The 'I'll Love Myself When...' Trap

I remember when I was younger, there was this little purple book from the 80s, written in Bookman font, called "How to Love Yourself." I don't remember much of what was actually in it, mainly because I flipped through it once and dismissed the whole thing. The activities seemed too simple, almost silly. "You can't just love yourself by giving yourself little hugs or saying nice things in the mirror," I thought. I was convinced that loving yourself required something bigger, more impressive. Some grand accomplishment that would finally make you worthy.

I was completely trapped in the "I'll love myself when..." trap. When I have lots of friends. When I find a partner. When I land a full-time job. When I win an award. The list went on and on.

But we can all see how this kind of thinking leads nowhere, right? Because love, in this scenario, becomes this elusive thing, something external you have to chase down and earn, rather than something internal you can access right now, in this moment, exactly as you are.

Here's what I've learned…we figure out how to have a relationship with ourselves, and with other people, through the very first relationship we ever experienced. Our relationship with our caregivers. If our caregivers were stressed, overwhelmed, struggling with addiction, or dealing with their own stuff that prevented them from being truly present, we learned a specific lesson, that love isn't freely given. It's earned. That in order to receive it, we need to be more…more accomplished, more well-behaved, more something.

But here's the thing. Just because our caregivers didn't have the time or space to love us the way we needed, to really see us and delight in our existence, doesn't mean we aren’t lovable. It never did.

Sometimes it meant they were busy trying to love us in the only way they knew how, by working hard to provide for the family. Other times it meant they were battling their own mental or physical struggles and simply didn't have the knowledge, resources, or capacity to give us the care we deserved. In both situations, it was about their state, not ours. Not about who we were as children.

But as kids, we internalize the blame. It's actually easier for a child to believe "there's something wrong with me" , something within their control to fix, than to accept the terrifying alternative… that our parents might not be capable of keeping us safe, that the people in charge don't really know what they're doing. Because that reality? That's even harder to live with.

Just as it took a thousand small interactions to create the belief that love must be earned, it will take another thousand small interactions to unlearn it, to believe in your inherent worth. That might sound daunting when you're standing at the beginning of the journey, staring at how far you have to go. But with eyes from a loving witness, keep your two beautiful pupils on your feet, glancing up every now and again to orientate.

One step at a time, you'll move closer to the part of you that exists beneath everything that's happened to you, the self that was never actually broken, that's always been whole, and that still knows how to love without conditions.

Along the way, you'll shed the layers of protection your child self had to wear just to survive. And here's the thing they don't tell you, there is no destination. We talk like there is one because it helps people take the first step, but really, there's only this moment and the next.

The only constant is change, and the practice of meeting yourself, again and again, wherever you are, slowly expanding your capacity to hold all the parts of yourself with curiosity and compassion.