Like Dr. K said, I think it depends on the person. Some people need to develop self-love first because their internal shame and low value is keeping them from moving forward in life. And for others, changing their external circumstances can lead to them finding a sense of value. It’s like a chicken and egg problem.
Depending on the change of circumstances. If you're in an abusive or otherwise threatening environment, then yes, changing that is a first priority. But if you're basing your self-love on accomplishing some goal, then your self worth will be dependent on maintaining that goal. Which isn't 100% within your control
Gonna be that guy, cause its a bad expression at this point, but: Sexual reproduction occurred in nature before the species we refer to as chickens emerged as a distinct species; the egg came first That said, I believe you're correct. Lol
Yup. Not everyone is exactly the same. Some of us have to grow from the outside-in because the inside is so beaten up and festered. We need new power circumstances to force us to reach out from inside and grow to meet the world in the middle. It's like you can't tell a plant to think positive and grow big if it doesn't have mulch and fertilizer and water in the soil.
When I was a depressed teen who was being systematically excluded from my school, somehow none of my therapists thought my depression could be caused by my circumstances. All they said was self love, “you only feel hated because you hate yourself.” Except people did hate me. Except I didn’t hate myself until everyone around me did for years and years. No amount of “love yourself” ever changed how I felt. But as soon as I changed my surroundings and got new friends, the depression vanished. Odd how it’s hard to trick yourself into believing something that isn’t true.
If your therapist doesn't actually care about what you say its time to get a different therapist. Many of them are bad and need to learn something about compassion themselves.
I feel you! I’ve only noticed that i was able to ‘love myself’ when i became a total hermit & didn’t interact with people even online for a few years. Then as i started to interact with people online, the old patterns emerged. I’m a magnet for bullying or meanness or lack of respect 😂 can’t help that people don’t value me no matter what i tried doing to force them to😂 respect and love are not a given or possible for everyone like ‘selflove gurus’ assume
It can’t be one or the other - self-love or life circumstances. If a therapist ignores a person’s harmful environment, they’re not listening, they’re incompetent, and they’re just getting paid to make their clients frustrated.
i totally relate to this. i was heavily bullied by a family member from 13 to 18 and i only started to hate myself because they constantly ridiculed me, manipulated me, screamed at me, and told me i was a horrible person. their perception of me literally got ingrained into my mind and at a certain point i couldn't fight it anymore and just accepted that i was a bad person, and i deserved that treatment. a person can only take so much gaslighting before their brain starts to accept it as reality. as soon as they moved out, my mental health drastically improved. before that, i had spent years practicing "self love" and doing affirmations and trying to "heal my inner child" but that was the problem-i didn't have an "inner child". i was STILL a child and PRESENTLY being abused. i couldn't heal until i got out of that situation. if you have people around you that make you feel horrible about yourself that hold power over you, there's not much you can do. i couldn't even set boundaries because they would threaten me with physical means like like strange and unusual punishment. it was hell and it made me loathe myself bc i was being degraded constantly. but all the mental health advice i was exposed to was telling me it was somehow my fault. "you need to set boundaries" tried that, it made everything worse. "you need to be gentle with yourself" how can i be gentle with myself when im constantly having to degrade myself so that i can keep a roof over my head? that kind of advice is just so unhelpful and only serves to shift the blame back onto the victim. im glad i finally got that toxic shit out of my head
The side of self-love trend I have an issue with when people try to make it replace other things. "You don't need anybody, you just need yourself." "You're the love you were looking for all along" like no, No man is an island. People need friends, partner, community and let people speak when they say they feel lonely and they need connections in their life. Also, many of us cannot even work on self-love if we don't have outer motivations like a support system. We won't just get better for our own sake cuz our self-love system is completely shattered.
I think you misunderstand. Of course, no man is an island and we still need people around us, but you're the person who should be looking out for you first and foremost. No amount of external love can replace internal love, but a lot of people approach their search for community or love with that expectation.
Personally, when I think of self-love, it’s not necessarily “love yourself because you’re perfect and don’t need to change”, but it is actually knowing you can still have compassion for you as a person who is still learning and growing. Before therapy, my self loathing and shame consumed me so much that I felt like I deserved my unhappiness. Now, having compassion for myself motivates me to take concrete steps to improve my life because I can meet myself where I’m at, see that I have a long way to go, but still believe in myself and hold myself accountable for making mistakes without feeling so worthless.
For me self-love does not let me give up. Previously in my life I have tried to go through everything by being stoic and resilient. I hated myself for being not an ideal version of myself and I tried to force myself into this "ideal" shape whatever the cost. My life was rough mostly, but I always thought that I just need to try harder. I have lost my health this way, both physical and mental, because I thought that only weak people can "break". And only after several years of depression and depersonalization I started to learn to focus on my needs, wants and feelings. I have started to learn to love myself despite still being embarrassed for my past "failure". Previously I have mostly gave up after I didn't meet my own expectation. I thought that such a weak human like me does not deserve anything. But now I am ready to fight even when it feels like my life continuously is trying to break me again. I am ready to fight because I believe that I deserve a better life.
This is something I horribly struggle with. No amount of-self love will fix me, if my environment, and the people I used to trust, beat me into the dirt. I also don't want this to turn into delusional/toxic positivity
A couple of friends and I used to remind each other: if you're depressed, make sure it isn't because you're surrounded by a**holes and your life sucks. If you are, and it is, don't attempt to "actualize" happy positivity simply by acting as if all is just hunky-dory great.. Prayer is good, though.. esp. if it's the silent, sitting/standing/walking awareness/meditation as you go about your everday life..
@@MNkno the tricky part of this is when you don't have money to move somewhere else or are stuck in a place with toxic people like with parents or whomever.
i am alike. "self love" makes me feel like i am lying to myself. your subconscious knows all your bullshit, and it will reflect long term. what actually helped me was to take ruthless accountability of my life, and actually DOING THINGS to better it. Obvious one was to get in shape... not bodybuilding, just getting really fit. almost everyone can do that given time and resolve, and it has tremendous mental effects, f.e. self respect due to doing difficult things, that you dont like, but believe in. self respect must be established first, before you can truly love yourself, i believe
It is more about the idea that if you can develop a sense of self-love or self-compassion, you will eventually move towards an environment and community that will also garner that. As you will feel more comfortable being alone and accepting change if you love yourself, and can be more selective with the people you trust and environments you exist in.
Yeah, I got tired of people saying "You are enough" when multiple aspects of my life clearly says "You suck." Although I would argue that "You are enough" could be a misinterpretation of "You have what it takes to make better decisions."
@dungeonmaster217 you hit the nail on the head. If you've been told you're "good enough" by your parents, you probably aren't going to understand why it's beneficial to tell yourself that. You interpret it as saying "I don't need to improve myself" But that's not what it means to someone who hasn't ever been told that. What it means to them is that they need to accept that it is okay to be imperfect. If you are trying to improve yourself, that's all that matters. It's also about accepting that it's okay to not be the best at something, and that that's not a flaw.
I could scream this from the hills!!! ETA- self love does not satisfy my need for companionship, self love doesn’t remove loneliness, self love does not compare to intimate pleasure with a partner. I say that as a person who is very comfortable alone.
Yeah same here. I think my life is pretty good and people say "Well, dating won't fix your problems!! You have to learn to like yourself first!" when I am quite happy with myself but that doesnt make me not desperately crave some kind of intimacy with the opposite sex. I understand people because this mindset usually leads to people having no boundaries and getting in bad relationships but, getting in a meaningful one would genuinely solve a lot of my issues lol
Yeah true but self love help getting the things you just listed Actually having self love help me not being afraid of rejection and that's how i built the courage to meet my actual boyfriend :)..that would have not happened the way i was before 😂 Self love is the first Step to the solution, that is not everything but its still a part of lt clearly
I think there's a key difference between self-love, self-hate, and self-respect. You don't have to love yourself, but you definitely want to be in a state where you don't hate yourself, and your goal should be to reach a state where you can respect who and what you have become, all things included.
What I realized is that when people talking about "your inner child", the thing is... You don't spoil the kid. You love them, you aren't gonna be like "wow gee you really suck at this, you stupid idiot", but you're also gonna push them to grow and be responsible. At some point that clicked in my head and redirecting that feeling back towards myself has made a much more mature, responsible person. I guess my point is it's easy to exaggerate what's meant by love and you need to consider what love might make you push someone to do.
@@colbyboucher6391 Agreed. I file this under the self-respect category, because if you have that, you don't engage in self-sabotage. Instead, you acknowledge your flaws and resolve to improve them to whatever extent you can, because that's what children are supposed to do: they grow up and learn to be better adults.
You have to love yourself first - flaws and all - before you can take all the steps that will lead you to becoming a human being with self-respect and minimal self-loathing. It all starts with self-love.
As someone who needed to learn self love, and is now making changes for the betterment of my outward experience, I think we need a follow up video going into the differences between someone whose shame is telling them correctly that something needs to change, and someone who needs to recognize shame as a trauma response. I guess one of the main differences is the existence of trauma, but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference when you’ve been in a traumatic environment.
I think it would be helpful to ask yourself: Where did I first learn that X is shameful? Good chance that if it was mainly external, like attributed to certain events in life, then it may be a trauma response. If you find that it comes from something you in yourself have defined, like maybe it went against your inner code of ethics/morality/etc, then perhaps it is healthy, proper shame. Even then, I think the system I laid out might not be the be-all answer, mainly because I think we humans learn concepts of morality from what we observe growing up and throughout life; i.e., it is not original thought that a human is encoded with upon conception (heck, maybe there are things that MIGHT be original thought). Therefore, even if it is rooted in your inner ethics, you might trace that your definition will have come from an external source. And that external source might be "traumatic," if you consider severity of trauma on a spectrum and not black and white. Whichever source the shame might be, think about what needs to happen moving forward. They might look very similar: Awareness of self, self examination, acknowledgement of reality of situation and inner dialogue/emotional states, then making a choice moving forward on how to address. Part of that choice may be to address the inner baggage/trauma, part of that choice might be to positively grow from it, part of that choice might be to engage in avoidant/unhealthy behavior (dysfunctional), all of the above to varying degrees, etc. And this cycle goes back to the beginning, and keeps looping. Plot the series of choices you make in life and try to see what that trajectory looks like. I think this model helps in creating an informative and actionable backbone for people to direct their lives with, even without achieving complete, perfect understanding of the source of their problem.
Self love cured my depression. But it wasn't about like, being obsessed with myself. It was about respecting myself. I'd internalised a critic that was brutal and unfair.
@@Melthemagholder If it helps, maybe think about what runs through your mind when others are vulnerable about their issues with you, or at the very least when you see others worried about things. Your immediate reaction isn't to think "well they're an idiot for that", and you certainly don't say it. If anything you'd be surprised they think this issue is so important. Respecting myself, at least for me, was about ensuring I view my own actions in the same light. It was about catching when I was being unfairly critical, in a way I would never do to anyone else. This can be quite hard to do since this inner voice is "normal" to you. But trust me when I say it isn't. As an example, if I've gone to a house party and felt I was a bit awkward, my default thought process would be one of rumination, over analysing every detail and kicking myself. However, I can now catch myself and say "hang on, I literally can't think of anything anyone else did at that party that made me change my view on them. And if they did anything like what I'm worried about I probably wouldn't have even noticed/remembered." that sort of thing. Catching myself like that, and giving myself a break instead, really pulls me out of those anxious thought patterns. Note this can also be a bit self fulfilling too. Since this mindset reduces my dependence on external validation, I am more self confident and thus more pleasant to be around. I know I'm a decent person and have things to offer, so I don't need everyone to vibe with/respect me. In other words, I'm projecting from my own internal source rather than needing to be sure of others' approval. Sort of like how an actor makes everyone uncomfortable if they are only going at it half-assed. People who act like idiots are still charismatic if they are confident idiots, but you'll never see a confident idiot who is constantly criticising themselves or needs everyone to like them.
@@Melthemagholder No worries, sincerely wish you all the best on this - it is a lengthy but rewarding task. And for context, I had the aid of a therapist to guide me through this, I certainly didn't figure out what I wrote above alone.
Yeah. And it's not just self love. Self love is really tied with self esteem and self confidence. You need to have all three. Trust me, when these three factors in your life are balanced, you'll spot opportunities lining up for you...that's just how it works.
Confidence comes from competence. If you could not achieve and complete tasks, you would have no reason to experience real confidence and self belief. It's giga over for us ADHD autists... .
@@sayansaha155 It would be great to have it but you _can_ line up opportunities like a robot and get your tasks done without ever looking inwards or believing in or loving anything or anyone, even yourself.
Yeah I'd say so as well. I feel like there's a part where these two can meet. Self-love can lead to change, but sometimes it is the change that leads to self-love. So basically, because I love myself and I deserve better, I will change my life into something good. The other aspect is, okay, I don't deserve to love myself because I'm a pathetic loser, how do I stop being a pathetic loser so I'm someone deserving of love?
I hate being told “ You shouldn’t be in a relationship with anyone until you can love and accept yourself” when no people with trauma need support to heal and you don’t need to have high self worth to be worthy of love.
I used to say this until someone brought up this point, and I also was blind to my own self-hatred so it was some internalized toxic positivity. Now I reframe it a bit: if I put in the work to learn to love myself, it will be easier/more sustainable to love and support others.
I really hate this saying. I really got agitated by this I got told this from a couple who were a mutual friends it's like I've got a lot of love to give. Yet they say that thing as if they know me I practice self compassion. Etc.
Speaking as someone that had a lot of love to give but had a lot of self hatred, I still found love. It last 2 years and I learned a lot. It was my first real long term lover. (Haven’t had many at all) I actually had this thing where I noticed my self hatred and I started making efforts to improve my life and be a better person. In literally two months I found myself dating a coworker for the next 2 years. It was great. I’ll say that had I loved myself first, things might be different. But I learned to love myself even more after this relationship. But if you can simply TRY to love and improve self, I think that just yields best results on your life and your love life.
