How do you truly learn to love yourself?

Question

How do you overcome damage done by parents who taught you that you're stupid, ugly, and worthless in order to believe that you're worthwhile? How do you deflect the confirmation of these teachings by your peers, your college faculty, and your colleagues over the course of three decades? I've tried to 'choose' to love myself and to be happy, but I seem to fail repeatedly. I've lost someone dear to me because I hate myself...and the pain has made me desperate enough to change...

Answer 1

the ugly duckling had the same life and it turned out fine.

that fairy tale was a testimonial of things that either happened or could happen.

your mind is the strongest implement you'll ever need, want or desire if you but stop and realize what is at your disposal. your mind, if you choose, can make so many wonderful things happen in your life. the flip side to that is you could go so far as to make yourself sick......you don't want to go there....yeah? these people who berated you were wrong. they, as parents were supposed to help you to have a fighting chance in this world.

you need to summon up the strength and overcome these lies....it is possible to just prove that they were wrong and land on your feet "stand for something or you'll fall for anything. be that person that you are supposed to be.

there's nothing more i can say at this time. i wish you well sincerely. go get'em slugger!

Answer 2

Well, we all know that if one is told he is bad long enough, he will begin to believe it and act like it. My fifth grade teacher told me that a noun is the name of a person place or thing so many times that I started to believe even that.

After I was kicked out to high school for punching the coach, I spent four years in the service taking inventory of myself. When I was sent to a country where a very complex language is spoken, and I found that I was fluent in 18 months, I concluded that I must have some sort of intelligence. Took the GED, used my GI Bill to get started and ended with a Ph.D. and a gratifying career.

Then no one cared that I am unattractive and something of a hot-headed nerd. No, I'm a complete nerd, the kind who spills his soup on the boss's wife. When I come in, couples lower their heads and their voices to discuss my many merits.

Look into yourself and find your long suit. Play that and to hell with the family history. Do you realize that if there were a convention for people from normal families who are perfectly happy, only Bill and Hillary would be there? If we keep looking to others as mirrors reflecting what we are, we will never be certain of the truth, and will often interpret every glance negatively.

We love you and wish you a turn-around in your fortunes too. Hugs, John

Answer 3

You have to learn to accept yourself no matter what and ignore what others' negative comments have been said over the years. Who's opinion really matters? In the end, it's always your own. Make a written list of your good qualities, and keep it handy. Review it whenever you're feeling bad about yourself. The more you tell yourself these things, the more you believe it...kinda like brainwashing yourself. You don't even need to believe it, but eventually you'll be able to see the things that are on the list.

I'll even help you out with your list... 1) (or whatever number you're on) You're smart enough to ask for help when you need it. 2) You're strong enough to ask for others' opinions 3) You're obviously smart enough to use a computer (trust me, there's alot of people who don't have a clue with computers!) Hope this helps! :)

Answer 4

Don't hate yourself!! Those parents suck for not doing their job as a parent!! Make friends, explore the world, you still can learn to love yourself; this is just a bump in the road.

Go to therapy or some free self-esteem classes!

And don't do drugs because they're half @$$ed pieces of plants!!

If you currently are because you are depressed see a doctor!

Love life, love life, breathe in and exhale and say to love life!!

Listen to encouraging music, take a kiddy bubble bath with Mr. Bubbles, watch Friends, not Jerry Springer!!

Don't be a playa hater!!

Uh oh...Mr. Smee has come out of the kitchen and CLOGGED THE SINK FOR THE 505TH TIME!!

Does this help?
If not..

DO THE THUMBS DOWN AND HAVE A NICE DAY!! :D

Answer 5

Love all the qualities of yourself. Embrace them into your heart, and start to heal. Surround yourself with positive vibes and people. You cannot learn to love yourself without doing a little soul searching. Find out what you like and what you don't like. And sometimes, it takes losing something extremely important in our lives to make us change our ways.

To attract good people and good things into your life, you must exert good from yours.

Good luck to you and your journey.

Answer 6

You can't simply 'love' yourself for no apparent reason. It doesn't work that way. Trying to love yourself for no reason is like putting down as your hobby that you 'love' music.

Everybody loves music, but there is alot of music out there. So, saying you love music says nothing. Now, saying you love Dean Martin instead of Kenny Chestnut tells me something (likes music from the 50's, dislikes country, in general.)

So, to learn to 'love' yourself, you have to start by 'loving' something about you, some aspect of yourself that is specific to you. Say you love collecting stamps. Well, collecting stamps means learning to take care of your collection, to organize your collection, to reach out to others who also collect stamps (since they will most likely know where to get the one's you are looking for) and thus, your collection will reveal a part of yourself that you regard as special. You really can't 'collect' something unless you somehow believe you deserve to have it, so its actually a way to boost self-esteem.

Maybe you don't have anything you collect in particular, but you are pretty good at writing HTML or Java. I certainly know squat about either, so anyone who has a talent like that is someone I certainly have regard for, and would be someone I would most likely listen to if they said something about a Java application I would be running.

Love yourself from a position of your strengths, from the place where you are most confident from. Everyone has something (very often, quite a few things) which, if they only stopped to realize, would be all they needed to find value in themselves (which is all love is, recognizing value in someone/something.)

You don't hate yourself, you are simply frustrated and confused with yourself, and with others who made you so. And failure is simply the foundation of success. See your 'failures' as examples of things not to do and you are already half-way to being where you want to be. Good luck.

Answer 7

Think about all your good qualities. What skills do you posses that you can use to help others? If you can even think of one, then you're worth something. Don't go into depression, otherwise it leads to suicide, which leads to hell.