’re right about that, I need to focus on allowing things to just be sometimes & trust that it’s all working out the way it’s supposed to.
Thank u for the support 🫶
@@scarlettjoy9561 this is true. I’ve had a similar situation in the past with relationships & years later I’m embarrassed that I ever thought they were right for me. Maybe in time I’ll see this one that way too. It’s easy look back with rose tinted glasses but the reality is the relationship was far from perfect & I can definitely find better. Congratulations on finding someone. I’m glad you’ve already started your healing journey so you can bring your best self to that relationship instead of sabotaging it.
The problem with CPTSD is that you have learn behaviour and thoughts that you've never learned. There is no frame of reference. You have to chip away at so many unconscious beliefs. For example, just recently I uncovered a belief that "God hates me". I thought that because I had been given my family, always feeling stupid and different as a result, the conclusion I came to was that god (or whoever controlled things) was punishing me because there was something wrong with me. Once I changed that belief, so much changed for the better. I carried that belief my whole life without even realising it.
Showing love to other people creates a kind of upward spiral as well. Completely new parts of myself that would have never found expression otherwise really came to the fore after I started making it a point to interact with people more warmly.
💙
Yes, I believe having children helped me learn what love really was. When they were little they pulled me upwards. Then they grew up and the damage of the abusive family drew them towards the one with power - and they became his enablers. Now they are abusing me...
OMG that phrase alone triggers rage for me! It's not helpful in any way, shape or form. The sound of my own name actually disgusts me, that's how deep my trauma goes. I'm working on my hypervigilance in therapy right now so that I don't "snap" on people for saying stupid crap like that.
Change ur name sweetie. Worked for me, family members changed the meaning of my name to abuse me so I decided to change it. I still get called old name in some professional settings but soon enough all will be changed.
"You have to love urself first!!" It was always like hearing. Another language. Didn't compute . now I'm gradually feeling what Anna is talking about!! Thank u dear lady
We're all sending you encouragement! -Calista@TeamFairy
You "just need to" or you "should" both sound judgy or critical but self care and self love is a journey of self discovery and recovery that begins with a single step 💙
I don't hate myself anymore.
That's good enough for Me.
Thank you Anna
@WilliamsSmith199
Thank you.
I Know I'm blessed.
In 15 minutes she made more sense to me than 8 hours with my therapist.
Learning how to love myself healed me so much….I completely understand how difficult it is though to even comprehend it…or how to even start. Most people need guidance or therapy to understand HOW to love yourself. For me it was about truly being gentle and very aware of my inner child, and showing love to all the parts of me that were misunderstood or neglected. It was about being patient, compassionate with myself. Working with self acceptance in the moment. Noticing when I’m in negative self talk.
You cant love others until you love yourself, that makes sense from a healing perspective. Because self-abandonement and people-pleasing is a byproduct of no self-love. This is my journey with my healing process and this is what i learned.
Try using this framework: "Love is a verb, an action. Love is sacrifice and commitment." When we assume the operative point in "love yourself " is using love as an emotion, of course it's meaningless and empty. Love yourself enough to eat the healthy food, drink plenty of water, bathe regularly, and make friends with good, honest people. Love yourself enough to find a job that doesn't make you miserable every day. Love yourself enough to limit your screen time. Love yourself enough to get on a regular sleep schedule. Love yourself enough to exercise. Love yourself enough to make time for self reflection every day. Love yourself enough to sacrifice short term gratification for long term success and stability.
Self-Love does not fix the trauma during the healing journey. Patience with oneself does with a lot of processing and self-reflection. Self-Love is only the end goal of the healing journey. It builds slowly.
The mate to “you’ve just gotta love yourself”, is “ you just gotta learn how to enjoy your own company” when you say that you’re feeling lonely or tired of doing everything alone. I can simultaneously be good at enjoying my own company doing things alone and also have times when I’m feeling extremely alone and unwanted and lonely and need some companionship. Is it normal to have people that will just just come over and watch you fold your laundry? Lol I mean that’s the stuff that BFFs are made up isn’t it?😅 just having people in one’s life to do mundane things with, is love. 💕
Now the question becomes how to cultivate friendships with the kind of people that when I once in a while come to them complaining of feeling down or lonely don’t end up telling me one of these two things, but instead say yeah, I understand. I feel that way sometimes too. let’s go to the movies.!