This concept is so underrated! When you place the mental health crisis solely on the shoulders of psychiatrists and therapists, you’re missing half of it. At the very least, therapists need to be trained when to involve/refer to other professionals like coaches, bc the fact that people don’t know that other options exist is the biggest tragedy
Yeah gonna have to agree. I was in therapy for almost 10 years, given all these different diagnosis's, tried all these different meds. Got a bit better, than a lot worse, it was a cycle. Constantly got told that "external changes don't help internal problems" when I kept saying that I wanted to make dramatic changes to my life Then I finally went out, transferred to a different college, and got a dog. Been almost 2 years, I'm no longer depressed, no racing thoughts, no anxiety, doing MUCH better academically, and I'm generally very content and happy with my lfie
Your professionals sound terrible... cbt is one of the most common therapy models and it 100% relies on changing your behaviour to improve your feelings (coping strategies and incorporating healthy habits or achieving internal goals for yourself), as well as engaging in behaviour that changes your perspective on things (taking a second to reflect on your own thoughts, whether they are fully accurate, what else could you think about the situation that may ne more accurate and balanced so that you dont spiral in your emotional thinking). DBT even encourages PLEASE (Physical activity, treat any iLlnesses, Exercise, avoid mood-Altering drugs, sleep, Eat healthily) all of which are behavioural changes to improve your life overall. it also has ABCs (accumulate positive emotions, build mastery - where you get better at a skill you enjoy to feel good about yourself, cope ahead - where you practice coping skills so that when crisis hits your coping method as a reflex is a healthy one) idk what shite therapists fully focus on just emotions and im glad things got better. For future reference, these modalities of therapy may gel better with your needs
@@zorro...... Yeah they were pretty shit therapists lol. I don't think it was CBT, not really sure what kind it was though, this was from ages 12-19 approximately so this was at a low income mental health clinic with mostly grad students in training
@@zorro...... I was sent to s psychoanalyst as a teenager ( for ptsd due to sa ) A short time of CBT did so much more for me. I really can't recommend psychoanalysis.
I feel like for me this applies. I only inherently hated myself because I was frequently ostracized as a kid. When I surrounded myself with people who genuinely cared about me, it motivated me to care about myself.
I had a similar experience dating. when I was single I figured "if I'm worth loving why hasn't it actually happened yet?" and it made me more unwilling to seek better circumstances in all areas of my life. Through a mix of courage and desperation I tried being a good boyfriend for a few women and after some trial and error I found somebody compatible and we ended up in a positive feedback loop of making each other better. Even if that went away tomorrow, I would always be able to tell myself, "I did it once, I can do it again."
Fuck the "tough love" tbh. In any form. The most toxic shit that I ever experienced, just thinking about it makes me sick. If it can motivate me to do something, it's to do something opposite and destructive just out of spite. I think Doctor K started flirting with redpilled self-help to get more popularity.
This. I'm having a struggle with my therapist about my relationship situation. He is just insisting on seeing my self-value, how can I see value in myself when all the people I've been with didn't? I find that mindset kinda ridiculous
It's the inauthentic "self love" and "toxic positivity" that I take issue with. We are all worthy of care/consideration/love. But not "unconditional" love. I had to first deal with my internalized shame, before I could make changes in my life - because the shameful feelings would stop my progress. Brene Browns work in "shame resilience" was super helpful for me.
The boot-camp thing reminds me about the techniques of teaching self-confidence to kids. I've struggled with confidence and me and my mother have ended up having very open conversations about my upbringing, and one of the things she said she regrets is the way she attempted to grow my self-confidence. She herself grew up in a toxic environment where her parents judged her and didn't believe in her, outright giving up on her and driving off at some occasions, which crushed her confidence as a kid. As a mother she tried to do the opposite by always praising me saying I'm great in all kinds of ways, which was certainly better, but I never felt like I deserved it. It felt like she was lying to me from a place of love and the feeling of dishonesty made me feel fake. To this day I still struggle with deserving anything, I'm obsessed with earning approval and trying to achieve what I felt was who I were supposed to be, who people think I am. But it's too tiring and endless, I can't do it and end up feeling sorry for myself, hiding from the world to avoid the looming disappointment in me. She had later learned that to grow confidence in a child you need to challenge them so that they can prove to themselves that they're worth their confidence. Even challenges they can't fail works towards that purpose and if they do fail, it could be just like at boot-camp where no one is giving up on you, you can get up and try again and succeed rather than do nothing in terror of losing the love you're convinced were given to you by mistake.
For me the two are connected: I learned to love myself, and now I believe that I deserve better, but because my actions are literally the only thing I can control - I am also the one responsible for taking the steps to build that life that I think I deserve. I think if I didn't have self-love I wouldn't proactively change my life, because I would be convinced I am not worthy of it.
Self love is very important for people with traumatic childhood experiences that dissociated from their traumatized parts. these parts of yourself dont care about rational thoughts like - its 10 years in the past, dont let it affect yourself. theyre highly emotional, stuck in the past and the best way to help urself reintegrate, is showing urself love
Turns out, my therapist is bloody awesome! She’s teaching me self love (that I desperately need) but also cares about my real life outcomes. Teaching me how to make friends etc. I just happened to talk to someone who had been going to therapy with emotional dysregulation issues for 7 years and had only been talking about it. No self regulation excersises that I’m doing in my therapy or anything. And no improvements too. I was thinking it just happened to be a strange therapist, as I thought all therapists are like mine who teach real-life skills in addition to self love.
These therapists are the best! I really appreciated being able to talk to my therapist about my real life issues, and how she turned those into lessons about changing my thinking. Basically it taught me how to process things in a sensible and constructive way. And using problems affecting me at that point in time meant I saw immediate short term benefit.
Honestly mine too. I’ve tried going to male therapists and they’ve always sugarcoated everything and were always afraid to be honest. I have a woman therapist and she is blunt but nice.
Growing up, my guilt wasn't formed because I was genuinely doing something bad. It was formed early by my caregivers shaming me for feelings certain emotions and instilling in me that my emotions cause them to feel certain things so I should feel guilty for causing them such suffering. Then, it manifests into people pleasing and perfectionism. It is still a coping mechanism that i learned to survive but morphed into something that is now my default stress response. Instead of me asking "what do i need?", It always turns into "What does this person need me to feel and be so they can be happy?" and then guilt ensues when I feel like I am not living up to their expectations. At this point, I struggle with knowing where I start/stop and where the other person begins. Change is hard because others around you have expectations and want to keep you the same way because it benefits them. Then when you do start to change, people around you will feel weird or treat you with disdain. This is where the self-love part comes in. Because if you don't have that for yourself, you won't properly grieve the rejection and loss that was necessary for you to change. So I think it is important to recognize that you deserve to change but can only do that if you actually care about yourself over caring about others feelings/being rejected because of it.
There is a rare catastrophe to grit. How can someone continue trying no matter what? What actually happens if you take it to an unreasonable extreme? Eventually, you could expect someone to become suicidal (burnout/depression before), because putting in great effort for no meaningful result or well-being is not a good life. I imagine this is really rare, but I know of it, because I have reached that point. “Corrective experience”, is the suggested resolve given to me by a therapist, the idea that experiencing something actually work out for once, is genuinely needed for recovery. This was started by making unimaginably easy goals, or even goals you already accomplish, and can repeat.
People who don't give up on you in any field makes you feel like you have purpose, they give you agency to belong/exist. That purpose is all you need to continue to grow and better yourself. It's so powerful, yet we give up on each other so quickly.
I have to disagree. In my experience people refuse to acknowledge my limits and provide appropriate support because doing so would be "giving up" on me And they couldn't understand why I didn't appreciate that
This makes sense. Thank you, doctor! I'm a girl, and I don't need to love myself just out of the blue! I did feel worthless. Then I struggled to open my online art shop. I did it, now I know I can support my family. My Mom and I, we both have atypical depression, or at least it's what our therapist thinks. Mom needs exactly this sort of help. She hates to exercise, so I motivate her every day =D I think I'm a good coach, haha. Better little exercise than nothing at all. I think we're on the right path.
I think its a combination of the 2. You need self love in order to process the emotions and have the drive to change your outer circumstances. And you need to put in the work and have resilience to achieve your goals or generate a change that'll generate self love.
We need both self-love and grit - accepting where we are right now, identifying what we actually need mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, etc, and then coming up with a plan to learn the skills required to get those needs met and never giving up until we achieve this. Self-love is the foundation, but we still need to take action to build confidence and get our needs met.
Dr K, I'm a Clinical Psychologist in training. I have to say - thank you so, so much. All the things you said are things I believe in - I don't underatand how it's okay for people to go to therapy for years (!!!!) without seeing any outcome. People higher in me in the field made sure to make me understand I should shut up and and never answer, always bring more questions. It's kind of a haze and you just lock the patient inside. I don't want to be that kind of therapist. I'm so glad I found you.
I love this video so much. Loving myself when i was sitting in front of my screen with no job and 100 pounds too heavy really hurt me and wasted years of my life. Loving the version of myself that tries their hardest to achieve their goals, even if they are small and easily achievable, is the version of myself I don't regret becoming in exchange for that hermit lifestyle self.
Finally, a therapist who isn't just spouting self-love and affirmation to the exclusion of all else. That has been pretty much the only thing I encounter online these days whether it is research, blogs, magazine articles, etc. Just as with individual people, the field of therapy needs to find a balance. If it can't do that, then we are headed for an unmitigated disaster.
I taught myself grit my becoming an endurance cyclist. Not giving up 12 hours into a ride when the sun has already set requires a whole different skill set than "loving yourself"
Thanks for making this video. This whole self-love philosophy is really dominant in my college and in my work-space, and it is so frustrating because it really impedes people's ability to improve themselves and leaves them trapped in this fallacy that they are who they are and people should accept them for it. It also makes it really difficult to criticize people or suggest change because pointing out any flaw with a person or their behavior is often seen as an attack on that person themselves, rather than an attack on the behavior or trait. I personally am extremely self-critical, about my grades, work, and looks, and people always view that as a bad thing. But I view it as not coming from a place of self-hatred but rather self-love because I acknowledge that there are flaws with myself that I should improve to live a better life and be a better person. There's a funny quote from a comedian that goes something along the lines of: "People are always saying they wish they could find someone who will love them for who they are. But have you ever considered that maybe who you are is not that great?" If you think that every person is perfect as they are, that you are perfect how you are, and that people should always accept you no matter your flaws, that seems like a toxic and delusional mentality to me.
As a therapist who got started working in the addictions field, I'd say my training & mentorship helped me balance these two concepts/philosophies of what successful therapy or treatment look like. Because yes we have to address dysfunctional "not good enough" thinking, as well as shame-based beliefs about a person's addiction (vs guilt, which is a good thing for them to feel). However, the goal is also for them to stop using alcohol or other drugs in a way that ruins their lives. If they now like themselves more but keep using/relapsing the same way over & over, the treatment is at least for the moment failing. A bit part of this process, which parallels your boot camp example & what you describe about grit, is building up the ability & willingness to be uncomfortable. To do the right or healthy thing in s given moment, but rather than experiencing warm/fuzzy feelings feel more or less pretty shitty about it. But recognize that the discomfort doesn't necessarily mean you're doing anything wrong, & it doesn't mean you can't keep going on. Whether it's withdrawal symptoms, the awkwardness of being honest in a support group, reaching out for help to others, ditching toxic friends, setting healthy boundaries with family members, or using more effective coping skills for emotions instead of alcohol/other drugs, most of it will feel uncomfortable at best. Where the compassion/self-love part comes in is helping the person realize their missteps, their failures, are not the be-all-end all of who they are, that building a new normal for their lives sucks for them just like it sucks for everyone else.
Thank you for this. I believe I'm past the self-love and self-acceptance aspect. But was scared of taking steps again of self-improvement. I got comfortable in not improving myself. I believe I can truly say, I want to improve my life because I love myself. And not that there's anything to fix. People have imperfections, life generally sucks, and some people have it better than others. That's a part of life, and there's no changing that. But to strive to improve those imperfections and to better one's life in their environment from a place of self-love is a beautiful thing one can do for themselves.
I kinda hate how people in the comment section completely threw out the fact that you said "Self love works for HALF of tbe people" I doesn't work for me because I truly hate myself so subconsciously I think self love affirmations are bullshit so it wont work. I decided to instead tough it out because I HAVE to not because I love myself. I suddenly feel confident because its like I proved myself wrong and now I know I physically have the skill. I dont feel like a great artist yet being told I am grows my confidence because maybe I truly am blind to my own skill but once again I have ti fight that beast of thinking people are just being nice. Theres not a one size fits all solution, maybe you love yourself but not everyone is in the same situation
It's definitely a complex thing. I've mostly needed the psychological healing...now that my situation has changed. While I was there, no amount of internal mental change could be enough; changing my circumstances was completely necessary. Like anything in mental health, there's no one size fits all, and context is pretty important. Find a therapist/coach/whatever that's willing and able to do what *you* need.
One important thing to note is that bootcamps have extrinsic goals, while therapy kinda assumes you already have extrinsic goals, or you'll find them on your own, or that you'll be able to explore your intrinsic goals in therapy and this will work out somehow. Sometimes people want to be influenced, sometimes people want to be told what to do, take it as you will
When I started out on this journey, I really needed self love and self compassion. I was raised by overly critical and controlling parents which left me feeling paralysed and helpless. I'm now out of the woods with that trauma and I find myself feeling confident enough to take action. I've gotten myself a life coach and I've built some grit and I'm finally enjoying life a little more.
I have always praised my therapist. But this video makes me appreciate all the work she did even more. When I first started talking to her, she definitely tried taking me down the path of self love .., but when she realized my personality, she very much switched to becoming a “coach” and motivator .,, and it worked brilliantly
It feels like this depends on how people define self-love. Some think self-love= accepting your flaws and move on, while some others think self-love=finding all the flaws and fixing them to be better. Both have pros and cons; the former will provide some optimism but your flaws might drag you back down at times, and the latter may make you better but some flaws take YEARS to fix & there are unsolvable flaws too (eg. parts of your personality and values that you developed since childhood)
I don't know why people only equate love to being nice. If you love yourself then you won't accept your own excuses and you will expect yourself to improve and learn. Grit is how I beat my depression and it is definitely a form of self-love. Grit is how you turn your weaknesses into strength that drives you. In strength is weakness and in weakness, strength.
I totally agree. When he was talking about the drill sergeants never giving up on you, wouldn't that be... an example of love? I mean literally speaking, they're performing a job, but theoretically, treating yourself like a drill sergeant would treat you - never giving up on yourself - would certainly not be... the opposite of self love...
