What does it mean to Love Yourself?

Could anyone tell me what this means to them because I'm not really sure what it means for me. My dad always tells me if I don't love anyone else I should always love myself, but the thing is I don't really know how to love myself. Even my dad told me that I would hate myself in the future because of the choices that I make now, but I couldn't even be mad at him because I already do hate myself. How do you love yourself? Could anyone tell me?

I think loving oneself means self-acceptance, to know your personal traits, and to recognize your weaknesses and strengths and accept them. To believe you have self-worth, and that you deserve to have a good life and be treated well and with respect from every body. Also to take care of yourself, mentally and physically. Just a few things came to my mind.

When we love someone or something, we give ourselves, our thoughts, our energies and such to that person or something. The same could be said of hate, of course, so there are times when we need to learn to love rather than hate. In relation to ourselves, however, it is still love of self when our thoughts, our energies and such are focused upon ourselves...and even when someone might say s/he hates himself or herself. Feeling good about oneself or liking oneself is actually something different, and for myself that begins with being at peace with our Maker and others around us.

I think accepting ourselves for our flaws and acknowledgin our strengths is a pretty important step to start loving yourself.

How do we love another person? We show them love by our caring actions and words. I think that we can then apply this same notion to the concept of self love. How do we then love ourselves? By taking care of ourselves and thinking good things and saying good things about ourselves. It can be a long process if we're in a very negative space and don't believe that there's anything positive about ourselves. I know I struggle with the concept of self love, but I am getting better over time. And what I mean by that is that I have times when I do care about myself, I do think positive thoughts about myself. These times become greater and greater while the negative thoughts/actions toward myself decrease. Hugs.

Why do you hate yourself?

If you can't love yourself because you think it's selfish in anyway, you should look at yourself from the outside, in 3rd person, you'll see a person suffering. Help yourself as you would help another person.

Hi Loner_girl, I'm so sorry you're struggling with this. I struggle with it too from time to time. However, there are lots of ways you can love yourself and show yourself compassion: do something you enjoy, journal your thoughts (and if they're negative or self hating, write a response from someone who seems really kind and compassionate. what would they say to you?), spend time with people who make you feel better. You know, self compassion is not like a switch you can just turn on when it's off sometimes. But it can become like that with practice. Or so I'm told. I do believe this to be true somewhat. But I also think it's a process and takes time. Hugs to you.

To love yourself is to feel secure, to know you are as valuable as everyone else. And you are.

Loving yourself means caring for yourself, having self-acceptance and self-compassion. You take care of you like you matter.