Learning to love ourselves
“What we want most is to feel good about ourselves.”
Basic Text, p. 97
“We’ll love you until you can learn to love yourself!” These words, heard so often in
our meetings, promise a day we look forward to eagerly-the day when we’ll know
how to love ourselves.
Self-esteem, we all want this elusive quality as soon as we hear about it. Some of us
seem to stumble upon it accidentally, while others embark on a course of action
complete with affirmations made to our reflections in the mirror. But fix-it-yourself
techniques and trendy psychological cures can only take us so far.
There are some definite, practical steps we can take to show love for ourselves,
whether we “feel” that love or not. We can take care of our personal responsibilities.
We can do nice things for ourselves, as we would for a lover or a friend. We can start
paying attention to our own needs. We can even pay attention to the qualities that
we cherish in our friends-qualities like intelligence and humor-and look for those
same qualities in ourselves. We’re sure to find that we really are lovable people, and
once we do that, we’re well on our way.
Just for today: I will do something today that helps me recognize and feel love for
myself.
pg. 70