The Trouble With (Self) Love

Self-love is at the very core of healing. It is the powerful ingredient, that one swoosh of a magic wand that starts the domino effect of everything else. 

People who’ve figured this out are unicorns who gracefully set and maintain boundaries, excel in empathy and compassion, care deeply for others, and prioritize self-care. They are self-assured and confident. Poised. We all want that, too, of course. Except if such a desirable state requires that elusive self-love, then that’s where we draw the line and can’t bring ourselves to do it.

Derek Zoolander, Blue Steel

Because self-love sounds like the most narcissistic, self-absorbed bullshit. Love is to be given to others, not hoarded for ourselves, right? What kind of self-centered asshat would I have to be to love up on myself? Next, you’ll be telling me I need to give myself praise and hugs, and then we’ll both know that’s a non-starter. 

Loving oneself sets off alarms in our heads because most of us think self-love is basically selfish, bordering on ridiculous. And, if that wasn’t enough to make us dislike that subject,  here’s another aspect of self-love that bugs us. We somehow intuit that self-love means acceptance and, well, we know ourselves the most, and we know that accepting this faulty person and loving this creature that is so often so wrong would be just insane. This person (me) has been wrong so much.

I mean, do you remember that disaster in junior high? I do! I was there, okay? I was with this person my whole life, and let me tell you, the list of her shortcomings, mistakes, wrongdoings, and colossal faults is very, very long. And now you want me to love up on her? Um, I don’t think so.  

Loving oneself is a challenge for us because it’s a major contradiction: one, we don’t understand the word love very well. And two, the way we understand love makes it impossible to apply it to ourselves. 

When we talk about love, we mostly describe a romantic, affectionate feeling. 

And because we primarily see love as a romantic act, it’s too odd to apply that affection to ourselves. 

So what does love mean, anyway? The ancient Greeks gave us a rich vocabulary distinguishing many different shades and forms of love: 

There’s Agape - the selfless love, Eros - the passionate love, Philia - that deep affection and friendship, Storge - the familial love, Ludus - the playful, flirtatious, temporary infatuation, Pragma - the long-lasting, committed relationship, and Philautia - the love for oneself, which can be healthy (self-esteem) or unhealthy (narcissism).

Two things here before we move on: first, yes, I had to Google the pronunciation of Storge; (it’s ‘stor-geh’ or ‘store’-’gay’ for those who didn’t have classic Greek in school, either). And second, as much as I love that we have a proper term for different aspects of love, the meanings of these various terms fluctuated over the centuries and millennia. You may dig deeper and find that Plato and Aristotle rarely used Agape, focusing instead on Eros and Philia, while Agape gained prominence in later Christian texts. The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) uses "Agape" to describe steadfast, covenantal love, and "Philia" is associated with brotherly love, as reflected in "Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love."

In other words, there are many different varietals to this term (love) and regardless of the definitions throughout the ages, the main point is to recognize that the term is more of an umbrella rather than a description of a romantic feeling, despite all the music and films and literature making us believe otherwise. 

John Vervaeke, in his series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, explains how early Christianity built on the Hellenistic traditions and expanded on the concept of various loves by bringing in the interaction between the subjects (episode 16). Eros was now understood as rather consumptive, as becoming one with something or someone, while Philia was about cooperating between two or more people. For the early Christians, Agape centered around creating. God was creating the future through love for people, which, as Vervaeke explains, meant that the best metaphor for Agape was now parental love.

When we talk about self-love, we need to stop thinking about the romantic variety and accept that what is required of us is Agape: selfless, unidirectional, completely forward-facing love.

When you ask a parent why they love their child, they won’t list all the things that their kid can do. The parent isn’t going to stop loving their child because the kid has a bad day or can’t do something. In fact, when we bring the completely unhelpful creature home from the hospital, we don’t expect them to cooperate with us, like we would expect a friend in the sense of Philia. Babies are entirely useless in cooperating. Yet we love them anyway. And the more we love them, the more we impact the creation of a new being. Love through action, that’s creation. That’s how parents experience love for their child. Your kids are loved because they are yours. Not because they bring wealth or help around the house or have good grades or smile pretty. The parents are creating a new person through their love for their child. 

Now, let’s circle back to self-love. What is required of us when it comes to self-love is not that we like ourselves in the romantic sense. Again, that would be weird. Actual self-love demands that we embrace the little kid we once were, who was or maybe wasn’t loved by their closest people. And, since we are the grown-ups now, it’s our turn. That person (you) is your person to love and to create. Your job is to practice Agape. To love that child unconditionally, regardless of how many times they mess up, whether they’re doing well or struggling. You love up on that child (you) because through the Agape love, you are creating a new person. 

In other words, self-love is not some narcissistic or egotistical infatuation with self. It is an act of unconditional care and creation. We love ourselves because we are our own person. Out of eight billion people, we've got us. And just like we would not repeatedly harp on a kid for something they did five years ago, we should not harp on ourselves for something we did in the past. This is why those who are comfortable with self-love are also self-confident and poised and oh, so good with boundaries. They don’t think it’s selfish. They understand that it’s their duty and privilege. They look at the choices they face every day: Should I say 'no' to this? Should I allow this? And they see it through the filter of “Is this going to serve that person whom I am protecting and nurturing?"

And if the answer is no, then they are firm in their rejection.  

Loving yourself means thinking of yourself as ‘your person’. It is through him or her that you are creating something good in the world. And if you don’t engage in this loving activity, if you abandon this person whom you are responsible for, then you will have a hard time creating any other meaningful relationship in your life. 

It’s maddening, but self-love truly is the key that opens all the other doors. We just need to stop thinking about it in the context of romantic fondness and adoration. Back in the 1960s, C.S. Lewis published a very influential book called The Four Loves. He covered Storge, Philia, Eros, and Agape, and in his interpretation, Storge was parental love, while Agape was often reserved for divine or selfless love. Ultimately, it does not matter which label is the most palatable to you - what’s important is that you lose the reticence to embrace that kind of love that allows you to root for yourself and forgive when you make a mistake, just as you would to a child. Give yourself the forward-facing gift of creating and building a better, more loved, and more lovable you.