There are many different ways many different people will define love.
Mister Rogers said:
“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”
I believe that to be true. What my hero failed to specify is how much that applies to the way we love ourselves as well as the way we love others. According to Steven Hayes, PhD this starts about the time children hit Kindergarten. When they can assign value to items not based on obvious observable differences and think more abstractly.
At that age: “Five- or six-year-olds can say a nickel is smaller than a dime. [They’re] old enough to say, “I’m not good enough”.”
There are a few issues here. One is that these early messages can be enduring ones that are very hard to reshape or extinguish.
Here’s another issue. If you had to write a paper, make a presentation at work or defend a position on a national level, would you rely on the data points researched and provided by a 5 or 6 year old? Unless, of course, the presentation was regarding 5 or 6 year olds… I digress.
Those ideas of “not good enough” don’t generally evolve and shift the way other ideas (dinosaurs are better than monster trucks) tend to because they are reinforced consistently by peers, advertising, society at large, and potentially even primary caregivers and other family members.
Some of the work in deconstructing “not good enough” and to start fully loving and accepting yourself is in considering where those messages come from, the motives for the messages and what purpose “not good enough” is serving in your current life.
I’m here to tell you something. You are good enough. You are worthy and deserving of love, ESPECIALLY love for and from yourself. As Mister Rogers said, it is a striving to accept a person exactly the way they are right now. So, how does a person start striving? The things listed above are a great start. Discussing them with a therapist is also a great arena to begin this striving.
Also, KEEP striving! I’ll paraphrase Mark Manson. When babies are learning to walk, they don’t fall a few times and think “This just isn’t for me. They don’t think that after 100 times either. Why? Because the goal of those efforts open their world to possibilities beyond a number of measures, so the falls don’t deter the striving for too long. Can you imagine how much your worldview will widen as you keep striving to love and accept yourself, let alone when you start walking in your life confidently loving yourself? How about when you run?
Keep striving and know that others will love and accept you while you are striving to love yourself.
Meet Maggie Kappler:
Maggie is a Licensed Professional Counselor and served in the United States Navy for over ten years. She has been a practicing therapist for over seven years. Maggie is comfortable working with many different populations with varying levels of issues. Depression, anxiety, trauma, substance use, and military-specific stressors are a small cross-section of the issues she treats.
Maggie holds a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in two states. Her uses a client-centered approach which means that the work you do with her will be tailored to you specifically using a large variety of modalities. Cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, Gestalt techniques, and many others will be applied during your time together as you collaboration dictates what will be most effective.