@@lapeaches8006 Then the world crushes. On the bright side - that has happened only once, and now I know, that "the end of the world" only lasts around 2-3 years, then it gets better. But it would be much harder now, when I'm handicapped (and that breakup may be partly to blame for my failing health). Besides, this is not an issue for most people, it's just that I'm neurodivergent (inattentive ADHD, maybe ASD too, but it's not diagnosed yet) with rejection sensitivity, which means my feelings are extremely intense (which may scare some people) and don't really fade with time, at least not to the degree it happens to so called "normal people", to me eternal love and friendship are not a fairytale, but a daily reality, and I don't need regular reminders about them, those feeling just linger somewhere in my brain, which may sound nice, but it also means a breakup, that happened in the past millennia, still hurts sometimes. Maybe it would not, maybe it would be gone, but a grief fired up those emotions anew - I found out about the death of my first girlfriend a few years ago, turns out that isn't all that unusual - there are A LOT of stories on how news about the death of the first love can be really devastating.
I liked the mention of building grit. It doesn’t mean compromising or ignoring emotion, but creating new paths to deal with circumstances the way you want
I had this problem in therapy myself. The 'self-love' and self-compassion train can often feel like saying "not up to your own standards? Then lower your standards!" and I hate it.
"Abusive talks" is such a complex thing. I always wonder why some people can trash talk others and it kind of feel ok while others trash talk can feel so armful. After watching this video, I think it is maybe linked to the intension behind an abusive talk. Some of those talks mean in fact that they won't give up on you while other are just pure hate. And then there are how those talks are received. Some perceive almost everything coming to them as hate while the other extreme are impermeable to almost anything. Fascinating and complex. Great video!
I think that self-love and grit are both needed. I alway had too much grit, I could withstand a lot. The problem was that I lacked the capacity to underatand I was treated poorly always looking inside and thinking "well I did something wrong, I need to be better". Self-compassion basically saved me. So it's important to get through hard stuff and not give up easily. But there are some things you should give up on as fast as you can (toxic, abusive people for example).
I think that, when either dealing with self-love or grit, MOTIVATION should be given priority. Without it, both self-love and grit are empty and aimless.
Motivation is finite, grit is very similar to discipline and in the end discipline is what actually provides that external change which makes one more fulfilled in the end.
Motivation is finite, grit is very similar to discipline and in the end discipline is what actually provides that external change which makes one more fulfilled in the end.
Great video. Self love alone worked wonders for me because I was already managing my anxiety and low self worth with achieving things and being as blameless as possible. That’s why boot camp style would have obliterated me, but self-compassion was so revolutionary. I was already too hard on myself.
Dr. K, this video was made for me. I have been on a kick of your channel's content since finding it a few weeks ago. You have been such a valuable resource for someone who wrote off therapy that tried it once. Thank you.
I feel like self-love has become like a "yes-man" type of thing, like you're not self-loving if you're ever like "hey, this is not a good, I want and need to be better"; the point Dr. K is making is that some people don't love themselves because they have a warped perception of their worthiness of that love, they are good, valuable people and don't see it, other people don't love themselves because they have a clear perception of their worthiness of that love and they recognize that, by their own reasonable standards, aren't worthy of that love
I heard a very interesting definition of self-love recently. It says: “if you only love yourself when you’re fit, healthy, making good money - it’s not self love, those are just requirements for yourself”. I get the whole idea of the video and I must say it’s inspirational. Maybe the point is not to stall in your life, but rather, try to enjoy what you have, even if you’re halfway through (and remember that you will always feel like you’re halfway through and no matter what you achieve you will want something new). The idea here is to learn to enjoy your life even while you’re fat, poor, unhealthy, undisciplined or whatever. Personally for me as a “gifted kid” who only felt loved for accomplishing tasks and good grades, I was very depressed when I tried to go this way (just accomplish what you want and then you can love yourself). Instead, when I let myself go, said “fuck it” to all my tasks and goals, I finally started to move forward, do sports, achieve something. I don’t know how about others but that’s how it works for me
I love this. Sometimes we need to improve our life with tangible changes. As a military member, I have good memories of boot camp. We did hard things every day, had balanced lives in terms of learning, good, fitness and we had daily interaction with people. We even went to spiritual or worship services on sundays. There was no phones, no TV and it made us more present.
This speaks to me. For some reason every time I tried to love the old self it just never quite clicked, at least at first. I got to the point where I was tired of where I was at in life and said hell, I might as well start kicking my own ass and get started. It's been tough, but even after a few weeks of keeping my promises and sticking to my plan, that negative voice inside has gotten quieter. So far when does negative voices start up, I have some proof that I've been doing the things I told myself I was going to do and so I can argue with that voice and challenge it. I can say yeah but look I did a pretty good job yesterday so even though I messed up today I'll just get back up on the horse tomorrow.
I agree. It's better to try to improve yourself. Because then you will have something to be proud of, and you will thank yourself, which will lead to an increasement of self-respect and self-love.
But .. if you struggle with providing yourself with love/value/esteem then those external improvements won't bring you any better internal circumstances. See the issue?
I want to say my opinion: No matter how much you are not in a version that you want, you are so worthy of love just because you are here and you are doing the best you can now. Its that what makes you grow actually, being able to see that and being compassionate with yourself what makes you transform into the best version of yourself. The people who are in the best version of themselves know that: everybody deserves to love themselves no matter in what part of the process they are. If you are no being compassionate and loving with yourself, and you are not validating that version of you that is imperfect, actually the things you accomplish won´t be better... you have to feel it first, you must change from the inside to the outside.
Honestly this one felt off the mark. Especially the part: "Grit is the opposite of self-love". Not at all? I've been able to stick it out through hardship much MORE after I learned a bit of self-love. Self loathing is the opposite of self love, and it is what people feel when they say "But I don't deserve self love, I'm pathetic." It is in fact a great motivator, I would know, I've used it extensively and to great effect. It also made me want to kill myself. The problem with relying on fixing outside circumstances to "earn" loving yourself is that it is a never ending loop. The second you get to the level which you think you need to "deserve" to love yourself, you'll start looking at the next level. After you get straight As, you'll feel like the man for a while, then you'll start to need a better physique. Then better income. Then a better girlfriend. Then then then.... Which wouldn't be a problem, if you didn't feel like SHIT the entire time. That's what self loathing is. It is true that negative emotions such as self loathing are a fantastic tool for change, but they are NOT sustainable. At some point you will realize that you feel awful IN SPITE of all your achievements, then what? If even getting all of this isn't enough, then what will be? Self-loathing makes it very easy to put up with hard things (grit) and gives you tons of motivation. Because if you think you're a sack of shit that deserves to die, but can redeem itself with enough effort and work, then it will be easy to put in effort. But you can also have grit through self-love. You can go through hardship because you want the best future for yourself and you know you are worth it. Honestly feels like he's talking about 2 things that aren't opposites as if they were opposites. Wanting to improve your circumstances and loving yourself aren't opposites, nor does either reduce the other. In the same way that a loving parent still can and should discipline their child. It is idiotic to say that you need to do anything to "deserve" love. I may not be Christian, but I think they got that part right. Maybe you could argue that you need to be a good person to deserve love, but that's as far as I'd push it. You certainly aren't unworthy of love just because your grades aren't so good, or you don't have a girlfriend, or you're not 6 feet tall, etc. Edit: I made this comment because I was EXACTLY the type of person who looked at all this self love stuff like: “Ew, wtf is this fluffy bullshit, not what I need!!!” Turns out it was exactly what I needed.
small note about Christianity since you mentioned it, there are different interpretations but generally the reason you're supposed to change your behavior in response to love is less about worthiness and more about gratitude. If someone does something nice for you because they feel empathy for your pain or misfortune, usually the proper response is to take what you're given to further improve so you don't suffer as much. You want to suffer less and so does the other person so it's painful for everyone involved if you keep living in the way that makes you miserable.
You seem to be a naturally motivated person that also used negative emotions to further improve its motivation. Apparently you went into overdrive and experienced depression in more of a burn-out way than lying in bed and crying all day. For me it's so obviously implied that Dr. K is NOT talking about you and how to treat you as a patient. He also mentioned that in the beginning - "for some people...". Your experiences and explanations were still very valuable to me as I discovered myself in many aspects you mentioned and it always gives me some calmness to know there are other people fighting the same fights. 😊
Khaledyasser8293... 😂 The phrase "sack of shit that deserves to die" sounds like it belongs in a mid-90s Green Day song! On the serious note, good assessment.
It felt so great watching this... i felt understood, relieved, and so confident during these 18 minutes. Like every time I watch one of your videos... so thank you. ..but as soon as its over I drop back into not knowing what on earth to do with my life. After almost a decade trapped in the same job, not being able to have almost any social life, which made my life feel empty, lonely and worthless - I quit. I wanted to take some time for myself, reflect and find something worth doing. Something I could identify with, something that is worth spending my time on... months have passed since and my hope has vanished. I feel like there is no spot for me here... Not long ago I decided to see a therapist and after a few sessions she gave me one simple task: To tell her what I'm proud of... ...it took me days... ...its been over a week... ..my mind is empty.. I'm not proud of anything. I have not accomplished anything except surviving my past... and this actually broke my heard. It confirmes my believe not being worth a dime... even though so many say I have so many abilities... and bla bla bla I never had anyone setting me real boundaries, telling me what to do in life, telling me the truth - regardless of how I would feel about it. The Bootcamp-part @ 12:15 actually made me drop some tears... I wish I would have had someone giving me some directions in life... PD: I started calisthenics in September, started to eat properly again and gained almost 4kg since. For me as a skinny guy that's a huge increase in weight despite my high stress-level. I never felt so strong when being so weak. I push myself harder than ever before... I feel relieve in the pain that overcomes my body when doing that one more rep... Its the only drive I have right now, the only thing that relives me from my mental pain, stress, anxiety and life overall and the only solution I found to answering that question one day. Still I'm lost...
Also, my therapist is an ex-marine. I closely related to the first statement about needing someone to kick my ass as opposed to self-love affirmations and over-validation. I sucked as a person and needed someone to tell me that to my face.
When I was younger, I needed to have contempt for myself in order to motivate myself to be a better person. After 10 years of development, I finally felt the need for self-love
Self love + Grit = The secret sauce. You acknowledge that you are enough. You also acknowledge that you endeavor for more. Like padding stats after you can already down the boss.
Very interesting! For some people (like me) it is about a balance of these. If I don't push myself or nobody pushes me, then I become a person I can't love. But when I don't love myself during the process, I get pushed around too much or push myself into burn-out.
Dr. k must be following me around bc his videos come at such a coincidental time in my life. literally the other day i was saying "i dont need my feelings validated i need someone to tell me to get myself together!"
@@apeshiii the video is about love and as a society we have vague ideas about love. Parent love, friend love, romantic love, self love... It's all a sacrifice. If we're not talking about sacrifice, we're not talking about love, we're talking about respect, appreciation, admiration. You may not respect, appreciate or admire your own self, but that isn't love anyways.
This is exactly what I've been telling my therapists and trying to get for years, right down to the "I don't love myself and that's okay because it's probably the only thing that drives one forward into change." I'm actually scared to love myself because I don't want it to lead into a pitfall of even more complacency. I don't find any aspect of my current life worth loving, but that's exactly what I want to change.
I think as is for most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. For me, self-loathing makes it impossible to get anything done, but I can get complacent and rest on my laurels and start coddling myself instead of getting things done and accomplishing stuff. I think that's where grit comes in - building an innate sense of not giving up and going out there and doing what needs to be done. I think most people require both these things but the help they need to receive at a particular stage in their life may skew more towards one side than the other.
This video is incredibly validating for me. I figured out the importance of this balance on my own a few years ago, but whenever I've tried to share this philosophy of health with others I run into a lot of defensive behavior. I think true self love is taking the action you can manage to change the circumstances that are making you struggle with having positive and loving opinions of yourself in the first place. I find that even suggesting to face yourself to some friends of mine is met with such heavy resistance and denial. I feel almost intentionally misunderstood.
My lack of self love was keeping me from taking action, learning, and not giving up and once you heal from that then you don't need therapy, you need coaching
I really needed this, because I wanted to love the better version of myself and not the crappy version. Your videos have been really helpful in answering some thoughts I had in my head
Timestamp: 8:29 Coaching and behavior change versus psychotherapeutic addressment of emotional pathology. Timestamp: 11:53 Secret sauce behind militant conditioning/training (and why "abusive" tough love approach works for some...) Timestamp: 13:40 You explaining menspeak to me (a paradox in communication I've never understood because I'm declaring myself female). Jezus hail mary. Too many gems here that need further content explanation for the love of god pleeeze. Thank you!!!
Not everyone feels like they deserve self love, not everyone should feel that. But _everyone_ deserves to feel like they can get to a point where they deserve to feel self love. To be at a pont in life where loving themselves is appropriate. And, sometimes when youre in a bad place and you know it, you can build up a big pool of self deprication based anxiety fueled energy and kickstart themselves onto a path of self improvement. And then you come in and make them less anxious, flood them with self love, and essentially piss all over the fire they've spent the last six months desperately trying to light under their own as. Panic, anxiety, and self disapproval and disappointment are like putting nitrous in a car engine. Its probably not great to do that all the time, and too much of it will cause the engine to literally explode or rip itself apart. But sometimes you need that to get going or get over a hump. And taking that away from a person makes it worse not better. Tje places where it's needed to teach them self love and anxiety reduction is when those things are so overwhelming it causes them to tear themselves apart, explode, or completely freeze up and shut down. Its like if you take three hundred people, and you have a hundred each of people with too much cortisol, adequate amounts, and too little cortisol. And then you develop a treatment plan for the first group, call it a day, and treat all three groups with the cortisol lowering medication you developed. It doesn't make the second and third group better does it.
Thats pretty much what I discovered too! But I thought it was basically an expression of self-love. You show that you love and respect yourself by doing anything to achieve your goals, and by eating healthy, doing sport and sleeping regularly. And by treating myself like a person that deserves this respect and love I actually started to love and respect myself. So I think it goes the other way around. Treat yourself with respect and then you will start to respect/love yourself.
I feel like confidence is given. Think about it. Everyone, even attractive ones, are anxious at first…moving to a new location, new school, etc…it’s a human wide anxiety, wanting to fit in. The problem is, good looking people are welcomed with open arms and are pushed up by everyone around them. People WANT them to succeed and be a part of their group. This puts them at ease, makes them feel good that they’re “part of the tribe” and that’s that. But for less attractive people, or people who have some kind of social issue, it’s the complete opposite. They have to earn their way into groups, and a lot of the times, other people don’t want them to succeed, so they talk behind their backs, make fun of them, etc…and this creates emotional damage that leads to trauma and…low self confidence. The feeling that you aren’t good enough. Because that’s how people have treated you. Confidence comes from external treatment, it has nothing to do with self love. At least this is how I see it.
