Why is it so hard to love yourself when everybody keeps telling you to just do it?

Not the narcissistic kind. The ordinary kind. Here is the problem. You have seen your own cupboard. You know every skeleton in it, and you compare that to everybody else's beach photos. They post the day out. They do not post the hell that started at teatime. We are the only person whose full history we have to sit with. So we sit in shame and call it honesty.

One thing to try: Go easy on yourself today. That is it. That is the love.

In this episode

• (1:26) Not the self-love that means I am amazing
• (2:39) Why it takes time, and where it starts
• (3:45) When I thought I was a doctor and a vet and an oracle
• (5:14) We are the only ones who see our own history
• (6:24) The beach photo and the teatime nobody posts
• (8:13) Go easy on yourself. That is love

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for listening.

Steven

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.

• Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk
• Steven's courses, podcasts and links: stevenwebb.uk

If you want to be happy and free, just learn to love yourself.

It's that whole spiritual ethos out there and all we need to do is learn to love ourselves. And there's

book after book written about this. I've listened to podcasts. I've watched YouTube videos. And over the

last seven years, I have done my utmost to love myself. Yet I still find it so incredibly difficult.

Why is it so difficult?

And it's quite funny because we had a conversation.

between a couple of friends of us yesterday and I think I know why it's so difficult to love ourselves.

But that's what I'm going to cover on this quick, short podcast. I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in

the Storms. And I help you to find a little inner peace in life, especially when you don't have it,

especially when times are a little bit difficult. So if you could subscribe to the channel, that'd be awesome. There's

a little subscribe button just below and you can listen and subscribe on your favourite platform, itunes, Spotify, Google,

whatever. It doesn't matter which one you choose. And you'll be notified when I put a new podcast out

let's return to this self-love and not a self-love narcissistic that I'm amazing, I'm really awesome and you know,

I love myself. Not that kind of one the The kind of one that you have compassion for yourself that

when you say something wrong or when you have those voices in your head that are just not that pleasant

when you're hard on yourself where you can just go, okay, let's not be so down on us, but why

is it so hard to love ourselves? I've got a meditation that's about loving your inner child and

it really does have a profound effect if you listen to it for a few weeks. And I will link

it below this podcast in the show notes it's on Insight Timer, it's also on aura and it'll be on

my other podcast, Inner Peace Guided Meditations. And that's the podcast that's just my meditations, Guided

meditations helping you with sleep or different aspects. It's not on all the platforms yet, but it will be given

the next few weeks it's been submitted. It will take a little time, but I will link to it below

in this show notes. But anyway, why is it so difficult to love ourselves? There's lots of reasons about how

we're treated as children and how we have certain potential mechanisms and all that not to become Too

um narcissistic in the way that, oh, my God, I'm amazing, and all that. Because that doesn't help and it

doesn't get us very far. So there's lots and lots of reasons. But I think one of the reasons is

this, and it came to me yesterday in the conversation. I think it's because when we look at ourselves, we

can see all of the skeletons, all of the closet, all the things we've ever said wrong, all of the

mistakes we've ever made, all the times when we've looked at someone in a way that we probably shouldn't have

done, all the times when we said something that wasn't all that lovely and spiritual when we were at school.

I used to be a real asshole when I was a teenager. And even in my adulthood,

Adulthood, adult life, I wasn't always that nice. I I thought I knew everything. I thought I. I thought I

was a doctor, I thought I was a trained vet or anybody come to me for an opinion or any

advice, I would give them my advice. I would offload it and I would tell them as if it was

fact, and I would argue. And I look back on that now and I shudder. I was like, ah, really?

Was I really like that? Yeah, I was. And I can be like that sometimes. Now I gotta catch myself,

but I can be like that sometimes now, you know, sometimes I say something, even now when I know better

um Sometimes I'm really mean to myself internally in my mind. Sometimes I'm really hard on myself.

Sometimes I really, you know, be up on myself. So when we look at what And if you think about

it for yourself as well, when we look at how to love ourselves and trying to love ourselves, we see

all of this. We see every skeleton we've had in the closet. We see every time that someone has shouted

upon us, someone that's shamed us we shamed ourselves. Every time we feel guilty for not doing something, we

see all that. We feel all that. That's all part of who we are. Part of the experience is part

of the story that we give ourselves. So when we try to love ourselves, we're trying to love every single

bit of that. And it's hard enough trying to love somebody else that you're not that keen on, that someone

that's hurt you. So turning that love onto ourselves, it's really, really difficult because

we have a whole load of history and we're aware of it. If we were to see everybody else's closet,

if everybody was to put all their skeletons on Facebook and social media and in the public, first thing we'd

notice is, wow, you as well, you

were a dumbass like me as well. You made mistakes like me as well. But the problem is we only

ever see. And as we get older, we only tend to share

After the work we've done on ourselves. So we only ever really see the. The

improved version of everybody else. And especially Facebook and social media now that's even worse. We only ever see the

highlights that people want to share. They're not sharing with you the real struggles and the real pains they're going

through. And you know, they're not sharing with you when they make a mistake. And they scream at their kids

in the morning when really they post on Facebook and say, oh, no, me and the kids have had a

lovely day. We've been to the beach, we've done all those other things. They don't tell you the way it

come to tea time and it was a. It was hell in the home. So that's why what we look

at ourselves in this shame and we feel guilty and we. We can see all these things. You imagine trying

to love someone that you could see every single skeleton of theirs, every single think they've ever made a mistake.

And I think that's why it's so hard to love ourselves.

You would find it really difficult to love someone that you could see everything if they bear at all, if

they. Even in a relationship, even in the closest of relationships, there's still an element of the other person you

do not know, you do not see, which is fine. I'm not saying we want to see every skeleton, every

closet and put it all out there, but recognise that that's part of the difficulty in loving ourselves. And

when we compare ourselves to others, we often think that we're the ones that have done so many terrible things,

so many more skeletons than others. But the reality is everybody's got them.

You know, if you get to the. Get to my age, well, I'm nearly 50, you know, I've got as

many skeletons, if not more than everybody else. And I may be working on it. People may see me as

a loving person. I'm not really. I'm trying. I'm working on it um

I'm trying to open my heart as much as possible. I'm trying to love myself. I'm trying to love you

guys um but I don't always achieve it

so yeah, and this spiritual journey, we try not to gossip and then we gossip and then we feel guilty

and then we cannot love ourselves because we gossip. Go

easy on yourself. That's love. Just take it easy. Just have a bit of compassion that you're human and be

okay with that

I'm Steven Webb. This is Stillness in the Storms. Hit us up. That'd be awesome. Whether you're on itunes, Spotify,

or anywhere, be notified when I bring out more podcasts. I'm going to do more shorter podcasts like this. Just

my thoughts and we're going to do some interviews. That'll be a bit longer coming up soon. Take care, guys.

Have an amazing week. You are awesome, and I love you.