How to Go from “I Hate Myself” to “I Love Myself”

By For Grief

According to Ahrefs.com, there are an estimated 29,000 Google searches for “I hate myself” each month. 

Alongside that number is the staggering fact that few resources exist in order to help these people. In fact, Ahrefs gives the search term “I hate myself” a difficulty score of 3 out of 100 — this means that those searching this term aren’t finding what they need.

Self-hate is lonely, debilitating, and destructive. It can lead to harmful behavior and even suicide.

The obvious solution to self-hate is self-love. But, before we get started, try smiling just for a second, just to prove to yourself that you can. 
Overcome the first hurdle and show yourself you can win, even if it’s just a small moment. 
Now, you can begin the process of loving yourself.

This article will guide you through the 4 steps of going from “I hate myself” to “I love myself.

1. Understanding the Roots of the Problem

2. Understanding Ourselves

3. Having Empathy and Compassion

4. Having Self-Compassion 

Understanding the Roots of the Problem

We are all familiar with the phrase, “the first step to solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.”

But once we see that we have a problem with self-loathing, how do we go about understanding how to fix it?

There are several factors to why we’re feeling self-loathing; things like the culture we grew up in, physical looks, experiences, traumas, or our relationships.
Maybe we were in a toxic relationship, or we see people who are far more popular or more attractive, or we’ve lost a loved one and are “broken” and can’t move on.

As humans, we have a competitive drive to be the absolute best and to use every opportunity to our advantage.

While this drive to work hard and find success is good, it can often lead to this feeling of being very self-critical of ourselves when it applies to compare ourselves to others.

“What can parts of me can I change to be better than others?” “What do they have that I don’t?” “Why can’t I be more like them?”

These thoughts and feelings, if not addressed, will leave us in a constant loop of self-criticism.

We will sit around thinking about our faults and failures in pursuit of being perfect, and eventually, we forget that we often have FAR more strengths than flaws.

To understand the roots of the problem for the sense of self-loathing, you need to sit down and ask yourself this question: Why am I being so critical of myself?

Once you understand why you are being so critical to yourself then you can get to answer how you can love yourself.

Understanding Ourselves

To better help yourself, you need to acknowledge that YOU hold all the cards.

By establishing that you hold all the cards, you can determine what deserves your attention and what doesn’t.

Similar to fear, self-criticism can stem from our own thoughts and feelings, allowing it to grow into potentially chaotic thoughts.

There are two different types of self-esteem: 

• Healthy Self-Esteem

• Unhealthy Self-Esteem

Knowing the difference between these two types of self-esteem will give us a better chance to fully comprehend ourselves.

Healthy self-esteem is when one can reflect on their own flaws and weaknesses and not have a desire to be similar to others and are happy with that.

Having healthy self-esteem means that you see everyone on equal footing and that nobody has better or worse traits than you.

By being healthy in your self-esteem, you will not have either a superior or inferior view of others but instead, appreciate others for who they are and what they have.

However, unhealthy self-esteem can mean that you have a constant desire to be the best and perfect in every way.

You will constantly seek validation from people. And, if you don’t get that validation, you begin to self-criticize and think others are better than you.

This is an example of having unhealthy self-esteem, which leads us to the next part of loving ourselves; having empathy and compassion.

Having Empathy and Compassion

Now, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t see ourselves as unique, because we are.

There is only one version of you.

This knowledge that you are truly special and unique is important in finding our identity.

Once you understand who you are, you can begin to develop empathy and compassion. To have empathy is to understand and comprehend another person’s feelings and thoughts.

We can put ourselves in their shoes and can fully understand where another person is coming from.

To have compassion is to feel concern for another person’s thoughts and feelings. 

You can put their emotions and thoughts before your own because you care about them.

Those who don’t have empathy or compassion tend to have a very cynical and critical view of others — by having this view of others, we may become more self-critical of ourselves. 

Having cynical views of others makes us look for flaws instead of strengths and drives us to be more demanding in what we expect of others and ourselves.

However, there is a way to avoid this point-of-view: have self-compassion.

Having Self Compassion

Having self-compassion means that we can truly look at ourselves and be happy with everything about ourselves.

There are “3 Doorways into Self-Compassion,” according to Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the studies of self-compassion:

1. Self-Kindness

2. Understanding Our Common Humanity

3. Being Fully Aware of Our Emotions

So, how do we use these doorways to learn to love ourselves?

Self-kindness includes being accepting of not only our flaws but also of our strengths and we acknowledge that these attributes make us unique.

To understand our own common humanity means to realize that we are all human and we are all given opportunities to grow and thrive in the world.

While there are billions of humans on earth, there is only one like YOU.

To be mindfully aware of our emotions we cannot let our emotions drive us. We must allow ourselves to feel our emotions rather than letting them ruminate. We need to gently allow our emotions to be with us and to listen to them and move on.
When you allow your emotions to ruminate, you loop over any negative emotions you may feel.

By having self-compassion, we can learn to love ourselves for just being us, and can allow us to be more compassionate for those who may not be able to do things you take for granted.

Self-loathing is challenging to overcome, I understand that.

We all tend to self-criticize from time to time. 

But it is not impossible.

Let’s end the tendency to say “I hate myself” and change the world by saying “I love myself” instead.