Our secondary school headmaster was an ex-army Major and he taught one class only, which was for the top maths students in the final exam year. I was very surprised to find myself in this group. He used the boot camp method you describe, telling us how useless we were and that we were the worst group he'd ever had. Personally this made me really angry and had a negative impact on my confidence and my understanding of the subject. I wasn't the only one. A large number of us dropped out of his class to return to our original class and teacher. So maths boot camp really didn't work for us lol 😅
Yeah I think math is different because a huge number of people have "trauma" from a young age around it, due to many teachers treating us this way. And teachers do it less frequently for other subjects. Also, the military (or military school) is a lot of physical stuff so it's different. I went to a military school and none of the teachers taught academic subjects that way, and I'm pretty sure it's for a good reason.
My engineering degree was like this, but we didn't need someone telling us we were the worst. We told that to ourselves every cram session and assignment. To this day I maintain that I made it through because I was too stupid to quit.
@@Iudicatio You have to act like that in the military because war is more efficient when soldiers are placed low in a hierarchy, it makes them forfeit their individuality and work as part of a collective. In a math class, though?? It's ridiculous, just pointless... That headmaster sounds like damaged goods passing on his trauma.
I didnt go to true military boot camp. But I did go to this one 10-day summer program meant to emulate boot camp but for kids between 13-18. It sucked. And I wished I went back the next year. I wanted to quit by day 2, but someone told me you couldn't actually quit (despite what the Sargent would say). I was in literal physical pain where both my heels broke, and so every step felt like I was stepping on hot nails. Yet the only way forward was to keep moving as you weren't allowed to quit. So I kept moving forward. I was last or almost last in every single activity or metric, yet end of the program they awarded me the leadership award because I never gave up. It was so self-affirming and taught me that life sucks but thats okay.
This is exactly the video I needed right now. This convinced me that coaching is likely a much better fit for me than therapy. As someone pouring all of their energy into escaping an ongoing domestic violence situation I've been trapped in for 10+ years, the constant rage I feel at my abusers mistreatment can be framed as an asset to be directed into changing my circumstances rather than another reason to be shamed for externalizing against abuse in therapy. Dr. K is so right about most therapists being fixated on internalization and only addressing pathology.
Thank you! You just gave me the power back to do what I knew somewhere deep inside was what I needed. To be able to decide for myself what I deserve and don't deserve. People pushing me to treat myself when I haven't done shit. People telling me to not be hard on myself when I'm frustrated at my lack of accomplishment or activity. Smothering me into feeling lost and empty and worthless. I just needed a trustworthy source to back me up that there's nothing wrong with negative emotions and using them to better oneself.
Great video. Pair this up with recognizing life is too short to live a life of tolerance (in terms of a bad job, an unhappy situation, etc) and there's a great source of motivation to be tapped into (at least for me it worked). Focus and the ability to craft your own life are the superpowers in the world right now. Having the grit to flip that switch, mentally, and then pursue those goals in an incremental progression seems to be the secret. The dopamine rush of progress, instead of goal completion, makes progress easier.
What I find grating about self-love when it comes to relationships and depression is that so many of the people who say stuff like "you need to love yourself first!!!" are surrounded by friends and family and would have a breakdown if those were taken away. Very few people practice what they preach and they thrive on outside validation. This is ok to an extent in my opinion - we are human, and are social creatures. Bruce Perry wrote of how all the self-love in the world is not going to fix depression in an individualised society. These were the same people who, in the 2020 lockdowns, were writing rambling articles about how they hadn't had sex in a month or how society was collapsing because social interaction was limited.
I'm really not sure how I feel about this. Dr.K's advice may work from his pov as the therapist, rationally evaluating patients, but this is harmful advice. The people who do need self-love will hear this and think that they're the ones who aren't deserving of it, and vice versa. Personal anecdote, I developed a really intense eating disorder and depression because of that belief that I didn't deserve to be loved, but if I changed something about myself, I would deserve it. The problem is that if you use self-hatred as the motivator *THAT SELF HATRED NEVER GOES AWAY*. I was overweight when I started, and I hated myself into anorexia.
From what I've learned about this self love journey it can take you down a path of ' I don't wanna work/study because it's hard and I'll feel sad when I don't feel like I'm good at anything and therefore I'll just make myself some comfort food or go shopping to show myself some love'. That's my experience with it but how I've come out of that is actually practicing self-discipline. Oh I have a test to study for tomorrow and even though I don't get it, I'll put in the time to learn it and get the reward of a good grade, etc. self love is harmful when it's practiced as a way to enable yourself to not show up for yourself and your future self. Thanks for this ep dr k. You've been helpful at helping me actually process my emotions better and become a better version of myself
I feel like self-love and developing grit isn't contradictory, if you really love yourself it means you should make your life better, not just forcefully convince yourself that you are fine and guiltless no matter what.
I don't think people go to therapy to change themselves. They go because they need comfort, and to feel that they are OK, independent of achievement. Until they feel intrinsically worthy, it is impossible to change the self. For most of my life I felt as if I had nothing to offer, as if there was no reason for anyone to enjoy my company let alone love me, regardless of knowing that I am a good person. I was in my 50s before a therapist said 'you have a really nice energy'. It took a bit more, but that was the beginning of me feeling likeable, and THAT is what I needed, not to develop my life - that is a different issue
If you fix the crap on the outside, the circumstances, you’ll feel good about the change in the short term, but self-love is what helps you maintain the changes you make.
Agree. I think the premise of this video is goofy, it is predicated on the idea that there is a binary involved, ie it's either all about self compassion or has nothing to do with it at all. Highly doubt the latter of those applies to even 5% of people.
Agreed. Even the examples don't make much sense -- studies show that people with low confidence in their body image don't tend to get more confidence if they start to look better, because the main underlying issue is lack of worth, not the physical appearance itself. There's a degree of separation from apparent and actual cause there that Dr. K ignores here.
@@HunterTracksi agree, theres flaws in his logic and it didnt sound like normal Dr K to me. Then i realised why, its a promotional video for his coaching program... i do think external changes can be helpful (for example getting out of an abusive relationship is generally a good thing) but even then doesnt guarentee the person will feel better internally
Fantastic video. Feels like with us men especially, there's often a need for some base level of competence in order to even start considering the ideas of self-love and self-compassion. Competence unlocks confidence unlocks self-love, vs for others self-love unlocks confidence.
For me, personally, I need both! Some of my issues were caused by self-loathing and hatred, which I’ve worked on a lot and am still working on. But recently I realized some of my issues can’t be fixed with self-love, so I’m starting that journey. The difficulty sometimes is parsing which is which, because self-loathing will tell me it’s not a self-love issue and I just need to be better, but my avoidant side will tell me I just need to love myself to avoid having to do any work.
I find the negative expression thing interesting. It seems like it does two things in my experience. One, it all but directly states that you believe in that person. That you do truly care about them and want them to do well and that you believe they can and deserve to suceed. It also motivates them through a sort of spite. The desire to prove that they aren't the garbage you're telling them they are. All without ever actually speaking positively about them, and without disrupting the sort of "manliness shield" men are usually expected to maintain. Alongside drill sergeants, you see it often with coaches or personal trainers as well. People who's job it is to basically give people the grit required to overcome something.
In my own experience self love definitely has its place. In the sense that practicing some over none at all def helps, in my own personal life anyway. However i am aware of my own limitations and i enjoy having some direction or outside perspective as well.
Hi Dr. K. Coincidentally, I just ran a group 2 days ago on how self love, and compassion aren't always helpful. I also mentioned how there are definitely people who do first need the self love etc. So it was definitely refreshing to hear a similar viewpoint. Thank you! I have a slightly different viewpoint. My solution wasn't the bootcamp idea. I believe that for some, it runs into a similar issue of a fluctuating self worth based off of a performance/achievement. Although it is necessary to have that component for someone to actually feel like they DESERVE the self love they're trying to give themselves - because they actually are finally feeling like they're GETTING somewhere - it still seems to have that drawback of not being able to constantly feel worthy and 'good enough' - and I do think that's an achievable goal. My viewpoint is to put the focus on others more and think more selflessly i.e. 'how can I be useful to .... my friend... my family... my community' or 'how can I make someone's day better etc' it takes a lot of pressure off oneself and allows one to feel love in their life without trying to constantly grasp at it. i.e the goal can't be self love but it comes along with living a meaningful life. That's where it ends on a secular, non-religious level. On a religious level, in my view, the underlying metric of valuing oneself is based off of that we are all created in the image of G-d and we are INHERENTLY worthy and we have strengths that we are meant to use in this world that only WE can accomplish. I don't believe consistent self love is achievable without the idea of inherent value. And after much thought, I don't think inherent value makes sense unless we are not random creations.
I definitely think using Shame to drive you to better yourself has its benefits. But I also think down the line it will become a maladaptive coping mechanism especially when things don’t go your way.
I think both of the things go hand in hand for true transformation and healing. Like you can't hate yourself into becoming a version of yourself that you love. Self love and compassion must be paired with self introspection, admitting your flaws, and a commitment to become better.
This is so weird. I’ve started 2 rounds of therapy with the same therapist (I took a year and a bit break after doing it for a year and then went back to it recently), and our first session, we discuss what my goal is for therapy. And she writes it down. Like I literally tell her, this is what I want to achieve, and then she from her 18 years of experience in practice and education, makes a plan for a way to help me and takes me through the process. Part of the entire process is developing the working relationship I have with her because she’s literally trying to help me achieve something I want
Grit is what you have to have when you encounter a situation where your resilience fails. Resilience is heading into the storm bright and upright, taking those hits and you just keep going mostly unshaken. Grit is the ability to go into the storm, get knocked flat onto your as, and then dragged through the dirt face first, and you decide to keep going anyway. You get knocked down, and rather than turning back you crawl forward on your hands and knees, and then when you don't have the strength left to crawl you just keep going anyway and drag yourself through the dirt on your stomach. And then when your arms give out you drag yourself with your friggin chin. Or more applicable to life, resilience is taking 10 college classes at once, and nearly breaking down every five minutes from stress but you keep it up. Grit is failing two classes and getting a c- in the third class because you're so tired, sick, and beaten down by it all that you can barely roll out of bed in the morning, but you just keep coming back, you grind through it struggling but not giving up. Basically the TLDR is that resilience is badass standing up and taking it without being knocked down. Grit is what you use after your resilience reaches its limit and you need to not give up after that even though you are down.
Maybe the problem is in what we usually understand as love? I think love consists of two things: accepting and wanting the best for the person loved. Accepting doesn't mean 'you are great the way you are' that would be affirmation. Accepting is something like 'no matter how bad you are I'll be by your side, I'll welcome you and no matter what I'l try to help you'. That kind of love should create harmony between compassion and pushing for doing better.
I can be hard on myself and push myself to my goals, but its the lack of underlying faith that I can accomplish these goals that makes it negative. Having faith in myself is the hardest thing
It really depends on the person, but I think overall, it's very difficult to love yourself if your self-image is shattered. You could say it's impossible and failing to love yourself in that case only does more harm because it makes you feel more like a failure than you already do.
I am absolutely no specialist, but the way I understand self love when one's life sucks is "I care enough about myself that I want to change". Self love isn't, in my mind, loving the satus quo but rather feeling like you are worth the effort that the change will take. And so when someone comes in saying that they are motivated by shame and guilt and self hate, the therapist's job may be to show them that those negative feelings actually stem from a deeper, more positive one, and all are valid. Because I don't think a person who truly believes they are worthless, useless etc could have any drive for change. Also I've gone to one therapist and two of my friends are seeing two other therapists, so my sample is like 3 professionals... but neither adheres to any "don't change the patient's life" rule. I am not from USA though.
Like Dr. K said, I think it depends on the person. Some people need to develop self-love first because their internal shame and low value is keeping them from moving forward in life. And for others, changing their external circumstances can lead to them finding a sense of value. It’s like a chicken and egg problem.
great way to put it
Depending on the change of circumstances. If you're in an abusive or otherwise threatening environment, then yes, changing that is a first priority.
But if you're basing your self-love on accomplishing some goal, then your self worth will be dependent on maintaining that goal. Which isn't 100% within your control
Other than the fact, the chicken and egg problem isn’t a problem because the egg had to come first I would agree with you
Gonna be that guy, cause its a bad expression at this point, but: Sexual reproduction occurred in nature before the species we refer to as chickens emerged as a distinct species; the egg came first
That said, I believe you're correct. Lol
Yup. Not everyone is exactly the same. Some of us have to grow from the outside-in because the inside is so beaten up and festered. We need new power circumstances to force us to reach out from inside and grow to meet the world in the middle. It's like you can't tell a plant to think positive and grow big if it doesn't have mulch and fertilizer and water in the soil.
When I was a depressed teen who was being systematically excluded from my school, somehow none of my therapists thought my depression could be caused by my circumstances. All they said was self love, “you only feel hated because you hate yourself.” Except people did hate me. Except I didn’t hate myself until everyone around me did for years and years. No amount of “love yourself” ever changed how I felt. But as soon as I changed my surroundings and got new friends, the depression vanished. Odd how it’s hard to trick yourself into believing something that isn’t true.
Hate those, they screw up so much kid for only money I say
If your therapist doesn't actually care about what you say its time to get a different therapist. Many of them are bad and need to learn something about compassion themselves.
