"'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments". - (Matthew 22:36-40, NIV).Someone else has said with tongue-in-cheek, "Heaven help your neighbor if you hate yourself!" But they were right.
Every normal person wants and needs loving relationships, but if we hate ourselves we are not going to experience loving relationships. We will unconsciously project our self-hatred onto others and set them up to reject us, for what we project is what we get back!
Actually, only to the degree that I have learned to love and accept myself in a healthy sense am I able to love and accept others in a healthy sense. What I hate and have rejected in myself, I will also hate and reject in others. My relationships will only ever be as healthy as I am.
Healthy self-love and acceptance isn't a prideful thing, but rather, it is learning to know and accept ourselves as we are—dark side and all. Only then are we free to change and keep growing to become healthier and more loving persons.
To grow in self-love we need to be fully known by at least one other loving and accepting person—a person who will not put me down, judge or criticize me, tell me what I should or shouldn't do, try to fix me, give me unsolicited advice, or preach at me, but accept me just
as I am. It is through their knowing, accepting and loving me as I am that, little by little, I learn
to love and accept myself. This truth cannot be over-emphasized for I can only feel fully loved
to the degree that I am fully known, accepted, and loved by at least one loving, trusted person.
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