Thank you!! You need others around you, you can’t just be in isolation and get healthy feedback from just yourself! ❤
designbylake, I remember a counselor saying that when people interact, they play off of each other. You don’t know who you are (or where you stand on things, values/beliefs/opinions) until you interact with them and you note your reacts towards them and your feelings about them. Triggers self-evaluation at best or for those a tad less self-aware 😆 evaluation (triggers) of their behavior! 🤪
@@BarbaraM-lv7pe yes that’s a cool point! Sort of bouncing ideas off of one another so to speak :)
Very insightful comment, thanks😊
I have just let myself be used and abused by partners. Looking for acceptance. I'm realizing I'm just broken . Or falling for someone 4 thousand miles away because I think she "gets me " or halfway understands me. Even burying myself in work doesn't fill the void anymore.
I've lost my parents who raised me . Dad is gone and mom is in full-time care . I couldn't take care of her anymore. Having a hard time anymore holding it together. I'm feeling absolutely lost . My whole life I've been proud of being tough and stoic. Not so much anymore. I just want to fall asleep in the right woman's arms that genuinely loves me . But that just feels like a unicorn 🦄 fairy tale .
Really, sad. You need to become that lady to give you this love you need and seeking brother.
Sending you love 💖
You are so not broken, you are conditioned to react to a certain kind of "love" that is none. Do not beat yourself up over this. More than 80% of relationships are so not build on love, but dependency, not willing to grow up, shining on the outside but being hollow on the inside and so on on. Your unicorn dream as you call sounds much like the little boy that wants to be held and loved my mommy once, at least once and that is the most healthy and natural wish one can have as a child.
Wow!! Is Steve Moore your name? That is my older Brothers name!! My maiden name is Moore also!! I want to tell you there still are good women in this World but they are like Diamonds and you have to look very hard for them!!! I wish you nothing but the best and hope you find what your looking for!❤❤❤
it`s entirely possible to love others even if you don`t love yourself, but it`s very difficult to receive ( accept) the love others want to give you if you don`t love yourself.
One of the first steps I took towards self-love was to move very far away from my immediate family. I needed time, distance, and clarity to start the difficult work of healing.
Although I have come LEAPS/BOUNDS from where I came from, after 64 yrs, I STILL don’t declare my love for myself! Every single time I think I can really, truly feel or say those words, I IMMEDIATELY hear these words: “Who do you think you are Young Lady”. “You better get off that high horse, before I knock you off it.” “So you think you’re better than everyone else now, you’re not!!!”. Or the best one ever; Silence….
Oh i just love this video❤! I was so busy trying to earn the love of people who didn't and wouldn't ever love me, I couldn't even see the people right in front of me who did love me 😢.
It’s funny how intellectually and fundamentally we understand all this, but deep deep inside The Monster keeps insisting you stop kidding yourself & know the truth - you’re not worth loving.
I felt that way too though therapy and EMDR have been removing the barriers and somehow have been allowing me to finally be able to internalize and live these healthy beliefs and ways where before I couldn't get to having them translate within me know
I misread "the moster" as "the mother"... Freud is so happy right now
@@whyamIaraccoon😅
I have always said that I love people as a whole, in terms of humanity. I don’t like knowing there are people suffering. I don’t like hearing harm came to others. But when it comes to one-on-one interactions with individuals, I really find myself not caring about their lives or what is happening in them. It is always a struggle because you’re always forced to make small talk (particularly in work situations) and I find myself zoning out because I don’t care about what they are telling me and I don’t particularly care to ask about their lives or hobbies.
I never understood this. I knew I wasn’t a heartless person. I knew I didn’t lack empathy in general. I just lacked it in interpersonal interactions with non-loved ones.
Hearing what you said in this video makes me see that it was likely always just yet another symptom of my CPTSD.
It’s such a common band-aid phrase and it’s so dismissive. I know others mean well but it’s deeply hurtful when you’re doing your best to be better than your upbringing. It makes me feel broken because I know I’ll never be normal, never was, and I’ll be dealing with my twisted mind forever. I’m coming to terms with not dating again and I’m terrible at maintaining friendships so I’ve more or less given up there too. It’s safer for everyone to be at arms length, for now.
