If the idea of loving yourself makes you feel uncomfortable, this video is for you!
And I don’t mean the Instagram version of self-love - the mirror affirmations, bikini body shots or oversharing every element of your life. I mean loving you as a person. The one inside. The one who makes mistakes. The one who replays that embarrassing moment from ten years ago like it happened yesterday.
Why self-love can feel “wrong”
I grew up in a culture where loving yourself could be seen as a bad thing.
“Oh, they love themselves.”
As if self-respect automatically meant arrogance. And for many of us, especially those of us who didn’t grow up with social media cameras in our face, even showing up on video can feel unnatural, never mind talking about self-love.
But a conversation with my cousin flipped the whole thing on its head.
You know that line from Jesus — “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
My cousin said: You can’t love your neighbour as yourself if you don’t love yourself first.
And honestly, that stopped me in my tracks.
Because if you hate yourself and you “love your neighbour as yourself”… you’re going to be a real prick of a neighbour, aren’t you?
Most of the time when someone’s difficult, reactive, or harsh, it’s not really about you. It’s about what’s going on inside them. Their pain leaks out sideways.
And that’s why this matters: self-love isn’t vanity. It’s emotional hygiene.
So here are two simple “first steps” to start building it.
Step 1: Become the Observer of your self-talk
The first step is learning to notice how you speak to yourself.
Not fix it. Not spiritualise it. Not pretend it isn’t there.
Just observe it.
Because if someone spoke to someone you loved the way you sometimes speak to yourself… you’d defend them in a heartbeat.
So start here:
- Pay attention to what you say to yourself after a mistake.
- Notice what you call yourself when you’re tired, stressed, or disappointed.
- Catch the tone. Is it kind? Or is it cutting?
And because I’m a big fan of writing things down, grab a notebook and start recording the phrases that come up. Not the polite version — the real version.
Then ask:
- What story am I telling myself when I say these things?
- Whose voice does this sound like?
- What story am I believing about myself when I say this?
Here’s the wild part: once you start tracing it back, you often find the self-loathing isn’t based on truth at all.
It’s based on old stories. Old labels. Old interpretations.
Lies you absorbed… and then repeated until they felt like fact.
Step 2: The “love/hate” list
If you want to go one level deeper — and get a bit brave — do this exercise:
- Draw a line down the middle of a page.
- On the left: Things I love about myself
- On the right: Things I dislike (or hate) about myself
Be honest. No performing. No judgement.
Then take one item at a time (especially on the right side) and ask:
- What memory is attached to this?
- What feeling comes up?
- What story am I telling myself about me?
This is where you start to unravel the false narratives.
Because once you see it as a story, you can finally say:
“That might have been my story once… but it’s not my story anymore.”
Maybe you behaved a certain way because of something you went through.
Maybe you learned a survival strategy that helped then — but harms you now.
Maybe you judged your five-year-old self with the standards of an adult.
That’s not truth. That’s punishment.
And you’re allowed to stop punishing yourself.
What changes when you start loving yourself
These two steps work together like a loop:
You observe the way you speak to yourself…
You uncover the stories underneath…
And when the stories change, your self-talk changes too.
And when you start caring for that inner person — the one you’ve been hard on for years — the emotional storms don’t affect you the same way.
You show up differently.
You react differently.
You soften.
And yes — you love people better too. Because it’s easier to give love when you’re not starving for it.
Your turn
If self-love makes you uncomfortable, do the exercise anyway.
Start small:
- Observe your self-talk for 24 hours.
- Write down what you notice.
- Try the love/hate list — even if it’s messy.
And if you do it, I’d genuinely love to hear what you discovered.
