It means you have to put yourself first in any relationship. Care enough about you to distance yourself from any negative crap in your life. Learn to love yourself as much as you love anyone else. Take care of you first.

Yes what Zazas said, putting your well being beore everyone eles and making sure things are heathy and happy yourself.

so your saying become self centered and selfish? sorry but i have a serious comprehension problem.

Ive always had a problem comprehending that as well..Sounds like being a little self centered to me as well

I always thought being alittle selfish was a healthy thing...if you not good to yourself, you're no good to anyone else.

I am being really selfish right now because I must take care of me..that's all I can handle right now.

I agree - it's not only taking care of yourself, but accepting yourself as well. The good and the bad. Realizing that you are only human. Extending compassion to yourself. Eventually this will start to pour out of you as you become at ease with you. I struggle with it constantly. But at least I'm struggling and not pretending or ignoring it. In the end we only want to be free from pain and suffering. Every human being wants this. Once you realize that you can't be free from it, you look it in the eye and face it. All the ugliness, all that is beautiful. You turn that inward on yourself. And you may begin to like who you are despite your faults. It isn't easy, and it takes work. But I'm confident that I can do it. And it will be my path to happiness.

I always equate it to the safety instructions on an airplane. In the event that oxygen masks are required, you are supposed to put yours on first before helping children or the elderly. Basically, if you're not in a good place there's no way you'll be able to allow your partner to be in a good place.

I find that really, really hard to do. I can't even accept that my kids love me, but somehow they do! For us it's easier to love others than to even like ourselves, and at times we can't bear being in the same room as ourselves, but I know we have to do it to move on. What a dilemma.

It's much easier for me to love someone else than myself. We naturally take the path of least resistance, and if giving our love away eases that pain, that's where we'll gravitate. It's easy to get wrapped up in doing what you think is best, especially when you know it isn't. Facing up to those insecurities is extremely hard. And it isn't something that ever really goes away. I think you just become more at ease with it. Mindfulness goes a long way. Loving unconditionally yourself and others without any strings attached is a very, very scary thing, because we long for acceptance and validation. So we attach these emotions to those expectations. Setting ourselves up for disappointment in the process. And there's nothing wrong with that, once we realize that is what we're doing. Then we can begin to work on it. Sometimes just the awareness of your motivations can be enough to make you pause, for just one instant and ask yourself, why? And that can make all the difference in the world.

I don't think loving yourself means being selfish. I think to the contrary, it means accepting yourself, warts and all. The more I accept myself, that I was created in the image of God, the more I am able to give and love others. Jesus said that, too!

"He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:27.

The way I see it, is that if you don't love yourself, you are going to find it hard to love anyone else. I used to be so full of self loathing. God has really healed so much of that, revealing that he really did know the BAD stuff, but he loved me anyway. And if the creator of the universe can love me, then I guess it is ok to accept myself and love myself.

Oh, and this does NOT mean you let people walk all over you. Part of loving yourself and others, is setting reasonable boundaries, and not enabling others to hurt you.

i appreciate some of the kind words everyone has given to me, but can we please stay away from the god/jesus talk. i do not believe in that sort of thing because i know that god hates me and allowed my kids mother to kill herself and left me here in this miserable depressed state of mind.