Your mind might be twisted right now, but you have the power - and only you - to untwist it. And your heart is right there with you to help, support and guide you. You have all you need to be who you truly are.
Trauma-driven thinking can be discouraging. But never forget: Healing is possible!
Nika@TeamFairy
Thanks for your comment, in response, no offense meant, i would like to say, how about readjusting your thought from i am broken, too i have wounds that i am healing, or i have scars and thats ok , what happened to me was not normal, but i am a normal human being, like everything else who has thoughts, feelings and desires..i also struggle with the things you mention in your comment, and i can relate, but i also have learned some different ways of thinking, so i am not putting myself down or hurting myself with my thoughts/ ..hope this helps
I disagree technically, but this is such an important message. Love is not about having an ideal and clean character. Love is about stepping up for other people.
Thank you! "You just need to love yourself". Ya know, I kinda do or I'd be dead by now. Maybe my actions and words don't always show it, but man, I've fought hard for myself to survive.
It's so demeaning to be told that I'm not capable of loving another human being, and the solution is people telling me that I need to get a cat. Thanks. I do love cats, lol. So defective that I am incapable of love. It's the most dehumanizing thing a person can say to me.
That is a terrible thing to say to someone, I hope you know it isn't true. You deserve good things and are capable of love :) -Calista@TeamFairy
I disagree that you have to do deep psychological processing and heal your wounds in order to develop self love. I think it takes behavioral changes: you have be kind to yourself. You have to give yourself pleasurable experiences--fun things, comforting things, hobbies, healthy socializing. You have to take care of yourself--healthy food and lifestyle, enough sleep. You have to protect yourself--practice psychological boundaries, don't put up with abuse, don't take physical risks. "Act first and the feelings will follow" is an important maxim that applies here. As you discipline yourself to be kind to yourself, your baseline for what you will tolerate rises and your self-esteem grows.
I agree to a point, but also believe that it's possible it may not be enough. If there are still barriers of any sort you can go through all the motions and have the best intentions but it could still be something more of a to do list and not genuinely blossom deep within. In those situations then psychological processing can be the missing link or remove that barrier so everything you described can take root and grow and flourish
I disagree with you, although you ,mention alot of very important, self care, steps towards self love, you are forgetting that we all have underlying pain, so if we do all the steps you suggested, which are great, no matter how many positive steps we take , we will always carry the pain in our hearts, that is deep in there, and comes out when we least expect it to, and at the most inconvient times. This is me, and i have done all that you mentioned, and i can' t really move forward, until i deal with, and heal with my pain.
I couldn’t say, “I like myself” much less “I love myself.”
So…
Another aspect is what we perceive as “Love yourself.”
We generally think of “love” as caring for oneself.
But when we have suffered extreme neglect and been abused our definition of caring love is not a healthy one.
When we are trying to redefine our learned dictionary definitions it takes a trusted counselor or friend to help us perceive how distorted our view of self love is.
Our family of origin experiences shape our dictionary definitions in ways that are not always overt and in your face.
It is the background influences in our head that are the toughest to confront.
They show up as a nudge to our internal compass that makes it inaccurate to follow.
Our compass has been useful, we survived.
If it was accurate we would be thriving.
I couldn’t even say, “I like myself” much less, “I love myself.”
I have a huge issue with that phrase “love yourself”, what the hell does that even mean. I much rather “respect myself”.
It's so abstract, I don't understand it.
I’m listening and just started sobbing. I feel so seen. Why have I never heard anything like this? Thank you for speaking on this! Thank you taking the time to share. Thank you!🙏🏻
You are so welcome. Thank you for watching!
Nika@TeamFairy
I found my choices around relationships were based around my lack of self esteem, self worth, and lack of self love. Considering a professional, successful person never seemed like an option. I chose alcoholics, abusers, liars, and needy, unhealthy people or they chose me. My sister said, "quit giving your power away!" No comprehension of what that meant.
Now I look for the positive in others AND myself. Is that self love? I think it is, and self esteem is definitely part of my wellbeing now. As I respect myself, I can respect others and/or discern what I need. No straying into areas that I do not feel comfortable in. I can be me and be happy. I don't require outside approval to feel loved. Outside attention to feel worth. I love who I am and it feels wonderful.
