Yesterday I watched a movie (Isn’t It Romantic) with Rebel Wilson. (Spoilers!)
Pretty quickly, I realized that excessive sweetness and predictability are comedic techniques. Rebel Wilson is a genuinely funny comedian, and the movie sounded very fresh, and even the blurred idea of having to love oneself didn’t stick too much in the context of the film.
Moreover, it was precisely in this incredible context of neon-colored cotton candy that the idea of self-love resonated particularly loudly in my mind.
What is self-love at all? Those who are okay with it – or rather, those who have not experienced particularly deep childhood traumas and whose understanding of themselves as a phenomenon is not distorted to the point of being “too broken to fix” – usually don’t know what the problem is. I’m just me. “What’s not to love (respect, understand),” as the prince from the movie “Enchanted” said about himself. But if you start asking them, explain how you love yourself? They won’t be able to answer, they won’t be able to give methodology. Because for them, there isn’t any. They were born with it, it’s always been there, and it will never change for them. Well, they were lucky, they had a happy childhood. Or not very happy, but it didn’t particularly affect them.
Yes, I want to make a remark. People with adequate (normal, calm, “positive” (or not negative) self-esteem – not necessarily those who had a childhood like a breeze and who were not hit over the head with anything. It’s either those whose childhood was generally calm, with no particular traumatic events. Either the parents were indifferent, or they were just lucky. These are people who may have had some events that could be called more or less tragic, but which did not significantly affect their understanding of themselves as a phenomenon in the world – relatively and regardless of others. And those who may have gone through some tragic events, but either these people have weak emotionality and reflexivity, and they simply were not affected, or by that time, the understanding of themselves had already developed to such an extent that it could not be shaken by tragic events.
Sometimes – rarely, but it happens – tragic events work as a trigger for refining this understanding of oneself in a positive (adequate) key. If only we were all like that, right?
So, what is self-love?
In my understanding, it’s an adequate understanding, acceptance, and assessment of oneself. Adequate means “I’m not better, I’m not worse, I’m just me, everything is fine with me, I can be like many others, I can be different, but essentially, I’m my own, as I am, and everything is fine.” Of course, these are not thoughts. A person may not even think about themselves like this. This is the global basic setting of the psyche, on which everything else develops and on which human life and its emotional connections are built. This basic setting comes with a general satisfaction with oneself as a phenomenon in this world, basic agreement with the idea that I am worthy of good. Not necessarily the best, but just good. And everyone understands “good” for themselves differently. But it’s “good.”
I’m OK, I’m worthy of good. Everything is fine, and if it’s not fine, it will be. I can always support myself because everything is fine or will be fine.
From this setting, a person is capable of living their life calmly and normally, and adjusting their behavior and the image of their life in accordance with this basic setting. Gained weight? Nothing, I’ll train and lose it. Got into an accident? Nothing, I’ll calm down and get back behind the wheel.
Of course, sometimes a person may have an excessive amount of not childish traumatic events, and all sorts, but even a person with adequate self-esteem can break down, but something tells me that if this is truly adequate self-esteem, self-love, then a person simply will not choose dubious scenarios for themselves.
And what is the opposite of self-love? If self-love is adequate self-esteem. Then the opposite would be inadequate self-esteem.
Inadequate self-esteem can be both underestimated (disbelief that a person is worthy of good, that they will be loved, that they are capable of something good, that something good will happen to them), and overestimated (excessive attention to oneself, expectation of excessive attention to oneself, praising oneself, expecting from life “better” than others get or what only the elite gets). Often these are extremes of the same pendulum: it swings back and forth for a person. But essentially, both extremes are false. And the truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle, where there is no tearing back and forth.
But what should those who didn’t get it do? Didn’t settle into this middle in early childhood? Don’t have this strong basic “I’m OK” since then? What should unhappy people do, who spend their whole lives oscillating between two extremes or firmly hold onto one of them because at least it’s familiar and predictable, although it doesn’t really work? And what to do if, like, you work, you work, you try to love yourself, but it doesn’t work out and doesn’t work out the stone flower?
This is exactly what I thought about at the end of watching a surprisingly good movie “Isn’t It Romantic?”
I understand what self-love means. But the hardest part – when, simplifying, let’s say that self-love didn’t happen from childhood – is how and where to get it?
