Loving yourself.

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I love myself very much

Not just you!! The BBC article above shows they make many people feel worse.

And I'll try and explain why As soon as the thought that we "should be" other than we are, we've created a problem. Once I absorb that message (that I should love myself more) , I have, paradoxically, found a reason to accept myself exactly as I am, *less* than before!! ! Because now the thought arises in my mind that I do not, right now, love myself as I should. I have discovered yet more that is wrong with me to add to all the other things. It is a trap. Your mind (at least the mind of any non-delusional, rational thinker) now generates thoughts that you need to attain something new, to be something else in order to reduce your suffering. You have added to your desires...




No. It is diabolically awful advice, coming from a clueless idiot. Here, in contrast, is some really good advice:

If you cannot love yourself, that's fine. We are transient elements of an infinitely long process. It took 14 billion years to produce you and you are not flawed. You are exactly how it wants you to be. Simply, You don't have to love yourself or be anything other than what you are. Hey, the people writing those articles are only journalists out to make a living hacking together some platitudes found elsewhere

And if you cannot NOT love yourself, however hard you try, that's also fine.

Buddha reckoned that our desires were the cause of our suffering. Unlike the author of the article in the OP, he was not selling faulty goods. It's easy to see why "Learn to Love Yourself" is an attractive, popular package. Yet when we open it up, eventually it crumbles back to the nothing it came from. It is adding a desire to an already huge backlog of unfulfilled desires. You have added a problem, rather than removed the initial one.

Took you an entire day to find a hole in my post and all you can find is your own advice?! Must try harder. Altenatively you could just not reply to my posts and I wont reply to yours. How's that?

You do realise we're both basically saying the same thing just in different ways? I may not have the brain power or even the ability to concentrate for long enough to know the correct terminology etc but I don't disagree with you. Your right, words don't mean as much to me as the meaning behind them, this could be a consequence of having some trouble with and being extremely inconsistent with my ability to use words especially in a state of emotional arousal It's taken several tens of minutes and a lot of agitation and editing to write this for example. So forgive me if I don't use the correct words for you. In the context in which the words are meant I don't think I've said anything wrong. In the context you are imposing on the words I'm wrong.

So what you're saying would mean in it's application that:
My wife's ex was exactly the pedophile it wanted him to be?
And that his victims are exactly the victims it wanted them to be?

That sure sounds like that church thing of "Predestination" - The doctrine that everything has been foreordained by a God,
or the secular thing
"Determinism" - (ethics) The doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.

Okay, I get it - I am what something else wants me to be, this "it".
Apparently I am not what I am as a result of my own choices of will; but instead, of the will of this "it".

And apparently, that implies that I can't do jack S**T about it?
So, then, that would then imply there is no reason for me to chose to initiate some kind of action for myself toward raising hope for my life to get better - it's out of my control.

(Damn, I'm in a mood today!)
(and that is exactly "how it wants me to be" today, right?)

Last edited by southwestforests on 23 Sep 2009, 3:33 pm, edited 5 times in total.

The article isnt about affirmations. I actually said in my OP "ignore the part with the affirmation" and for some reason people zeroed in on it...

It is about treating yourself with the respect and kindness that can often not be found in the world. Something I am struggling with at the moment. Loving yourself, I agree, sounds a little autoerotic but I think that if you go on a true journey to respect and look after yourself you may end up with a feeling of self security and self-esteem. That is what the article is about. Not rocket science, and nothing that hasnt been written before but valid enough.

I have a book on cognitive therapy but it implies that there must be a suspension of disbelief through different thought processes. In other words, there are some perceptions we create. The pattern of perception is something one must be willing to challenge. I had to make a list and write down what I found negative and hurtful and then read through the book suggesting that not everything was how it seemed at the time.

This is hard for most people b/c we tend to believe only what we think and percieve especially when there is glitch. Some of us are predisposed to clinical depression which may require medication whereas some are only going through a stage of it. Cognitive therapy requires changing the old and negative beliefs which I think this article is closely linked to.

Anyway it kind of reminds me of that Rodney Dangerfield clip from Ladybugs.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqm_DF4r-Hc[/youtube]

Lol. Nothing wrong with thinking that the self is wonderful... i know there are narcissists but I think perhaps many people can be too modest and humble for their own good.