Thanks for sharing this! -Calista@TeamFairy
That's awesome😊
The sad part of my upbringing is that I always felt like the 'black sheep in the family'. Now I realize that was because I was one of the few sane 'normal' non-toxic ones. They were almost all toxic , both sides of my parents family and my parents.
"Watching CZcams videos" made me chuckle out loud. I love your channel. I'm not doing the daily practice with any kind of consistency.
While I don't think of myself as a victim and incapable of being "fixed," I do have difficulty loving myself. I do a lot of self-sabotage. I am going through a divorce, unemployed (unemployment eligibility has not yet been determined), and I'm going through a Christian women's group...I don't know what to call it...oh, and I'm trying to also do Body Groove for exercise. 😂🤪
I think we (adults with childhood PTSD) need support to change and learn to regulate emotions, whether it be from a professional or another in our lives. My husband is someone around whom I feel safe so his love has included showing me the way to be less horrible to myself. It's taken 10 years at least to grow and distance myself from a negative past but I still don't love myself enough.
If you haven't already, try Daily Practice bit.ly/CCF_DailyPractice Through writing and meditation, you can better connect with yourself in a loving, compassionate and caring way.
Nika@TeamFairy
I awoke to this very topic one morning after some months of very intense inner work - realizing I didn’t hate myself but the symptoms and limitations of my mental illness(es). Then I googled why do self help gurus push the narrative that the core issue is we all hate ourselves…The answer was what I suspected for a long time and what I personally experienced regarding a couple of therapists. All of that to say I am very discerning of who I listen to or advice I consider regarding mental health. Anna’s teaching is absolutely solid because it has been lived. Anyway, Great message ! Thanks Anna!🙂✌🏻
Totally agree with this. Idiots say you need to love yourself by simply regurgitating what they’ve heard without fully understanding the concepts of trauma and how it changes the brain & personality. It has nothing to do with loving yourself but learning to unlearn bad paradigms and all the negative things we were told about ourselves. Love & healing all. Glisten, Glisten
You’ll never read this Anna but the fact that you’ve experienced trauma and can articulate the pain and suffering that thousands of us are going through seperates you from other channels. Some people are just trained in mental health issues but have never experienced and it comes off like that. Keep up this offering for others.
Anna does read comments and she will probably read yours as well. Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We appreciate it a lot!
Nika@TeamFairy
It can be distilled down to: You can't love until you can love, doesn't matter whom. And to be able to love you need compassion and understanding first.
You’re videos are so timely.
This is my biggest struggle. Thank you for helping me feel seen & understood.
Thank you for being a part of our community :) -Calista@TeamFairy
I almost felt joy while practicing piano this morning. It was just a brief glimmer that quickly faded, but it was something. I could lose myself in music for hours as a teenager. But I was surrounded by people who didn’t appreciate my gifts. Even now as an adult, I find that if I post a clip of me playing something, my “friends”’are silent and never say anything (even though I can see that they viewed the clip multiple times) and it’s only the strangers online who have nice things to say. I’m thinking about creating new social media with a pseudonym just to escape the embarrassment of having to try to prove myself to people who will never like me, no matter what.
there are no words to describe the amount of information you cleared for me. after years of therapy and support groups, for some reason- CPTSD- i almost gave it all up. your work helps me refresh and remember the importance of consistency. thank you
I've explained it as trusting your intuition and accepting yourself. Treating yourself with humanity.
I was diagnosed with borderline 10 years ago and it seems like this CPTD is more a problem than borderline which is eye opening. I’ve done 9 months out patient at Yale for DBT which has been extremely helpful, but I find that it doesn’t always help regulate my emotions. This is good advice to add to those other tools. I was only diagnosed with PTSD about 5 years ago and it wasn’t until a few months ago that I even knew about CPTD. Now I’m seeing a therapist that specializes in CPTD with organic therapy. I really need help. I see two therapist every other week and I still feel like I need a abundance of help
Good for you, keep going😊
Me: a lifetime of self work, a professor in graduate level mental health and addiction therapies and research, have sought self actualization as long as I can remember.
