Can you love others before loving yourself?
Of course, you can! But you may end up loving the wrong people.
It’s often said that you can’t truly love others until you love yourself. While this might sound like a self-help cliché (and it is), there’s a deeper truth to it. When you don’t value or love yourself, you’re more likely to tolerate poor treatment from others—and that opens the door to toxic relationships..
When you struggle to love yourself, a sense of unworthiness often fills your life. Feeling worthless typically leads to seeking relationships that confirm your negative self-perception. For example, someone who doesn’t feel deserving of love might stay in a relationship or friendship with someone who invalidates their feelings or fails to meet their emotional needs—longer than someone who believes they deserve better.
This does not excuse negative actions brought on to you by others, toxic behavior reflects the character of the person engaging in it, not you. However, taking steps toward loving yourself increases your chances of experiencing relationships that exude love and compassion instead of hate and envy.
Why does this happen?
There will never be one right answer as to why this happens, but there are a few perspectives that can help provide clarity.
- Like attracts like. Tuning into the Law of Attraction, when you are navigating your life from a place of insecurity you are more likely to attract relationships with people who use those insecurities to their advantage.
- Holding self-hatred may make you feel like setting boundaries or more for yourself is unreasonable. When you don’t advocate for yourself in relationships, you are providing an opportunity to be taken advantage of.
- You end up seeking external validation. When you hold that validation within yourself instead of looking for it from others, you take away power from those people that may seek to tarnish your mood or life.
Breaking the cycle.
You’re not going to wake up one day and all of the sudden truly love yourself. But, there are things you can do each day to help you reach that goal.
Reclaim your narrative. Negative thoughts about yourself may feel automatic and deeply embedded, but they don’t have to define you. Start by recognizing these thoughts and challenging them when they arise. For example, if you catch yourself thinking, “I’m not good enough,” pause and ask, “Is that actually true, or is it just something I’ve normalized saying to myself?” Replace this negativity with affirmations like, “I am worthy as I am.” Through flaws, difficulties, and challenges, you remain a human being deserving of love, compassion, and empathy.
Practice gratitude for yourself. It’s easy to celebrate others—your friend getting a new job, your favorite celebrity landing a big role, or your classmate acing an exam. But how often do you celebrate yourself? Shift your focus inward. Did you get out of bed today? Take a shower? Laugh, smile, or dance? Those moments, no matter how small, are worth acknowledging. By focusing on your own wins—however modest—you cultivate a deeper sense of gratitude for your life and yourself, replacing constant self-criticism with appreciation for what your body and mind can do.
I incorporated illustrations of flowers throughout this piece because they carry a lot of symbolism. When a flower blooms, it represents, in my opinion, beauty brought to us by nature. Yet, there are times when flowers exist as mere seeds or stems—this doesn’t diminish the beauty of what they once were or the potential they hold. Humans are much like flowers. We experience periods of full bloom and times that feel quieter or less vibrant. But through all the stages of life, the beauty of our existence and lives is something we should always appreciate and celebrate.
When you shift your focus inward and begin treating yourself with kindness and respect, you naturally start attracting healthier, more fulfilling relationships. The truth is, you don’t need to be “perfectly healed” to find love—but you do need to love yourself enough to avoid settling for less than you deserve.
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