What is this notorious self-love? Sometimes it seems that “self-love” was invented by psychologists, as well as the “unconscious”, which, as we know, does not exist. Just kidding, of course there is. Just like the unconscious, self-love or dislike can be difficult to detect because we are constantly immersed in it, it is part of us. I’ll say right away that I don’t think that self-love is when you buy yourself cakes or when you somehow take care of your body and cherish it. Yes, this may be a consequence of that same self-love, or it may simply be self-deception, when we think that this is how we should show self-love, but in fact we do not love ourselves. Because self-love is not something external, it is not a made decision “tomorrow I will start loving myself” and it is far from an intellectual work. Self-love lies in the field of internal relationships, deep feelings and emotions, sometimes unconscious, it comes from early childhood.. How to approach it? How can we begin to see and realize it? It's actually very simple. Our relationships with other people are a projection (reflection) of our attitude towards ourselves, self-love. For example, what happens to a person when he is rejected? When they criticize him, make fun of him, shout at him, ignore him, interrupt him, refuse him? Many will say: “Of course he feels terrible!” And yes, that's true. However, the intensity of this “terrible” is different for everyone, and it directly depends on whether a person loves himself or not. If a person does not love himself, then any rejection, disqualification, any situation where he is made to understand: “you are bad”, “you are worthless”, “you are not what you should be” will hurt very much. Not because someone considers this person worthless, but because he considers himself worthless. In other words, not because someone doesn’t love him, but because he doesn’t love himself. Therefore, inside a person there is nothing to cover himself with, it’s as if he was shot in a sore spot, and at the same time he is completely helpless and unarmed. His feelings will be very strong, the resentment will persist for a long time, the relationship will be spoiled or destroyed. If a person loves himself, then rejection will not be a reason for him to consider himself bad or unworthy of love. The most he can think about is: “What did I do wrong?” Yes, a person who loves himself will feel unpleasant and offended, but these feelings will be less intense, will not last long, and he will quickly forget about it. Self-love makes a person holistic and stable, so this negative charge will bounce off him. He will be able to continue the relationship, resolve the situation, try to understand what happened and why his opponent did what he did. Another example. Painful reaction to criticism. Criticism, of course, comes in different forms. I'm talking about the case when any criticism is intolerable. When any criticism makes you think: “I’m bad,” “I’m not liked,” “I’m being rejected.” This is also about self-dislike. When a person does not love himself, it seems to him that everyone around him does not love him, but he is not aware of this fact. Against this background, any criticism, remark, etc. - this is a signal for him that he is not loved, he reads it this way, looking at everyone through the lenses of self-dislike. And it is useless to prove it to him, he will be sure “this person just doesn’t like me, he doesn’t like me,” etc. And these are such strong experiences that no common sense will help here. In other words, if there is dislike for oneself, then it will be constantly projected onto other people. The neighbor looked at me wrong - He probably doesn’t like me. An acquaintance passed by and didn’t say hello - he didn’t want to communicate with me. He refused me a favor - he treats me badly. Of course, I don’t presume to say that all these cases are about dislike for oneself. The neighbor may really not like you. But that’s not the point at all. Because if a person loves himself, he simply won’t be particularly bothered by the fact that his neighbor doesn’t like him. Well, really. And such a person will quite sincerely wish “a good day” to his neighbor when he meets. Or another example about strong jealousy. Here.