I feel you! I’ve only noticed that i was able to ‘love myself’ when i became a total hermit & didn’t interact with people even online for a few years. Then as i started to interact with people online, the old patterns emerged. I’m a magnet for bullying or meanness or lack of respect 😂 can’t help that people don’t value me no matter what i tried doing to force them to😂 respect and love are not a given or possible for everyone like ‘selflove gurus’ assume
It can’t be one or the other - self-love or life circumstances. If a therapist ignores a person’s harmful environment, they’re not listening, they’re incompetent, and they’re just getting paid to make their clients frustrated.
i totally relate to this. i was heavily bullied by a family member from 13 to 18 and i only started to hate myself because they constantly ridiculed me, manipulated me, screamed at me, and told me i was a horrible person. their perception of me literally got ingrained into my mind and at a certain point i couldn't fight it anymore and just accepted that i was a bad person, and i deserved that treatment. a person can only take so much gaslighting before their brain starts to accept it as reality. as soon as they moved out, my mental health drastically improved. before that, i had spent years practicing "self love" and doing affirmations and trying to "heal my inner child" but that was the problem-i didn't have an "inner child". i was STILL a child and PRESENTLY being abused. i couldn't heal until i got out of that situation. if you have people around you that make you feel horrible about yourself that hold power over you, there's not much you can do. i couldn't even set boundaries because they would threaten me with physical means like like strange and unusual punishment. it was hell and it made me loathe myself bc i was being degraded constantly. but all the mental health advice i was exposed to was telling me it was somehow my fault. "you need to set boundaries" tried that, it made everything worse. "you need to be gentle with yourself" how can i be gentle with myself when im constantly having to degrade myself so that i can keep a roof over my head? that kind of advice is just so unhelpful and only serves to shift the blame back onto the victim. im glad i finally got that toxic shit out of my head
The side of self-love trend I have an issue with when people try to make it replace other things. "You don't need anybody, you just need yourself." "You're the love you were looking for all along" like no, No man is an island. People need friends, partner, community and let people speak when they say they feel lonely and they need connections in their life. Also, many of us cannot even work on self-love if we don't have outer motivations like a support system. We won't just get better for our own sake cuz our self-love system is completely shattered.
I think you misunderstand. Of course, no man is an island and we still need people around us, but you're the person who should be looking out for you first and foremost. No amount of external love can replace internal love, but a lot of people approach their search for community or love with that expectation.
i’m an island 🗿
Get rid of that External Locus of Control of your self-esteem ASAP, Anon.
No man is an island, but every man should be able to become an island.
Get rid of that External Locus of Control of your self-esteem ASAP, Anon.
No man is an island, but every man should be able to become an island.
And so, how do i get friends? how do i get a girlfriend? how do i get a community?
Personally, when I think of self-love, it’s not necessarily “love yourself because you’re perfect and don’t need to change”, but it is actually knowing you can still have compassion for you as a person who is still learning and growing. Before therapy, my self loathing and shame consumed me so much that I felt like I deserved my unhappiness. Now, having compassion for myself motivates me to take concrete steps to improve my life because I can meet myself where I’m at, see that I have a long way to go, but still believe in myself and hold myself accountable for making mistakes without feeling so worthless.
Exactly! Self love IS trying to get better!
Exactly the true definition of self love
For me self-love does not let me give up.
Previously in my life I have tried to go through everything by being stoic and resilient. I hated myself for being not an ideal version of myself and I tried to force myself into this "ideal" shape whatever the cost. My life was rough mostly, but I always thought that I just need to try harder. I have lost my health this way, both physical and mental, because I thought that only weak people can "break". And only after several years of depression and depersonalization I started to learn to focus on my needs, wants and feelings. I have started to learn to love myself despite still being embarrassed for my past "failure".
Previously I have mostly gave up after I didn't meet my own expectation. I thought that such a weak human like me does not deserve anything. But now I am ready to fight even when it feels like my life continuously is trying to break me again. I am ready to fight because I believe that I deserve a better life.
This!! I'm wired exactly like this...thanks for explaining it so eloquently. ❤❤
Same. First step to fixing a problem is to realize that it exists. But then you need to see it as fixable and worthy of fixing.
This is something I horribly struggle with. No amount of-self love will fix me, if my environment, and the people I used to trust, beat me into the dirt. I also don't want this to turn into delusional/toxic positivity
A couple of friends and I used to remind each other: if you're depressed, make sure it isn't because you're surrounded by a**holes and your life sucks. If you are, and it is, don't attempt to "actualize" happy positivity simply by acting as if all is just hunky-dory great.. Prayer is good, though.. esp. if it's the silent, sitting/standing/walking awareness/meditation as you go about your everday life..
@@MNkno the tricky part of this is when you don't have money to move somewhere else or are stuck in a place with toxic people like with parents or whomever.
i am alike. "self love" makes me feel like i am lying to myself. your subconscious knows all your bullshit, and it will reflect long term.
what actually helped me was to take ruthless accountability of my life, and actually DOING THINGS to better it.
Obvious one was to get in shape... not bodybuilding, just getting really fit. almost everyone can do that given time and resolve, and it has tremendous mental effects, f.e. self respect due to doing difficult things, that you dont like, but believe in.
self respect must be established first, before you can truly love yourself, i believe
It is more about the idea that if you can develop a sense of self-love or self-compassion, you will eventually move towards an environment and community that will also garner that. As you will feel more comfortable being alone and accepting change if you love yourself, and can be more selective with the people you trust and environments you exist in.
that's me @@skatealex1
Yeah, I got tired of people saying "You are enough" when multiple aspects of my life clearly says "You suck."
Although I would argue that "You are enough" could be a misinterpretation of "You have what it takes to make better decisions."
"You're enough... just not enough for me to date you."
I wonder why no one said that to me. And why did I never actually felt that I am enough? Hmmm... Nah, I don't think it's connected in any way.
@dungeonmaster217 you hit the nail on the head. If you've been told you're "good enough" by your parents, you probably aren't going to understand why it's beneficial to tell yourself that. You interpret it as saying "I don't need to improve myself"
But that's not what it means to someone who hasn't ever been told that. What it means to them is that they need to accept that it is okay to be imperfect. If you are trying to improve yourself, that's all that matters. It's also about accepting that it's okay to not be the best at something, and that that's not a flaw.
Very good point
@@someguycalledcerberus9805 lmao so true
I could scream this from the hills!!!
ETA- self love does not satisfy my need for companionship, self love doesn’t remove loneliness, self love does not compare to intimate pleasure with a partner.
I say that as a person who is very comfortable alone.
Yeah same here. I think my life is pretty good and people say "Well, dating won't fix your problems!! You have to learn to like yourself first!" when I am quite happy with myself but that doesnt make me not desperately crave some kind of intimacy with the opposite sex. I understand people because this mindset usually leads to people having no boundaries and getting in bad relationships but, getting in a meaningful one would genuinely solve a lot of my issues lol
This!!! Thank you!!!! My exact thoughts too every time a therapist told me the mindset of self love or self value
Yeah true but self love help getting the things you just listed
Actually having self love help me not being afraid of rejection and that's how i built the courage to meet my actual boyfriend :)..that would have not happened the way i was before 😂
Self love is the first Step to the solution, that is not everything but its still a part of lt clearly
What does ETA mean?
@@Melthemagholder Estimated Time of Arrival. 🙏🏼
I think there's a key difference between self-love, self-hate, and self-respect. You don't have to love yourself, but you definitely want to be in a state where you don't hate yourself, and your goal should be to reach a state where you can respect who and what you have become, all things included.
Wow, yeah, I usually put them on the same acis, but hearing you describe it absolutely sounds correct.
facts
What I realized is that when people talking about "your inner child", the thing is...
You don't spoil the kid. You love them, you aren't gonna be like "wow gee you really suck at this, you stupid idiot", but you're also gonna push them to grow and be responsible.
At some point that clicked in my head and redirecting that feeling back towards myself has made a much more mature, responsible person.
I guess my point is it's easy to exaggerate what's meant by love and you need to consider what love might make you push someone to do.
@@colbyboucher6391 Agreed. I file this under the self-respect category, because if you have that, you don't engage in self-sabotage. Instead, you acknowledge your flaws and resolve to improve them to whatever extent you can, because that's what children are supposed to do: they grow up and learn to be better adults.
You have to love yourself first - flaws and all - before you can take all the steps that will lead you to becoming a human being with self-respect and minimal self-loathing.
It all starts with self-love.
As someone who needed to learn self love, and is now making changes for the betterment of my outward experience, I think we need a follow up video going into the differences between someone whose shame is telling them correctly that something needs to change, and someone who needs to recognize shame as a trauma response.
I guess one of the main differences is the existence of trauma, but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference when you’ve been in a traumatic environment.
Good insight
I think it would be helpful to ask yourself: Where did I first learn that X is shameful? Good chance that if it was mainly external, like attributed to certain events in life, then it may be a trauma response. If you find that it comes from something you in yourself have defined, like maybe it went against your inner code of ethics/morality/etc, then perhaps it is healthy, proper shame.
Even then, I think the system I laid out might not be the be-all answer, mainly because I think we humans learn concepts of morality from what we observe growing up and throughout life; i.e., it is not original thought that a human is encoded with upon conception (heck, maybe there are things that MIGHT be original thought). Therefore, even if it is rooted in your inner ethics, you might trace that your definition will have come from an external source. And that external source might be "traumatic," if you consider severity of trauma on a spectrum and not black and white.
Whichever source the shame might be, think about what needs to happen moving forward. They might look very similar: Awareness of self, self examination, acknowledgement of reality of situation and inner dialogue/emotional states, then making a choice moving forward on how to address. Part of that choice may be to address the inner baggage/trauma, part of that choice might be to positively grow from it, part of that choice might be to engage in avoidant/unhealthy behavior (dysfunctional), all of the above to varying degrees, etc. And this cycle goes back to the beginning, and keeps looping. Plot the series of choices you make in life and try to see what that trajectory looks like. I think this model helps in creating an informative and actionable backbone for people to direct their lives with, even without achieving complete, perfect understanding of the source of their problem.
Good point!
Self love cured my depression. But it wasn't about like, being obsessed with myself. It was about respecting myself. I'd internalised a critic that was brutal and unfair.
You make a pretty fair point, although how would you go about respecting one’s self?
@@Melthemagholder If it helps, maybe think about what runs through your mind when others are vulnerable about their issues with you, or at the very least when you see others worried about things. Your immediate reaction isn't to think "well they're an idiot for that", and you certainly don't say it. If anything you'd be surprised they think this issue is so important. Respecting myself, at least for me, was about ensuring I view my own actions in the same light. It was about catching when I was being unfairly critical, in a way I would never do to anyone else.
This can be quite hard to do since this inner voice is "normal" to you. But trust me when I say it isn't. As an example, if I've gone to a house party and felt I was a bit awkward, my default thought process would be one of rumination, over analysing every detail and kicking myself. However, I can now catch myself and say "hang on, I literally can't think of anything anyone else did at that party that made me change my view on them. And if they did anything like what I'm worried about I probably wouldn't have even noticed/remembered." that sort of thing. Catching myself like that, and giving myself a break instead, really pulls me out of those anxious thought patterns.
Note this can also be a bit self fulfilling too. Since this mindset reduces my dependence on external validation, I am more self confident and thus more pleasant to be around. I know I'm a decent person and have things to offer, so I don't need everyone to vibe with/respect me. In other words, I'm projecting from my own internal source rather than needing to be sure of others' approval. Sort of like how an actor makes everyone uncomfortable if they are only going at it half-assed. People who act like idiots are still charismatic if they are confident idiots, but you'll never see a confident idiot who is constantly criticising themselves or needs everyone to like them.
@@sploofmcsterra4786 Thank you, this gives me an idea for what I need to do, I appreciate your time and effort.
@@Melthemagholder No worries, sincerely wish you all the best on this - it is a lengthy but rewarding task. And for context, I had the aid of a therapist to guide me through this, I certainly didn't figure out what I wrote above alone.
@@sploofmcsterra4786great read.
I feel like it truly depends on the person. Self-love has gotten me farther in life than any other type of love has.
Yeah. And it's not just self love. Self love is really tied with self esteem and self confidence. You need to have all three. Trust me, when these three factors in your life are balanced, you'll spot opportunities lining up for you...that's just how it works.
me too
Confidence comes from competence. If you could not achieve and complete tasks, you would have no reason to experience real confidence and self belief. It's giga over for us ADHD autists... .
@@sayansaha155 It would be great to have it but you _can_ line up opportunities like a robot and get your tasks done without ever looking inwards or believing in or loving anything or anyone, even yourself.
Yeah I'd say so as well. I feel like there's a part where these two can meet. Self-love can lead to change, but sometimes it is the change that leads to self-love. So basically, because I love myself and I deserve better, I will change my life into something good. The other aspect is, okay, I don't deserve to love myself because I'm a pathetic loser, how do I stop being a pathetic loser so I'm someone deserving of love?
I hate being told “ You shouldn’t be in a relationship with anyone until you can love and accept yourself” when no people with trauma need support to heal and you don’t need to have high self worth to be worthy of love.
I used to say this until someone brought up this point, and I also was blind to my own self-hatred so it was some internalized toxic positivity. Now I reframe it a bit: if I put in the work to learn to love myself, it will be easier/more sustainable to love and support others.
I really hate this saying. I really got agitated by this I got told this from a couple who were a mutual friends it's like I've got a lot of love to give. Yet they say that thing as if they know me I practice self compassion. Etc.
Speaking as someone that had a lot of love to give but had a lot of self hatred, I still found love. It last 2 years and I learned a lot. It was my first real long term lover. (Haven’t had many at all)
I actually had this thing where I noticed my self hatred and I started making efforts to improve my life and be a better person. In literally two months I found myself dating a coworker for the next 2 years. It was great.
I’ll say that had I loved myself first, things might be different. But I learned to love myself even more after this relationship. But if you can simply TRY to love and improve self, I think that just yields best results on your life and your love life.
I think they say that because a lot of people without self love get taken advantage of. Or they feel like they need someone in order to be happy.
@@kellharris2491 yes that is why people say it but it’s just as toxic sadly ah
This concept is so underrated! When you place the mental health crisis solely on the shoulders of psychiatrists and therapists, you’re missing half of it. At the very least, therapists need to be trained when to involve/refer to other professionals like coaches, bc the fact that people don’t know that other options exist is the biggest tragedy
Insurance covers therapists. If only insurance covered coaches
Insurance barely covers any therapy lol @@BaritoneMonkey
If only there was quality control for coaches. Some are doing amazing work but others... Well, quite the opposite.
Community and support systems are also extremely important.
Are coaches really professionals tho?
Yeah gonna have to agree. I was in therapy for almost 10 years, given all these different diagnosis's, tried all these different meds. Got a bit better, than a lot worse, it was a cycle. Constantly got told that "external changes don't help internal problems" when I kept saying that I wanted to make dramatic changes to my life
Then I finally went out, transferred to a different college, and got a dog. Been almost 2 years, I'm no longer depressed, no racing thoughts, no anxiety, doing MUCH better academically, and I'm generally very content and happy with my lfie
just wanted to say I'm happy for you dawg. breaking cycles like that can feel impossible sometimes.
Your professionals sound terrible... cbt is one of the most common therapy models and it 100% relies on changing your behaviour to improve your feelings (coping strategies and incorporating healthy habits or achieving internal goals for yourself), as well as engaging in behaviour that changes your perspective on things (taking a second to reflect on your own thoughts, whether they are fully accurate, what else could you think about the situation that may ne more accurate and balanced so that you dont spiral in your emotional thinking).