To tell yourself that I’m worthy, that everything will be OK, that I’m beautiful, that I can fix everything? You can tell yourself this endlessly, but what’s the point when every time everything inside screams “No, not worthy, won’t be, ugly, can’t?” And no logic works. This childhood trauma sits deep inside me and cries bitterly. And on top of it, adult uncles-traumas piled up, such trauma-lifters that it seems like no one will have the strength to clear them away.
And that’s what I thought. That there is a component that I incorrectly took into account. This component is society. It is impossible, knowing about society and its dynamics and needs, to declare to yourself that knowing what I know, everything is OK, I’m OK, everything will be OK… This is what I always come up against. At the stage of childhood when this basis of self-love is formed, there is still, in essence, no knowledge of society, and this basis is built calmly and, it seems, INDIFFERENTLY to society. This seems so, but it’s not. Even a very small child already has an understanding of society because there are subjects and objects that surround them. This is such a “synthetic” society, soft, loving, accepting (watch your words), non-objective (compared to real society), but it exists.
And here’s what I’ve understood about forming an “adequate” relationship with oneself, which we all call “self-love.” In the process of forming adequate self-esteem (an adequate perception of oneself in the world), society is not taken into account. SOCIETY is simply SECONDARY. In childhood (at the age when all these processes are forming), a child is selfish. Everything revolves around them. Therefore, society is also perceived as something secondary to the individual. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is.
When a person tries to work on their self-esteem towards adequacy, they are practically and factually unable to avoid the pressure society exerts on this process. Society will always be primary until a person realizes this. What does the primacy of society mean? Simply that for a child, it’s the main thing, and their understanding that they are OK, that everything will be OK, and that they are worthy and all that, is relative to society. But society is so small and accepting that the child simply does not perceive or understand the potential influence of society as a global machine producing completely incomprehensible and uncontrollable opinions, evaluations, and values in general. For a child, their entire society is always secondary. And even when they grow up and understand what society really is, their childhood foundation of “I’m OK, I will be OK” holds and does not break. It’s just already theirs, and no one can take it away from them.
Of course, no one is immune to tragedies in adulthood, but if a person (with healthy self-esteem) has brains, they will most likely avoid really tragic events that could fundamentally change their basic “I’m OK” foundation.
And what happens when we try to “love ourselves” in adulthood? We encounter a mass of knowledge about society that does not allow us to BELIEVE (and all we need is to simply believe, not necessarily prove to ourselves) that considering this society, “I’m OK.”
What does it mean I’m beautiful? Look at all these Instagram cuties. What does it mean I’m smart? And all these doctors of science and academics, scientists, and philosophers? What does it mean I can do anything? And so on…
So, I’ve realized. The main thing in the process of returning to oneself (to childhood, where everything was simpler and the society was loving mom and dad), is to understand that SOCIETY IS SECONDARY. And it’s true. Because essentially, a person lives in themselves. In their consciousness. Yes, their life depends significantly on manifestations of society to one degree or another, but if you look closely, it becomes obvious that it’s still secondary. Two more or less equal (in terms of society) people will be perceived differently by the same society, depending on whether this person has that internal pillar of “I’m OK” or not.
These two people will behave differently. They will react differently, think differently. And it will show. People often perceive feelings of safety and insecurity very well. A person who lacks the basic “I’m OK” is simply not safe. And society will react. But this once again proves that SOCIETY IS SECONDARY.
From this setting, one should build “I’m OK,” because if we keep looking back at society as the legislator of opinions, conditions, and values, we will never be able to look at ourselves sincerely and regardless, from the inside of our loving core. We will always retell to ourselves how any of our “I’m OK” could potentially be reacted to by society. And it will have a million different reactions, from simply mocking to genuinely cruel. In such conditions, it will simply be impossible to be truly alone with oneself. Or else the person will jump to the other extreme and will somehow try to prove to themselves and the surrounding society that they are a super cool superstar… Only to return to the same thing, that they are not OK…
SOCIETY IS SECONDARY. Now I can sit calmly next to myself (well, or just sit in silence) and find out who I am, what I’m like – so that I have the opportunity to love myself.
And who else to love if not the beloved self? 😊
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