black and white thinking, P.

:)

always... trying, trying, trying, trying, TRYING to love myself!! LOL Hopefully we will all be able to one day!

Sarah Palin and Doc Orrange on a Unicorn

Thanks, Goingthrutheemotions. That is a good idea. Maybe I'll make a list and post it on my mirror so I make sure to think about it every morning.

One of the things that really hit me about being unloveable, was reading that Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you don't love yourself, can you really love anyone else?

I was burdened with self hatred for so many years. It drove me to do horrible things, to cope, to make myself feel loved. All through this, I have had loving children, and a husband who has changed radically. I think mostly we have conditional love in our lives. "I will love you if you behave," "I love you if you are pretty, thin, musical, athletic,cool, radical, quiet, creative, mechanical....etc" Fill in the blank.

To really love yourself, you have to find some reasons for existing. If you base it on things, talents or looks, and you lose any of those extrinsic things., then you will have a struggle to cope. Intrinsic things are much harder to quantify. I think it is a journey of self discovery, and sometimes facing the fact that some things in ourselves are NOT lovable.

That becomes a motive for change. But in the end, God has created us in His image. That means to me, grasping that concept, and then submitting myself to God. If you are not a Christian, I don't have any advice. Faith and grace is the basis of my existence, and my hope for the present and the future. And of course, forgiveness for the past.

Very deep question. I don't think the answers are easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnR3vQkofgg&feature=related

Just watch The Apartment

Agree with Angela and others who say it's of utmost importance to love yourself before you can truly love anyone else.

I can suggest reading Louise Hay's material...she teaches daily affirmations which do work.

Plukk...thought that was the movie you were referring to, but don't think you were even born yet...LOL! So shut up and deal :-)

I am learning this myself. I find some of the DBT skills helpful here. One of the skills is radical acceptance - accepting things exactly as they are. Another skill is something called FAST which is for maintaining self-esteem. I'm having lots of trouble with FAST, but I think it will be vitally important for me.

F - Be Fair
A - No apologies
S - Stick to your values
T - Be truthful

I have trouble with A & S. I'm working on it. It's HARD work too.