Re: self-love, Eckert Tolle‘s posits in one of his books thst SELF LOVE as a really kind of a “non-thing.“ He offers that feeling totally neutral toward oneself is the best possible place to be, and that putting pressure on one’s self to self - love, really has no meaning, and creates a lot of nebulous considerations about what that is. I am with him, and I also know from great experience that much of what you posit is very important. I love your work. However, Your stuff on 12 -step programs and self love I don’t find to be accurate. ☮️
I feel like adopting a practice of gratitude was one thing that made a huge difference. Tony Robbins would say "trade your expectations for appreciations."
Receiving love feels like imposter syndrome.. I'm happy just being mostly accepted. I've worked through so many of my hard wired reactive behaviors. Can't stop now lol
I am a christian woman My faith has been everything and I'm so tired of hearing that I am a widow and it's been very lonely since my husband died and I'm so tired of hearing other Christian women telling me that God can be your husband especially ones who have a husbands at home. I just wanna scream at them. And how I need to learn to love myself. I am so tired and hearing that. Thank you so much for this Video I know that this childhood trauma has affected my faith. When I know God knows, I love him. And he knows how messed up I I have been. I was married for 27 years I'm tired being made to believe I'm less of a Christian because of my PTSD.
I hear what you're saying and I understand. I get the same treatment. And then you feel guilty when it feels like Jesus being your husband isn't enough. It would be different if you could walk up to him and give him a hug and kiss.
Human beings are just too much work. Mentally, physically, psychologically, financially, scholarly, relationships, astrologically, somatically, religiously etc. Endless drama and endless learning
Are you referring to yourself, because you are a human and if you are suggesting humans are too much, i would say, you are too selfish and lazy to make any changes to improve your life, and too negative, most likely you are misable, no selfish person was ever happy nor loving, the consequence you will most likely die alone and no one will find your body for some time. Thats horrible
I always tell people who say this to me that if I had to be taught how to walk and talk then why would I just know automatically how to love myself? It doesn't make sense to assume that someone who doesn't love themselves is just refusing to love themselves when they probably have never been taught how to properly love themselves.
I totally agree with you. I love myself also, and I have spent a lifetime being present, and being a good listener, and being there for everyone, as a person, a therapist, and a professor and mentor. I do agree with what she says that being able to open yourself and love someone often also opens up a piece of one’s heart. That just feels very good and it’s somewhat foreign to me still.
Are there any “non-trauma people”? I can’t really imagine that there are….😢but I guess that gives us LOTS of company on these roads!
My second favorite is, 'you must fill your own cup'... usually said by the person who just drained it.
"You can't love others until you love yourself" is a subset of what I think of as: "You can't live your life until you're perfect. Once you're perfect, you can start living." Look, we'll all be covered in dust if we put off our lives until we're perfect.
What we need is to figure out how to do the things we want to do, how to take action, as the imperfect schmucks we actually are. Every good action we take, every step we take toward our ambitions even imperfect as we are, is an improvement and helps us become less schmuckish.
I felt so seen in this video, I couldn't stop crying
We're all sending you encouragement :) -Calista@TeamFairy
Let us not forget, "Just get over it."
It isn't as simple as making a snap decision.
I love myself most when I perform music, live... Practicing at home doesn't do it... but I have to practice to be good live.... a catch 22.
I am attempting as much accomplishment as I can... but motivation is low, like leaving for a long trip on an empty tank.
Can I just just say that you have a calling and you are doing work for the good of the entire collective. You have so beautifully articulated the path of healing that I have been on for the past 4 years and I must agree that it has taken my spirituality and understanding of different perspectives and my own more clear perceptions of them to an entirely different level. You can feel the momentum growing across the board. So many are coming into their power and it's because as we do we share what we are learning we are lighting those around us. No one can convince me that good cannot prevail over evil. I deeply believe in our inherent unlimited potential once we stand in a frequency united in love. Side note why did I feel like you were speaking directly to me at the end of this video?
It was so fraustrated that when people tell "you need to love yourself first before you can love/beloved". It came from a place of good but sounds like bully ask someone who never eat meat to describe its taste.
For me I only started to touch a little bit self-love after a very short period of feeling unconditionally loved. It was not long but triggered my transformation. I saw the different world so I know where to go.
Yes forgiveness and healing. You have been hurt doesn't mean you cant love or be loved.
I have been through so much trauma and I learnt to love myself.
Wonderful!
Nika@TeamFairy
Finally someone said what needed to be said.
