Loving yourself isn’t a weekend hashtag or a self-care routine. It’s not something you think your way into. True self-love is a deeply embodied experience that must be felt, not forced—woven into your nervous system, your choices, and the way you meet yourself in every season. And for some of us, the path to finding it can be long, painful, and nonlinear, because it means unlearning years of self-abandonment, facing the parts of ourselves we’ve tried to outrun, and slowly building a relationship with who we are at our core.
The First Time I Asked
I remember the first time I typed the words into a search bar: “How do I love myself?”
It was back in the early days of Internet Explorer, when connecting to the internet meant dial-up sounds and waiting forever for pages to load. Even then, the answers felt shallow. “Take a bubble bath.”, “Write a love letter to yourself.”, “Treat yourself to something nice.”
I remember reading those answers and thinking, That’s not it. That can’t be it.
What I really wanted to know was:
- What does it feel like to love myself?
- How do I know if I’m doing it?
- How do I get from where I am—which feels like shame, judgment, and constant self-doubt—to something that even remotely resembles self love?
None of those search results helped me with that.
And it wasn’t coming from a place of just curiosity. It was coming from my own desperation. There was a deep ache in my chest, a hollowness I couldn’t fill with accolades or attention. I knew how to make other people feel good. I knew how to take care of everyone else. But when I turned inward, there was silence. I didn’t know how to take care of me.
Where the Disconnect Began
I can trace the fracture back to childhood. My mom and I giggle about it now, but the story she tells is that when I came home from the hospital, an older sibling tried to throw me away in the trash.
That early rejection became a theme in that relationship.
As I moved into grade school, my parents often asked one of my older siblings to help me with homework. And every time, I remember feeling so small. So stupid. One sibling in particular would tell me how dumb I was. How everyone else knew these answers but me, and that if I didn’t already know this stuff, I must be stupid.
And the thing is—they were my hero. In my early years of childhood I adored my sibling. Three years older—still a kid, really—but to me, they were everything. We played tag, hide-and-seek, kickball, battleship, and awesome 80’s music. I wanted to be around them all the time.
So when they turned on me, it broke something inside.
That’s when I started to shrink.
I became shy; scared to speak up. My grades dropped, and my self-trust vanished. I started looking for who I needed to become so that I wouldn’t feel stupid, rejected, or in the way of others.
In those moments, I fragmented. I exiled the part of me that was curious, open, soft—because that part got hurt. And what filled the space was someone always trying to be “enough.”
Years later, I can look back and see how clearly that moment shaped my core belief system about who I am and the worth connected to it. I stopped expecting love to feel nurturing. I started assuming it would feel like pressure and performance. And as I grew, that became the only version of “love” I knew how to accept and receive.
Why “Self-Love” Felt Foreign
For years, I couldn’t understand why people talked about self-love like it was obvious. It wasn’t obvious to me.
When I heard the phrase “love yourself,” it sounded like a metaphor I didn’t understand—as if everyone else had been given a manual that I somehow missed.
Growing up, love always came tangled in conditions, expectations, and a subtle current of shame. If love in my world meant earning approval by being what someone else needed, how could I possibly replicate something I’d never actually received in its true form?
I didn’t know what unconditional love really looked like. It wasn’t just a vague concept; it felt completely out of reach, like a beautiful idea reserved for other people. And because I couldn’t feel it, I quietly assumed there was something defective about me—some missing piece that made me unworthy of the very thing people spoke of so casually.
So I did what so many of us do when we don’t know how to generate love from within: I went looking for it everywhere else.
I chased it in my accomplishments, hoping that achievement would earn me a sense of value. I sought it in relationships and in nameless one-night stands, mistaking sex for connection.
I tried to collect it through the quiet drip of external praise, thinking that if I played my roles well enough—if I was the dependable one, the strong one, the capable one—then maybe, eventually, the feeling would stick.
But no matter how much validation or attention I gathered, it all passed through me like water through a sieve. The hole inside was never filled. It became painfully clear that I didn’t actually know how to feel worthy enough to love myself.
What Finally Shifted
The first time I felt love for myself, like real love; not an affirmation, it came when I turned toward the part of me that felt unworthy—and didn’t try to fix her, but to listen to her.
It came when I stopped performing for my own approval. When I let the part of me that was tired, scared, and ashamed speak without being silenced.
Self-love didn’t arrive like a bolt of lightning full and complete. It came quietly and over time, like a shy child, unsure if it was safe to be seen.
“You don’t have to keep trying so hard. I see you. And I’m not leaving. I’m proud of you for how you protected us. I love you.” I told her.
That moment—and many like it since—began to rewire something deep within me. I stopped chasing self-love through achievements and started listening inward. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t always clear. But it was real—and it was mine.
Of course, I didn’t get it right every time. There were moments I forgot. Days when the inner critic took the lead again. Weeks when I slid back into old patterns.
But something fundamental had shifted. I began noticing the slips instead of spiraling in them. I came back to myself more quickly. And each return made the relationship with myself stronger, more trustworthy, more true.
I realized that loving myself wasn’t something to achieve.
It was something I had to tend to—moment by moment, breath by breath.
How Do I Love Myself Now
Loving myself now doesn’t always look like confidence, nor does it always feel glamorous.
Sometimes it’s canceling a meeting because my nervous system needs rest, even when my mind is still trying to push through. Sometimes it’s crying in the middle of the day and not needing to explain why, because tears have become a form of self-listening instead of something to hide.
It’s telling the truth to myself, even when it’s inconvenient. It’s choosing myself, even if it disappoints someone else, because betraying myself is a cost I’m no longer willing to pay. It feels like softness where there was once tension, patience where urgency used to lead.
Self-love, for me, has become the art of tending—choosing to care for myself in small, ordinary ways that nobody else sees. Some days, it looks like eating something nourishing, giving my body what it quietly asks for. Other days, it’s choosing joy alongside grief, giving myself permission to hold both without making one cancel out the other.
Sometimes, self-love means letting go of someone I love—because I refuse to stay in places where I disappear. It’s holding myself steady when my old patterns of overgiving want to pull me back.
What I’ve learned is this: self-love isn’t a destination. It’s a relationship. It evolves. It changes form. It meets me where I am, rather than demanding that I be somewhere else first.
Some days it’s momentum. Some days it’s stillness. Some days it’s discipline. And sometimes, it’s simply allowing myself to not have the answers and still know, with a kind of quiet defiance, that I’m enough.
Ready to Come Home to Yourself?
If this spoke to something in you—if you felt seen, softened, or stirred—it’s not just because of the words. It’s because you’re ready for a new relationship with yourself. One that goes deeper than routines and affirmations. One that honors every part of you—including the ones still waiting for love, safety, and integration.
This is the work I do with my clients.
I offer private coaching sessions that guide you into the inner terrain of your own healing—where old patterns unwind, emotional weight gets released, and you begin to build an unshakeable foundation of self-trust. Together, we create the space for you to reconnect with your wholeness and live from it.
You don’t have to keep navigating this alone.
If your system is ready to soften, reconnect, and reclaim what’s been lost—book a private Discovery Call to explore what’s possible.
You are not too far gone. You are not behind.
You’re right on time. And I would be honored to walk this path with you.