I've never been unpleasant to myself, and to "talk to myself in that short, abrasive, condescending tone" means nothing to me. I gather that this is something a lot of other people have trouble with. So this should mean I'm very friendly, right? Not really, no.

It's easier to be fond and/or tolerant of someone if you can occasionally get a breather from them. You go easy (or easier) on your significant other, family, friends etc because -- at least occasionally -- you can keep some distance.

Try keeping distance from yourself. :/ The self is always there, it never relents; its mistakes and weaknesses ever present, recurrent. It's less easy to accept and/or forgive when you can't forget.

In fact what you are doing with that photo -- which is a practice I completely support and agree with BTW -- is precisely that: distancing yourself from yourself, taking a look "in" from the outside. It's easier to find compassion like that, for both your child and current selves.

I'm also 47.

I just realised, from writing a comment below in the thread, that at 47 (which roughly approximates my age as well) that the internal talk is increasingly provably false.

the voice is a shock jock, click bait. All headline, no research, no lede.

The man in the mirror can be a real asshole. However, win his confidence and trust then everything else becomes much easier.

I work with a lot of young people starting marriages, families, and life. The advice I give is have as much love and patience for yourself as you do for your partner and others. You won’t always get it right so be forgive yourself, learn, and get better.

(I’m 49)

Does anyone else have stories of successful ways to overcome overwhelming negative selftalk?

Preferably personal, but alternatively something where you helped a friend or child or family member. Asking for a friend. There's a whole parasitic industry built around this concept e.g. selfharm books (selfhelp) or life coach.

Thank you for sharing this, really interesting!

I did the same at 39 and was helpful for some major healing. It’s surprisingly common, at least in my circles, over the last few years.

I usually treat “think pieces” like these as mere mental stimulation. It’s pretty difficult to say anything definitive about how everyone should live or how everyone should think, but I don’t think that means we ourselves should not reflect on those things. After all, we live and think, and why not try to do those things better?

it at least seems like it has a modicum of human thought, whereas this GPT drivel does not.

I'll be honest, I can't say that awareness of my weaknesses has in any way made it easier to love myself. If anything, the constant gnawing awareness of the many qualities I lack makes it harder.

Friending yourself means that you don't have to rely on others to enjoy jokes at your own expense!

(Edited for clarity)

Because English doesn't have precise terms for love I feel we should use it less. I think here you're talking about self acceptance which seems to me more correct because self love can also mean narcissism

When I read su**de my brain read suicide, so you still put the word in my mind, what's your point doing that? In fact I spent more time thinking and parsing the word suicide because of the asterisks.

> you cannot sell what you don't have.

Except you can, you can be a middle layer. I'm not just nitpicking on the analogy failing at the first degree, you can love someone much more than you love yourself, and the nature of what you bring to them doesn't need to be how you deal with yourself.

People raising kids in particular are supporting a level of self abuse that flies in the face of the analogy. They also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed. But asking them to treat themselves like they treat their kid just doesn't work in any practical way.

That 'doing it for a while' part is one reason I don't really like the "only as well as you love yourself" truism. One can absolutely care deeply for others without caring much for themself, at least to start. But to your point, unless you can develop [/an awareness of the] strengths that you bring to a relationship, fears of being a burden, failing, or taking too much will put a steady drain on it.

I think the biggest thing that the "self-love prerequisite" idea misses and that the article sort of indirectly gets at is that this feeling of social self-efficacy is something most (all?) people learn through successful relationships with others - sometimes in our upbringing, sometimes not. I don't think it's unnatural at all for others' love of us to outpace our own just a little.

> To friendship and love of others I say, you cannot sell what you don't have.

I love this formulation and will add it to my collection of aphorisms. I myself like a similar phrasing: one cannot pour from an empty cup.

Not at all.

Growth, as we mean it, is a positive thing. It isn't a value statement that you are inferior as you are and only through growth will you have value and be acceptable.

Accepting (and loving) yourself for who you are is seeing that you have innate value with all else stripped away. It doesn't matter if you never grow, or in fact, if you decline (as we all do, if we live long enough). You see that you still have worth despite this. You have your lifetime of experiences, your hopes, your dreams, that which makes you who you are.

Growth is one of life's biggest joys. Depriving yourself would be a shame. When you have accepted yourself for who you are and then srive for growth you aren't saying, "Once I have achieved X, I'll be more worthy of acceptance and love". You are instead saying, "Let me explore the heights to which I can climb in this human experience". You might epicly fail, but that is alright, because you are fine with who you are. On the other hand, if you are insecure with who you are and don't love yourself, then growth becomes a risky endeavor. Should you fail, it is further proof that you are an inferior person as you weren't able to live up to your ambitions.

Quite the opposite, imho. Then again, people are different.

I don’t think so.

You can accept yourself and be content/happy and still want to learn new skills, try new hobbies, and grow.

I don’t think so.

You still grow but in the direction and with the motivation you decided.

> if you finally just accept yourself for who you are (because that's basically what love means)

That's not a good definition of love. Counterexample: most parents love their children, and yet don't just accept them for who they are (at the moment), but try to change them for the better, by raising them. You can love yourself in the same way.

Love is a reasonably broad english word.

"I love eating delicious food" is a totally sensible sentence with involves only the self and an inanimate object, and arguably only the self because it is about your own enjoyment and actions more so than the food itself.

"I love computers", etc etc.

Love is broad, it can be shared, it can be unrequited, it can be with an inanimate object or with an abstract concept. The object can certainly be the self.

I’ve always struggled with this concept too. Respect yourself. Be kind to yourself. But _loving_ youself sounds kind of narcissistic to me (but yes, I get that this is probably a question of semantics and/or my working class catholic upbringing)

i prefer self-acceptance.

once i learn to accept (grateful receipt of) myself (who i am, what i’ve done, what’s been done to me, what i do today) then it’s easier to accept (grateful receipt of) other people (who they are etc).

compassion is possibly apt too

> Deep awareness of the suffering of another accompanied by the wish to relieve it

> In general people should care about themselves and understand their impact on others. But that doesn't need to be "love"

I agree that anything can become overused cliche. Still, I think the parent comment is like saying, 'people need sustenance but that doesn't need to be water'. There is nothing more essential.

People need love like we need water. We are social organisms, living in groups; we are not like bears who live alone. The lack of love makes us ill and drives us to madness. We've seek, with everything we have, to love and be loved; you can see it in love between parent and child, between family, friends, and romantic partners. These things are universal to humanity - you can find them in every culture, and every culture's stories. Evolution, survival of the fittest, etc. has resulted in that.

And it starts with love of self; how could you love someone else, or be comfortable with them loving you, if you didn't think you were worth love. I've never heard of anyone who seriously studies such things say otherwise; I'd be interested in any references to such people.

Having spent many years very close to people with shit childhoods that deal with depression and other issues, I'd say one of the biggest hurdles was indeed being able to create a positive self image of themselves.

There's some people that think "they are depressive" the same way some people think "they have a penchant for being late to things". All these negative self images just perpetuate behaviors and trains of thought that go nowhere positive.

There's a lot of regular people that hear that and think that's justification to being narcissistic selfish assholes, but that's like all advice, you should first see if it applies to you.