ANNA....I'm new....You Rock !!! Thx...God Bless and HUGgzzz!!!
Welcome to the channel! -Calista@TeamFairy
Been reading about shame. Anna, I love what u said that humility (the acceptance of the reality of yourself) is a POWERFUL antidote !!!!
We are taught so many toxic patterns as children and that has a major effect on our choices in relationships as adults. Understanding that you need to retrain your mind is essential. Diving into understanding your trauma and the effects it has on your mental health by seeking helpful information is necessary. Learning about self respect, standards, morals and boundaries is a good foundation for breaking toxic cycles in your mind. If you understand you deserve better then you'll choose better. You'll recognize triggering behaviour and you'll immediately take action to remove the toxic energy from your life and no longer excuse the toxic behaviour. You'll also refuse to settle for less then you deserve in general. When you fully understand that you're worthy of love, respect, loyalty, trust and consistency from other's then you will only choose people who share the same principles. Accomplishing this stage in your healing journey is a major step towards self love 💝
Yes, being told to love yourself is so frustrating. Everything you've said here rings so true❤
Ahhh. Boundaries. I've reached the point in my healing where I can and am starting to use boundaries to good effect. I can only just now practice this, since achieving a viable level of self esteem/worth/respect.
Holy moly, what courageous work you are doing! One thing we do is to fear that harsh feelings, especially alarming self-destructive ones, are unchageable. We were not taught that thoughts and feelings are more like internal weather. Inner child work has taught me to gentle myself through them and let them pass. We are terrified that an awful feeling is a bottom line truth, which is a dreadful misunderstanding. It destroys patience by alarms. Bad hair days come and go, if you don't cling to them and draw major conclusions based on them. Perhaps that is a difference between trauma and normal suffering - we take hurt as gospel, rather than comforting and reassuring our inner child that times of not loving yourself, and not loving others - lacking compassion - will pass. Inner child work develops a sense of flow, letting compassion be the stability to weather harsh feelings. 🌷🙏
Thank you for watching and for sharing your insight.
Nika@TeamFairy
this is so true. this is excactly what went through my head as i watched videos on the topic. many who just say you need self love or confidence or self esteem dont understand how deep the childhood neglect and trauma can go since they themselves havent lived it.
Glad you're here :) -Calista@TeamFairy
Great topic here.
As soon as you arrive to your first appointment with a counselor asa child from a broken home, they go on and on about this.
I haven't always been the kindest to myself that's true. But do I hate myself? Absolutely not. It's a cheap band-aid therapists and New Agers can't get enough of.
THANK YOU ANNA! I'm sooo tired of people saying you have to love yourself first like its something you can do instantly 😊It takes time. Its not magic.
Thank you 🙏❤️ I also get annoyed when I hear therapist and ppl say love yourself.
I’ve been struggling to get on the self love cycle for quite some time now but this video has brought some clarity to the process
So glad to hear it! We're here to support you!
Nika@TeamFairy
I have Septo Optic Dysplasia and CPTSD. I was told that I needed to love myself. At the time before I took my healing seriously, when I was told this I thought I needed to pressure myself and force myself to love myself, and they’d tell me, “you can’t pressure yourself or force yourself to love yourself.” Now that I’ve worked on my healing, I understand what they meant all this time. I don’t mind when people nowadays tell me to love myself. If other people don’t like it, I also understand and you are totally entitled to that. I now love myself. Now, I’ve wanted to say simelar things to others, but I also need to understand that some things are ok, and some things are just not ok to say, even though I want to say them as a means of having people hear the harsh things they need to hear.
I can not enjoy any feeling if I love myself, I feel I am useful if someone abuse me or love me.
As an adult I guess I gave myself as much love and respect as any family member has ever given me. None. Those taunts from a dysfunctional ex, you wouldn't know what live is, were right. Removing yourself from toxic family abuse is the best thing you could do for yourself. Definitely you will mourn the loss of everything you held dear but they were robbing you of your true worth. Beyond the trauma of grief and loss, I guarantee, YOU WILL THRIVE. The best thing I ever did for myself. Love is respect, the opposite is indifference. Crappy childhood fairy is one of my favourite self help tutorials. ❤
Thank you for sharing this with us :) -Calista@TeamFairy