DBT even encourages PLEASE (Physical activity, treat any iLlnesses, Exercise, avoid mood-Altering drugs, sleep, Eat healthily) all of which are behavioural changes to improve your life overall. it also has ABCs (accumulate positive emotions, build mastery - where you get better at a skill you enjoy to feel good about yourself, cope ahead - where you practice coping skills so that when crisis hits your coping method as a reflex is a healthy one)
idk what shite therapists fully focus on just emotions and im glad things got better. For future reference, these modalities of therapy may gel better with your needs
@@zorro...... Yeah they were pretty shit therapists lol. I don't think it was CBT, not really sure what kind it was though, this was from ages 12-19 approximately so this was at a low income mental health clinic with mostly grad students in training
@bsdjkgf2939 aw man. sorry to hear that. hope youre going strong with lots of life to live and enjoy! cheers
@@zorro...... I was sent to s psychoanalyst as a teenager ( for ptsd due to sa ) A short time of CBT did so much more for me.
I really can't recommend psychoanalysis.
I feel like for me this applies. I only inherently hated myself because I was frequently ostracized as a kid. When I surrounded myself with people who genuinely cared about me, it motivated me to care about myself.
I had a similar experience dating. when I was single I figured "if I'm worth loving why hasn't it actually happened yet?" and it made me more unwilling to seek better circumstances in all areas of my life. Through a mix of courage and desperation I tried being a good boyfriend for a few women and after some trial and error I found somebody compatible and we ended up in a positive feedback loop of making each other better. Even if that went away tomorrow, I would always be able to tell myself, "I did it once, I can do it again."
Fuck the "tough love" tbh. In any form. The most toxic shit that I ever experienced, just thinking about it makes me sick. If it can motivate me to do something, it's to do something opposite and destructive just out of spite. I think Doctor K started flirting with redpilled self-help to get more popularity.
This. I'm having a struggle with my therapist about my relationship situation. He is just insisting on seeing my self-value, how can I see value in myself when all the people I've been with didn't? I find that mindset kinda ridiculous
It's the inauthentic "self love" and "toxic positivity" that I take issue with. We are all worthy of care/consideration/love. But not "unconditional" love. I had to first deal with my internalized shame, before I could make changes in my life - because the shameful feelings would stop my progress. Brene Browns work in "shame resilience" was super helpful for me.
You did a great job congrats 🎉😊
The boot-camp thing reminds me about the techniques of teaching self-confidence to kids. I've struggled with confidence and me and my mother have ended up having very open conversations about my upbringing, and one of the things she said she regrets is the way she attempted to grow my self-confidence. She herself grew up in a toxic environment where her parents judged her and didn't believe in her, outright giving up on her and driving off at some occasions, which crushed her confidence as a kid. As a mother she tried to do the opposite by always praising me saying I'm great in all kinds of ways, which was certainly better, but I never felt like I deserved it. It felt like she was lying to me from a place of love and the feeling of dishonesty made me feel fake. To this day I still struggle with deserving anything, I'm obsessed with earning approval and trying to achieve what I felt was who I were supposed to be, who people think I am. But it's too tiring and endless, I can't do it and end up feeling sorry for myself, hiding from the world to avoid the looming disappointment in me.
She had later learned that to grow confidence in a child you need to challenge them so that they can prove to themselves that they're worth their confidence. Even challenges they can't fail works towards that purpose and if they do fail, it could be just like at boot-camp where no one is giving up on you, you can get up and try again and succeed rather than do nothing in terror of losing the love you're convinced were given to you by mistake.
Superb.
For me the two are connected: I learned to love myself, and now I believe that I deserve better, but because my actions are literally the only thing I can control - I am also the one responsible for taking the steps to build that life that I think I deserve.
I think if I didn't have self-love I wouldn't proactively change my life, because I would be convinced I am not worthy of it.
right! thats how it is in DBT
Also my thoughts
Self love is very important for people with traumatic childhood experiences that dissociated from their traumatized parts. these parts of yourself dont care about rational thoughts like - its 10 years in the past, dont let it affect yourself. theyre highly emotional, stuck in the past and the best way to help urself reintegrate, is showing urself love
“These parts of self don’t care about rational thoughts.” More people need to know this. 👍🏼
Dr K isn't saying self-love is useless, he is saying he doesn't fit everyone's circumstances.
Sometimes you need someone else to show you that you're worth loving by "actually" loving you, before you can believe it yourself.
@@Nickulatorunless you'll hate them more than yourself, in which case they won't have any chance
Or you could show yourself what you're capable of and earn it.
Turns out, my therapist is bloody awesome! She’s teaching me self love (that I desperately need) but also cares about my real life outcomes. Teaching me how to make friends etc.
I just happened to talk to someone who had been going to therapy with emotional dysregulation issues for 7 years and had only been talking about it. No self regulation excersises that I’m doing in my therapy or anything. And no improvements too. I was thinking it just happened to be a strange therapist, as I thought all therapists are like mine who teach real-life skills in addition to self love.
These therapists are the best! I really appreciated being able to talk to my therapist about my real life issues, and how she turned those into lessons about changing my thinking.
Basically it taught me how to process things in a sensible and constructive way. And using problems affecting me at that point in time meant I saw immediate short term benefit.
Honestly mine too. I’ve tried going to male therapists and they’ve always sugarcoated everything and were always afraid to be honest. I have a woman therapist and she is blunt but nice.
Growing up, my guilt wasn't formed because I was genuinely doing something bad. It was formed early by my caregivers shaming me for feelings certain emotions and instilling in me that my emotions cause them to feel certain things so I should feel guilty for causing them such suffering. Then, it manifests into people pleasing and perfectionism. It is still a coping mechanism that i learned to survive but morphed into something that is now my default stress response. Instead of me asking "what do i need?", It always turns into "What does this person need me to feel and be so they can be happy?" and then guilt ensues when I feel like I am not living up to their expectations. At this point, I struggle with knowing where I start/stop and where the other person begins.
Change is hard because others around you have expectations and want to keep you the same way because it benefits them. Then when you do start to change, people around you will feel weird or treat you with disdain. This is where the self-love part comes in. Because if you don't have that for yourself, you won't properly grieve the rejection and loss that was necessary for you to change. So I think it is important to recognize that you deserve to change but can only do that if you actually care about yourself over caring about others feelings/being rejected because of it.
There is a rare catastrophe to grit. How can someone continue trying no matter what? What actually happens if you take it to an unreasonable extreme? Eventually, you could expect someone to become suicidal (burnout/depression before), because putting in great effort for no meaningful result or well-being is not a good life. I imagine this is really rare, but I know of it, because I have reached that point. “Corrective experience”, is the suggested resolve given to me by a therapist, the idea that experiencing something actually work out for once, is genuinely needed for recovery. This was started by making unimaginably easy goals, or even goals you already accomplish, and can repeat.
This is the therapy session Guts needed lol before
People who don't give up on you in any field makes you feel like you have purpose, they give you agency to belong/exist. That purpose is all you need to continue to grow and better yourself. It's so powerful, yet we give up on each other so quickly.
So very quickly.. and no one will reciprocate the feeling so its nearly always one sided.
Exactly.
I have to disagree. In my experience people refuse to acknowledge my limits and provide appropriate support because doing so would be "giving up" on me
And they couldn't understand why I didn't appreciate that
This makes sense. Thank you, doctor!
I'm a girl, and I don't need to love myself just out of the blue! I did feel worthless. Then I struggled to open my online art shop. I did it, now I know I can support my family. My Mom and I, we both have atypical depression, or at least it's what our therapist thinks.
Mom needs exactly this sort of help. She hates to exercise, so I motivate her every day =D I think I'm a good coach, haha. Better little exercise than nothing at all. I think we're on the right path.
Sounds awesome 😊
You sound like a great team😊
@@inkompetenzkompensationsko4188 Thanks! We're trying hard =)
Telling people who don’t have anyone to love them to just love themselves is like telling a sick person to just use healing crystals.
Meth crystals😂
@@coprilettodelnapoli5466 doesn't meth cause parkinson's disease?
@@Amber-yu2ph dunno
Good thing we’re not a sickness that NEEDS to be taken care of . we’re complete human beings with intellect . Hope that helps 👍
I think its a combination of the 2. You need self love in order to process the emotions and have the drive to change your outer circumstances. And you need to put in the work and have resilience to achieve your goals or generate a change that'll generate self love.
We need both self-love and grit - accepting where we are right now, identifying what we actually need mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, etc, and then coming up with a plan to learn the skills required to get those needs met and never giving up until we achieve this. Self-love is the foundation, but we still need to take action to build confidence and get our needs met.
Dr K, I'm a Clinical Psychologist in training. I have to say - thank you so, so much. All the things you said are things I believe in - I don't underatand how it's okay for people to go to therapy for years (!!!!) without seeing any outcome. People higher in me in the field made sure to make me understand I should shut up and and never answer, always bring more questions. It's kind of a haze and you just lock the patient inside. I don't want to be that kind of therapist. I'm so glad I found you.
My psychiatrist (prescribes meds too) rarely asks questions but talks most of the time.
I love this video so much. Loving myself when i was sitting in front of my screen with no job and 100 pounds too heavy really hurt me and wasted years of my life. Loving the version of myself that tries their hardest to achieve their goals, even if they are small and easily achievable, is the version of myself I don't regret becoming in exchange for that hermit lifestyle self.
Finally, a therapist who isn't just spouting self-love and affirmation to the exclusion of all else. That has been pretty much the only thing I encounter online these days whether it is research, blogs, magazine articles, etc. Just as with individual people, the field of therapy needs to find a balance. If it can't do that, then we are headed for an unmitigated disaster.
I taught myself grit my becoming an endurance cyclist. Not giving up 12 hours into a ride when the sun has already set requires a whole different skill set than "loving yourself"
Love this.
Thanks for making this video. This whole self-love philosophy is really dominant in my college and in my work-space, and it is so frustrating because it really impedes people's ability to improve themselves and leaves them trapped in this fallacy that they are who they are and people should accept them for it. It also makes it really difficult to criticize people or suggest change because pointing out any flaw with a person or their behavior is often seen as an attack on that person themselves, rather than an attack on the behavior or trait. I personally am extremely self-critical, about my grades, work, and looks, and people always view that as a bad thing. But I view it as not coming from a place of self-hatred but rather self-love because I acknowledge that there are flaws with myself that I should improve to live a better life and be a better person.
There's a funny quote from a comedian that goes something along the lines of: "People are always saying they wish they could find someone who will love them for who they are. But have you ever considered that maybe who you are is not that great?" If you think that every person is perfect as they are, that you are perfect how you are, and that people should always accept you no matter your flaws, that seems like a toxic and delusional mentality to me.
As a therapist who got started working in the addictions field, I'd say my training & mentorship helped me balance these two concepts/philosophies of what successful therapy or treatment look like. Because yes we have to address dysfunctional "not good enough" thinking, as well as shame-based beliefs about a person's addiction (vs guilt, which is a good thing for them to feel). However, the goal is also for them to stop using alcohol or other drugs in a way that ruins their lives. If they now like themselves more but keep using/relapsing the same way over & over, the treatment is at least for the moment failing. A bit part of this process, which parallels your boot camp example & what you describe about grit, is building up the ability & willingness to be uncomfortable. To do the right or healthy thing in s given moment, but rather than experiencing warm/fuzzy feelings feel more or less pretty shitty about it. But recognize that the discomfort doesn't necessarily mean you're doing anything wrong, & it doesn't mean you can't keep going on. Whether it's withdrawal symptoms, the awkwardness of being honest in a support group, reaching out for help to others, ditching toxic friends, setting healthy boundaries with family members, or using more effective coping skills for emotions instead of alcohol/other drugs, most of it will feel uncomfortable at best. Where the compassion/self-love part comes in is helping the person realize their missteps, their failures, are not the be-all-end all of who they are, that building a new normal for their lives sucks for them just like it sucks for everyone else.
Thank you for this. I believe I'm past the self-love and self-acceptance aspect. But was scared of taking steps again of self-improvement. I got comfortable in not improving myself. I believe I can truly say, I want to improve my life because I love myself. And not that there's anything to fix. People have imperfections, life generally sucks, and some people have it better than others. That's a part of life, and there's no changing that. But to strive to improve those imperfections and to better one's life in their environment from a place of self-love is a beautiful thing one can do for themselves.
I kinda hate how people in the comment section completely threw out the fact that you said "Self love works for HALF of tbe people" I doesn't work for me because I truly hate myself so subconsciously I think self love affirmations are bullshit so it wont work. I decided to instead tough it out because I HAVE to not because I love myself. I suddenly feel confident because its like I proved myself wrong and now I know I physically have the skill. I dont feel like a great artist yet being told I am grows my confidence because maybe I truly am blind to my own skill but once again I have ti fight that beast of thinking people are just being nice. Theres not a one size fits all solution, maybe you love yourself but not everyone is in the same situation
Love is the sacrifice we make for people we respect. If you respect yourself and you make sacrifices to improve your life, then you love yourself.
It's definitely a complex thing. I've mostly needed the psychological healing...now that my situation has changed. While I was there, no amount of internal mental change could be enough; changing my circumstances was completely necessary.
Like anything in mental health, there's no one size fits all, and context is pretty important. Find a therapist/coach/whatever that's willing and able to do what *you* need.
One important thing to note is that bootcamps have extrinsic goals, while therapy kinda assumes you already have extrinsic goals, or you'll find them on your own, or that you'll be able to explore your intrinsic goals in therapy and this will work out somehow.
Sometimes people want to be influenced, sometimes people want to be told what to do, take it as you will
When I started out on this journey, I really needed self love and self compassion. I was raised by overly critical and controlling parents which left me feeling paralysed and helpless. I'm now out of the woods with that trauma and I find myself feeling confident enough to take action. I've gotten myself a life coach and I've built some grit and I'm finally enjoying life a little more.
I have always praised my therapist. But this video makes me appreciate all the work she did even more.
When I first started talking to her, she definitely tried taking me down the path of self love .., but when she realized my personality, she very much switched to becoming a “coach” and motivator .,, and it worked brilliantly
It feels like this depends on how people define self-love. Some think self-love= accepting your flaws and move on, while some others think self-love=finding all the flaws and fixing them to be better.
Both have pros and cons; the former will provide some optimism but your flaws might drag you back down at times, and the latter may make you better but some flaws take YEARS to fix & there are unsolvable flaws too (eg. parts of your personality and values that you developed since childhood)
I don't know why people only equate love to being nice. If you love yourself then you won't accept your own excuses and you will expect yourself to improve and learn. Grit is how I beat my depression and it is definitely a form of self-love. Grit is how you turn your weaknesses into strength that drives you. In strength is weakness and in weakness, strength.
I totally agree. When he was talking about the drill sergeants never giving up on you, wouldn't that be... an example of love? I mean literally speaking, they're performing a job, but theoretically, treating yourself like a drill sergeant would treat you - never giving up on yourself - would certainly not be... the opposite of self love...
Yeah… by reading the comment section, it seems like there’s an inherent misunderstanding on what love means
I don't want self-love, I want a validation by a person I love, THAT will make me fill fulfilled and let me love myself.
What happens if they leave?
@@lapeaches8006
Then the world crushes.
On the bright side - that has happened only once, and now I know, that "the end of the world" only lasts around 2-3 years, then it gets better. But it would be much harder now, when I'm handicapped (and that breakup may be partly to blame for my failing health).
Besides, this is not an issue for most people, it's just that I'm neurodivergent (inattentive ADHD, maybe ASD too, but it's not diagnosed yet) with rejection sensitivity, which means my feelings are extremely intense (which may scare some people) and don't really fade with time, at least not to the degree it happens to so called "normal people", to me eternal love and friendship are not a fairytale, but a daily reality, and I don't need regular reminders about them, those feeling just linger somewhere in my brain, which may sound nice, but it also means a breakup, that happened in the past millennia, still hurts sometimes. Maybe it would not, maybe it would be gone, but a grief fired up those emotions anew - I found out about the death of my first girlfriend a few years ago, turns out that isn't all that unusual - there are A LOT of stories on how news about the death of the first love can be really devastating.
A small contribution to the psychotherapy revolution. Spread the word, comrade!
I liked the mention of building grit. It doesn’t mean compromising or ignoring emotion, but creating new paths to deal with circumstances the way you want
I had this problem in therapy myself. The 'self-love' and self-compassion train can often feel like saying "not up to your own standards? Then lower your standards!" and I hate it.
"Abusive talks" is such a complex thing. I always wonder why some people can trash talk others and it kind of feel ok while others trash talk can feel so armful. After watching this video, I think it is maybe linked to the intension behind an abusive talk. Some of those talks mean in fact that they won't give up on you while other are just pure hate. And then there are how those talks are received. Some perceive almost everything coming to them as hate while the other extreme are impermeable to almost anything. Fascinating and complex. Great video!
I think that self-love and grit are both needed. I alway had too much grit, I could withstand a lot. The problem was that I lacked the capacity to underatand I was treated poorly always looking inside and thinking "well I did something wrong, I need to be better". Self-compassion basically saved me. So it's important to get through hard stuff and not give up easily. But there are some things you should give up on as fast as you can (toxic, abusive people for example).
I certainly understand your approach and your other videos more after watching this one
I think that, when either dealing with self-love or grit, MOTIVATION should be given priority. Without it, both self-love and grit are empty and aimless.
Motivation is finite, grit is very similar to discipline and in the end discipline is what actually provides that external change which makes one more fulfilled in the end.
Motivation is finite, grit is very similar to discipline and in the end discipline is what actually provides that external change which makes one more fulfilled in the end.
Great video. Self love alone worked wonders for me because I was already managing my anxiety and low self worth with achieving things and being as blameless as possible. That’s why boot camp style would have obliterated me, but self-compassion was so revolutionary. I was already too hard on myself.
Great impression of those kind of therapists. The point you make is spot on, and is the reason I “gave up” on therapy
Dr. K, this video was made for me. I have been on a kick of your channel's content since finding it a few weeks ago. You have been such a valuable resource for someone who wrote off therapy that tried it once. Thank you.
I feel like self-love has become like a "yes-man" type of thing, like you're not self-loving if you're ever like "hey, this is not a good, I want and need to be better"; the point Dr. K is making is that some people don't love themselves because they have a warped perception of their worthiness of that love, they are good, valuable people and don't see it, other people don't love themselves because they have a clear perception of their worthiness of that love and they recognize that, by their own reasonable standards, aren't worthy of that love
I heard a very interesting definition of self-love recently. It says: “if you only love yourself when you’re fit, healthy, making good money - it’s not self love, those are just requirements for yourself”.
I get the whole idea of the video and I must say it’s inspirational.
Maybe the point is not to stall in your life, but rather, try to enjoy what you have, even if you’re halfway through (and remember that you will always feel like you’re halfway through and no matter what you achieve you will want something new). The idea here is to learn to enjoy your life even while you’re fat, poor, unhealthy, undisciplined or whatever.
Personally for me as a “gifted kid” who only felt loved for accomplishing tasks and good grades, I was very depressed when I tried to go this way (just accomplish what you want and then you can love yourself). Instead, when I let myself go, said “fuck it” to all my tasks and goals, I finally started to move forward, do sports, achieve something. I don’t know how about others but that’s how it works for me
I love this. Sometimes we need to improve our life with tangible changes. As a military member, I have good memories of boot camp. We did hard things every day, had balanced lives in terms of learning, good, fitness and we had daily interaction with people. We even went to spiritual or worship services on sundays. There was no phones, no TV and it made us more present.
This speaks to me. For some reason every time I tried to love the old self it just never quite clicked, at least at first. I got to the point where I was tired of where I was at in life and said hell, I might as well start kicking my own ass and get started. It's been tough, but even after a few weeks of keeping my promises and sticking to my plan, that negative voice inside has gotten quieter. So far when does negative voices start up, I have some proof that I've been doing the things I told myself I was going to do and so I can argue with that voice and challenge it. I can say yeah but look I did a pretty good job yesterday so even though I messed up today I'll just get back up on the horse tomorrow.
I agree. It's better to try to improve yourself. Because then you will have something to be proud of, and you will thank yourself, which will lead to an increasement of self-respect and self-love.
Self love is an improvement from self hate, it's a skill
That sounds like you're compensating
But .. if you struggle with providing yourself with love/value/esteem then those external improvements won't bring you any better internal circumstances. See the issue?
@@Michael-jq5pf yup
Yup you're all right...
I want to say my opinion:
No matter how much you are not in a version that you want, you are so worthy of love just because you are here and you are doing the best you can now.
Its that what makes you grow actually, being able to see that and being compassionate with yourself what makes you transform into the best version of yourself.
The people who are in the best version of themselves know that: everybody deserves to love themselves no matter in what part of the process they are.
If you are no being compassionate and loving with yourself, and you are not validating that version of you that is imperfect,
actually the things you accomplish won´t be better...
you have to feel it first, you must change from the inside to the outside.
Honestly this one felt off the mark. Especially the part: "Grit is the opposite of self-love". Not at all? I've been able to stick it out through hardship much MORE after I learned a bit of self-love.
Self loathing is the opposite of self love, and it is what people feel when they say "But I don't deserve self love, I'm pathetic." It is in fact a great motivator, I would know, I've used it extensively and to great effect. It also made me want to kill myself.
The problem with relying on fixing outside circumstances to "earn" loving yourself is that it is a never ending loop. The second you get to the level which you think you need to "deserve" to love yourself, you'll start looking at the next level. After you get straight As, you'll feel like the man for a while, then you'll start to need a better physique. Then better income. Then a better girlfriend. Then then then....
Which wouldn't be a problem, if you didn't feel like SHIT the entire time. That's what self loathing is. It is true that negative emotions such as self loathing are a fantastic tool for change, but they are NOT sustainable. At some point you will realize that you feel awful IN SPITE of all your achievements, then what? If even getting all of this isn't enough, then what will be?
Self-loathing makes it very easy to put up with hard things (grit) and gives you tons of motivation. Because if you think you're a sack of shit that deserves to die, but can redeem itself with enough effort and work, then it will be easy to put in effort. But you can also have grit through self-love. You can go through hardship because you want the best future for yourself and you know you are worth it.
Honestly feels like he's talking about 2 things that aren't opposites as if they were opposites. Wanting to improve your circumstances and loving yourself aren't opposites, nor does either reduce the other. In the same way that a loving parent still can and should discipline their child.
It is idiotic to say that you need to do anything to "deserve" love. I may not be Christian, but I think they got that part right. Maybe you could argue that you need to be a good person to deserve love, but that's as far as I'd push it. You certainly aren't unworthy of love just because your grades aren't so good, or you don't have a girlfriend, or you're not 6 feet tall, etc.
Edit: I made this comment because I was EXACTLY the type of person who looked at all this self love stuff like: “Ew, wtf is this fluffy bullshit, not what I need!!!” Turns out it was exactly what I needed.
Thank you for this write up, completely agree! It’s a spectrum and this approach has worked for me as well
small note about Christianity since you mentioned it, there are different interpretations but generally the reason you're supposed to change your behavior in response to love is less about worthiness and more about gratitude. If someone does something nice for you because they feel empathy for your pain or misfortune, usually the proper response is to take what you're given to further improve so you don't suffer as much. You want to suffer less and so does the other person so it's painful for everyone involved if you keep living in the way that makes you miserable.
You seem to be a naturally motivated person that also used negative emotions to further improve its motivation. Apparently you went into overdrive and experienced depression in more of a burn-out way than lying in bed and crying all day. For me it's so obviously implied that Dr. K is NOT talking about you and how to treat you as a patient. He also mentioned that in the beginning - "for some people...".
Your experiences and explanations were still very valuable to me as I discovered myself in many aspects you mentioned and it always gives me some calmness to know there are other people fighting the same fights. 😊
Khaledyasser8293... 😂 The phrase "sack of shit that deserves to die" sounds like it belongs in a mid-90s Green Day song! On the serious note, good assessment.
Thank you for this comment ❤ spoke very true for my own experiences as well
It felt so great watching this... i felt understood, relieved, and so confident during these 18 minutes. Like every time I watch one of your videos... so thank you.
..but as soon as its over I drop back into not knowing what on earth to do with my life.
After almost a decade trapped in the same job, not being able to have almost any social life, which made my life feel empty, lonely and worthless - I quit.
I wanted to take some time for myself, reflect and find something worth doing. Something I could identify with, something that is worth spending my time on... months have passed since and my hope has vanished. I feel like there is no spot for me here...
Not long ago I decided to see a therapist and after a few sessions she gave me one simple task: To tell her what I'm proud of...
...it took me days... ...its been over a week... ..my mind is empty.. I'm not proud of anything. I have not accomplished anything except surviving my past... and this actually broke my heard.
It confirmes my believe not being worth a dime... even though so many say I have so many abilities... and bla bla bla
I never had anyone setting me real boundaries, telling me what to do in life, telling me the truth - regardless of how I would feel about it.
The Bootcamp-part @ 12:15 actually made me drop some tears... I wish I would have had someone giving me some directions in life...
PD: I started calisthenics in September, started to eat properly again and gained almost 4kg since. For me as a skinny guy that's a huge increase in weight despite my high stress-level.
I never felt so strong when being so weak. I push myself harder than ever before... I feel relieve in the pain that overcomes my body when doing that one more rep...
Its the only drive I have right now, the only thing that relives me from my mental pain, stress, anxiety and life overall and the only solution I found to answering that question one day.
Still I'm lost...
Shoutout to Dr. K, literally saving me so much money on therapy right now. Thanks Doc, you are doing work of the Gods out here.
Also, my therapist is an ex-marine. I closely related to the first statement about needing someone to kick my ass as opposed to self-love affirmations and over-validation. I sucked as a person and needed someone to tell me that to my face.
Alright Dr. K is good but let's not confuse yt videos with actual therapy
@@markmuller7962 As someone in actual therapy, its not even as useful as some of Dr K's old videos.
When I was younger, I needed to have contempt for myself in order to motivate myself to be a better person. After 10 years of development, I finally felt the need for self-love
Self love + Grit = The secret sauce. You acknowledge that you are enough. You also acknowledge that you endeavor for more. Like padding stats after you can already down the boss.
Very interesting! For some people (like me) it is about a balance of these. If I don't push myself or nobody pushes me, then I become a person I can't love. But when I don't love myself during the process, I get pushed around too much or push myself into burn-out.
Dr. k must be following me around bc his videos come at such a coincidental time in my life. literally the other day i was saying "i dont need my feelings validated i need someone to tell me to get myself together!"
Love is not validation, it's sacrifices we make because of strong feelings we have towards someone/ourselves.
@@MichelleHelli mean i related to the core message of the video i dont think defining love was the point but thank you
@@apeshiii the video is about love and as a society we have vague ideas about love. Parent love, friend love, romantic love, self love... It's all a sacrifice. If we're not talking about sacrifice, we're not talking about love, we're talking about respect, appreciation, admiration. You may not respect, appreciate or admire your own self, but that isn't love anyways.
This is exactly what I've been telling my therapists and trying to get for years, right down to the "I don't love myself and that's okay because it's probably the only thing that drives one forward into change." I'm actually scared to love myself because I don't want it to lead into a pitfall of even more complacency. I don't find any aspect of my current life worth loving, but that's exactly what I want to change.
I think as is for most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. For me, self-loathing makes it impossible to get anything done, but I can get complacent and rest on my laurels and start coddling myself instead of getting things done and accomplishing stuff. I think that's where grit comes in - building an innate sense of not giving up and going out there and doing what needs to be done. I think most people require both these things but the help they need to receive at a particular stage in their life may skew more towards one side than the other.
This video is incredibly validating for me. I figured out the importance of this balance on my own a few years ago, but whenever I've tried to share this philosophy of health with others I run into a lot of defensive behavior. I think true self love is taking the action you can manage to change the circumstances that are making you struggle with having positive and loving opinions of yourself in the first place. I find that even suggesting to face yourself to some friends of mine is met with such heavy resistance and denial. I feel almost intentionally misunderstood.
My lack of self love was keeping me from taking action, learning, and not giving up and once you heal from that then you don't need therapy, you need coaching
I really needed this, because I wanted to love the better version of myself and not the crappy version.
Your videos have been really helpful in answering some thoughts I had in my head
Timestamp: 8:29 Coaching and behavior change versus psychotherapeutic addressment of emotional pathology. Timestamp: 11:53 Secret sauce behind militant conditioning/training (and why "abusive" tough love approach works for some...) Timestamp: 13:40 You explaining menspeak to me (a paradox in communication I've never understood because I'm declaring myself female). Jezus hail mary. Too many gems here that need further content explanation for the love of god pleeeze. Thank you!!!
Not everyone feels like they deserve self love, not everyone should feel that. But _everyone_ deserves to feel like they can get to a point where they deserve to feel self love. To be at a pont in life where loving themselves is appropriate.
And, sometimes when youre in a bad place and you know it, you can build up a big pool of self deprication based anxiety fueled energy and kickstart themselves onto a path of self improvement. And then you come in and make them less anxious, flood them with self love, and essentially piss all over the fire they've spent the last six months desperately trying to light under their own as.
Panic, anxiety, and self disapproval and disappointment are like putting nitrous in a car engine. Its probably not great to do that all the time, and too much of it will cause the engine to literally explode or rip itself apart.
But sometimes you need that to get going or get over a hump. And taking that away from a person makes it worse not better.
Tje places where it's needed to teach them self love and anxiety reduction is when those things are so overwhelming it causes them to tear themselves apart, explode, or completely freeze up and shut down.
Its like if you take three hundred people, and you have a hundred each of people with too much cortisol, adequate amounts, and too little cortisol. And then you develop a treatment plan for the first group, call it a day, and treat all three groups with the cortisol lowering medication you developed. It doesn't make the second and third group better does it.
Thats pretty much what I discovered too! But I thought it was basically an expression of self-love. You show that you love and respect yourself by doing anything to achieve your goals, and by eating healthy, doing sport and sleeping regularly. And by treating myself like a person that deserves this respect and love I actually started to love and respect myself. So I think it goes the other way around. Treat yourself with respect and then you will start to respect/love yourself.
That's right. Wasn't that one of Jordan Petersen's 12 Rules?
"Treat yourself as though you're someone who matters".
i kept hearing the words "don't go holow" in my head when the comversation moved into bootcamps and grit
Thank you for this video. This video really does highlight my issues with modern day psychology and describes my psyche very well.
I feel like confidence is given. Think about it. Everyone, even attractive ones, are anxious at first…moving to a new location, new school, etc…it’s a human wide anxiety, wanting to fit in. The problem is, good looking people are welcomed with open arms and are pushed up by everyone around them. People WANT them to succeed and be a part of their group. This puts them at ease, makes them feel good that they’re “part of the tribe” and that’s that.
But for less attractive people, or people who have some kind of social issue, it’s the complete opposite. They have to earn their way into groups, and a lot of the times, other people don’t want them to succeed, so they talk behind their backs, make fun of them, etc…and this creates emotional damage that leads to trauma and…low self confidence. The feeling that you aren’t good enough. Because that’s how people have treated you. Confidence comes from external treatment, it has nothing to do with self love.
At least this is how I see it.
Our secondary school headmaster was an ex-army Major and he taught one class only, which was for the top maths students in the final exam year. I was very surprised to find myself in this group. He used the boot camp method you describe, telling us how useless we were and that we were the worst group he'd ever had. Personally this made me really angry and had a negative impact on my confidence and my understanding of the subject. I wasn't the only one. A large number of us dropped out of his class to return to our original class and teacher. So maths boot camp really didn't work for us lol 😅
That method only works for dumb people. The military destroyed my confidence and abilities. And crippled me
Yeah I think math is different because a huge number of people have "trauma" from a young age around it, due to many teachers treating us this way. And teachers do it less frequently for other subjects.
Also, the military (or military school) is a lot of physical stuff so it's different.
I went to a military school and none of the teachers taught academic subjects that way, and I'm pretty sure it's for a good reason.
My engineering degree was like this, but we didn't need someone telling us we were the worst. We told that to ourselves every cram session and assignment. To this day I maintain that I made it through because I was too stupid to quit.
@@Iudicatio You have to act like that in the military because war is more efficient when soldiers are placed low in a hierarchy, it makes them forfeit their individuality and work as part of a collective. In a math class, though?? It's ridiculous, just pointless... That headmaster sounds like damaged goods passing on his trauma.
I didnt go to true military boot camp. But I did go to this one 10-day summer program meant to emulate boot camp but for kids between 13-18. It sucked. And I wished I went back the next year.
I wanted to quit by day 2, but someone told me you couldn't actually quit (despite what the Sargent would say). I was in literal physical pain where both my heels broke, and so every step felt like I was stepping on hot nails. Yet the only way forward was to keep moving as you weren't allowed to quit. So I kept moving forward.
I was last or almost last in every single activity or metric, yet end of the program they awarded me the leadership award because I never gave up. It was so self-affirming and taught me that life sucks but thats okay.
This is exactly the video I needed right now. This convinced me that coaching is likely a much better fit for me than therapy. As someone pouring all of their energy into escaping an ongoing domestic violence situation I've been trapped in for 10+ years, the constant rage I feel at my abusers mistreatment can be framed as an asset to be directed into changing my circumstances rather than another reason to be shamed for externalizing against abuse in therapy. Dr. K is so right about most therapists being fixated on internalization and only addressing pathology.
Thank you! You just gave me the power back to do what I knew somewhere deep inside was what I needed. To be able to decide for myself what I deserve and don't deserve. People pushing me to treat myself when I haven't done shit. People telling me to not be hard on myself when I'm frustrated at my lack of accomplishment or activity. Smothering me into feeling lost and empty and worthless.
I just needed a trustworthy source to back me up that there's nothing wrong with negative emotions and using them to better oneself.
Great video. Pair this up with recognizing life is too short to live a life of tolerance (in terms of a bad job, an unhappy situation, etc) and there's a great source of motivation to be tapped into (at least for me it worked). Focus and the ability to craft your own life are the superpowers in the world right now. Having the grit to flip that switch, mentally, and then pursue those goals in an incremental progression seems to be the secret. The dopamine rush of progress, instead of goal completion, makes progress easier.
What I find grating about self-love when it comes to relationships and depression is that so many of the people who say stuff like "you need to love yourself first!!!" are surrounded by friends and family and would have a breakdown if those were taken away. Very few people practice what they preach and they thrive on outside validation. This is ok to an extent in my opinion - we are human, and are social creatures. Bruce Perry wrote of how all the self-love in the world is not going to fix depression in an individualised society.
These were the same people who, in the 2020 lockdowns, were writing rambling articles about how they hadn't had sex in a month or how society was collapsing because social interaction was limited.
I'm really not sure how I feel about this. Dr.K's advice may work from his pov as the therapist, rationally evaluating patients, but this is harmful advice. The people who do need self-love will hear this and think that they're the ones who aren't deserving of it, and vice versa.
Personal anecdote, I developed a really intense eating disorder and depression because of that belief that I didn't deserve to be loved, but if I changed something about myself, I would deserve it.
The problem is that if you use self-hatred as the motivator *THAT SELF HATRED NEVER GOES AWAY*. I was overweight when I started, and I hated myself into anorexia.
From what I've learned about this self love journey it can take you down a path of ' I don't wanna work/study because it's hard and I'll feel sad when I don't feel like I'm good at anything and therefore I'll just make myself some comfort food or go shopping to show myself some love'. That's my experience with it but how I've come out of that is actually practicing self-discipline. Oh I have a test to study for tomorrow and even though I don't get it, I'll put in the time to learn it and get the reward of a good grade, etc. self love is harmful when it's practiced as a way to enable yourself to not show up for yourself and your future self. Thanks for this ep dr k. You've been helpful at helping me actually process my emotions better and become a better version of myself
I feel like self-love and developing grit isn't contradictory, if you really love yourself it means you should make your life better, not just forcefully convince yourself that you are fine and guiltless no matter what.
I don't think people go to therapy to change themselves. They go because they need comfort, and to feel that they are OK, independent of achievement. Until they feel intrinsically worthy, it is impossible to change the self. For most of my life I felt as if I had nothing to offer, as if there was no reason for anyone to enjoy my company let alone love me, regardless of knowing that I am a good person. I was in my 50s before a therapist said 'you have a really nice energy'. It took a bit more, but that was the beginning of me feeling likeable, and THAT is what I needed, not to develop my life - that is a different issue
If you fix the crap on the outside, the circumstances, you’ll feel good about the change in the short term, but self-love is what helps you maintain the changes you make.
Agree. I think the premise of this video is goofy, it is predicated on the idea that there is a binary involved, ie it's either all about self compassion or has nothing to do with it at all. Highly doubt the latter of those applies to even 5% of people.
Agreed. Even the examples don't make much sense -- studies show that people with low confidence in their body image don't tend to get more confidence if they start to look better, because the main underlying issue is lack of worth, not the physical appearance itself. There's a degree of separation from apparent and actual cause there that Dr. K ignores here.
@@HunterTracksi agree, theres flaws in his logic and it didnt sound like normal Dr K to me. Then i realised why, its a promotional video for his coaching program... i do think external changes can be helpful (for example getting out of an abusive relationship is generally a good thing) but even then doesnt guarentee the person will feel better internally
Fantastic video. Feels like with us men especially, there's often a need for some base level of competence in order to even start considering the ideas of self-love and self-compassion. Competence unlocks confidence unlocks self-love, vs for others self-love unlocks confidence.
For me, personally, I need both! Some of my issues were caused by self-loathing and hatred, which I’ve worked on a lot and am still working on. But recently I realized some of my issues can’t be fixed with self-love, so I’m starting that journey.
The difficulty sometimes is parsing which is which, because self-loathing will tell me it’s not a self-love issue and I just need to be better, but my avoidant side will tell me I just need to love myself to avoid having to do any work.
I find the negative expression thing interesting. It seems like it does two things in my experience. One, it all but directly states that you believe in that person. That you do truly care about them and want them to do well and that you believe they can and deserve to suceed. It also motivates them through a sort of spite. The desire to prove that they aren't the garbage you're telling them they are. All without ever actually speaking positively about them, and without disrupting the sort of "manliness shield" men are usually expected to maintain.
Alongside drill sergeants, you see it often with coaches or personal trainers as well. People who's job it is to basically give people the grit required to overcome something.
In my own experience self love definitely has its place. In the sense that practicing some over none at all def helps, in my own personal life anyway. However i am aware of my own limitations and i enjoy having some direction or outside perspective as well.
Hi Dr. K. Coincidentally, I just ran a group 2 days ago on how self love, and compassion aren't always helpful. I also mentioned how there are definitely people who do first need the self love etc. So it was definitely refreshing to hear a similar viewpoint. Thank you!
I have a slightly different viewpoint. My solution wasn't the bootcamp idea. I believe that for some, it runs into a similar issue of a fluctuating self worth based off of a performance/achievement. Although it is necessary to have that component for someone to actually feel like they DESERVE the self love they're trying to give themselves - because they actually are finally feeling like they're GETTING somewhere - it still seems to have that drawback of not being able to constantly feel worthy and 'good enough' - and I do think that's an achievable goal.
My viewpoint is to put the focus on others more and think more selflessly i.e. 'how can I be useful to .... my friend... my family... my community' or 'how can I make someone's day better etc' it takes a lot of pressure off oneself and allows one to feel love in their life without trying to constantly grasp at it. i.e the goal can't be self love but it comes along with living a meaningful life. That's where it ends on a secular, non-religious level.
On a religious level, in my view, the underlying metric of valuing oneself is based off of that we are all created in the image of G-d and we are INHERENTLY worthy and we have strengths that we are meant to use in this world that only WE can accomplish.
I don't believe consistent self love is achievable without the idea of inherent value. And after much thought, I don't think inherent value makes sense unless we are not random creations.
I definitely think using Shame to drive you to better yourself has its benefits. But I also think down the line it will become a maladaptive coping mechanism especially when things don’t go your way.
I think both of the things go hand in hand for true transformation and healing. Like you can't hate yourself into becoming a version of yourself that you love. Self love and compassion must be paired with self introspection, admitting your flaws, and a commitment to become better.
Yeah, I do feel like he’s preaching about hating yourself into a version that you will love.
This is so weird. I’ve started 2 rounds of therapy with the same therapist (I took a year and a bit break after doing it for a year and then went back to it recently), and our first session, we discuss what my goal is for therapy. And she writes it down. Like I literally tell her, this is what I want to achieve, and then she from her 18 years of experience in practice and education, makes a plan for a way to help me and takes me through the process. Part of the entire process is developing the working relationship I have with her because she’s literally trying to help me achieve something I want
Grit is what you have to have when you encounter a situation where your resilience fails. Resilience is heading into the storm bright and upright, taking those hits and you just keep going mostly unshaken.
Grit is the ability to go into the storm, get knocked flat onto your as, and then dragged through the dirt face first, and you decide to keep going anyway. You get knocked down, and rather than turning back you crawl forward on your hands and knees, and then when you don't have the strength left to crawl you just keep going anyway and drag yourself through the dirt on your stomach. And then when your arms give out you drag yourself with your friggin chin.
Or more applicable to life, resilience is taking 10 college classes at once, and nearly breaking down every five minutes from stress but you keep it up. Grit is failing two classes and getting a c- in the third class because you're so tired, sick, and beaten down by it all that you can barely roll out of bed in the morning, but you just keep coming back, you grind through it struggling but not giving up.
Basically the TLDR is that resilience is badass standing up and taking it without being knocked down. Grit is what you use after your resilience reaches its limit and you need to not give up after that even though you are down.
Maybe the problem is in what we usually understand as love? I think love consists of two things: accepting and wanting the best for the person loved. Accepting doesn't mean 'you are great the way you are' that would be affirmation. Accepting is something like 'no matter how bad you are I'll be by your side, I'll welcome you and no matter what I'l try to help you'. That kind of love should create harmony between compassion and pushing for doing better.
I can be hard on myself and push myself to my goals, but its the lack of underlying faith that I can accomplish these goals that makes it negative. Having faith in myself is the hardest thing
It really depends on the person, but I think overall, it's very difficult to love yourself if your self-image is shattered. You could say it's impossible and failing to love yourself in that case only does more harm because it makes you feel more like a failure than you already do.
I am absolutely no specialist, but the way I understand self love when one's life sucks is "I care enough about myself that I want to change". Self love isn't, in my mind, loving the satus quo but rather feeling like you are worth the effort that the change will take. And so when someone comes in saying that they are motivated by shame and guilt and self hate, the therapist's job may be to show them that those negative feelings actually stem from a deeper, more positive one, and all are valid. Because I don't think a person who truly believes they are worthless, useless etc could have any drive for change.
Also I've gone to one therapist and two of my friends are seeing two other therapists, so my sample is like 3 professionals... but neither adheres to any "don't change the patient's life" rule. I am not from USA though.