Yes, if you hate yourself and you’re living a reckless life, you probably should work on you a little (life coping tools) before investing in someone else.
This hits hard. The idea that we ‘love ourselves through others’ isn’t just poetic—it’s reality. We’re relational beings, and no amount of self-help mantras will change that. The healthiest relationships I’ve had didn’t just reflect my self-worth; they helped build it. The love I received reshaped the way I saw myself.
And the opposite is just as true—relationships that drained me, that made me question my value, left deeper scars than any internal self-doubt ever could.
So yeah, you don’t need to cross some mythical self-love finish line before loving or being loved. But you do need to like yourself enough to choose relationships that reinforce your worth, not erode it.
This deserves a wider audience—because if we understood this better, we’d stop using ‘self-love’ as a wall and start using love itself as the bridge.
I used to believe this too. I used to say it all the time because it was everywhere—on bumper stickers, in self-help books, echoed back at me whenever I questioned my worthiness in relationships. “If you don’t love yourself, you don’t love anyone.” It was drilled in so deep, I started wondering if I was somehow failing at life because I hadn’t reached some mythical finish line of self-love.
But the more I lived, the more I realized how untrue that is. And you put into words something I’ve been trying to articulate for so long:
We don’t love ourselves in a vacuum. We love ourselves through others.
This part hit me the hardest: “Someone else loving you will always be more powerful than you loving yourself.” Because it’s true! It’s why the love of a parent shapes a child’s confidence. It’s why being in a healthy relationship rewires years of self-doubt. It’s why we rise to meet the belief that someone else has in us.
I’ve seen it firsthand. The more someone loves me, the more I believe I’m lovable. And the more I believe I’m lovable, the more I rise to meet that love.
And that’s what people don’t talk about enough—how relationships are not just places where love is given, but where self-love is built.
So no, you don’t have to fully love yourself before you love someone else. Because self-love isn’t a destination, a certificate, or a checklist. It’s a relationship—one that is shaped by every connection we have.
But what does matter? Like you said, “That you like yourself.” That you make choices from a place of worthiness, not desperation. That you build or enter relationships that strengthen you rather than diminish you. Because when you do, self-love naturally follows.
This deserves to be plastered everywhere. Because if more people understood this, we’d have less fear, fewer walls, and a lot more love.
This hits hard. The idea that we ‘love ourselves through others’ isn’t just poetic—it’s reality. We’re relational beings, and no amount of self-help mantras will change that. The healthiest relationships I’ve had didn’t just reflect my self-worth; they helped build it. The love I received reshaped the way I saw myself.
And the opposite is just as true—relationships that drained me, that made me question my value, left deeper scars than any internal self-doubt ever could.
So yeah, you don’t need to cross some mythical self-love finish line before loving or being loved. But you do need to like yourself enough to choose relationships that reinforce your worth, not erode it.
This deserves a wider audience—because if we understood this better, we’d stop using ‘self-love’ as a wall and start using love itself as the bridge.
I used to believe this too. I used to say it all the time because it was everywhere—on bumper stickers, in self-help books, echoed back at me whenever I questioned my worthiness in relationships. “If you don’t love yourself, you don’t love anyone.” It was drilled in so deep, I started wondering if I was somehow failing at life because I hadn’t reached some mythical finish line of self-love.
But the more I lived, the more I realized how untrue that is. And you put into words something I’ve been trying to articulate for so long:
We don’t love ourselves in a vacuum. We love ourselves through others.
This part hit me the hardest: “Someone else loving you will always be more powerful than you loving yourself.” Because it’s true! It’s why the love of a parent shapes a child’s confidence. It’s why being in a healthy relationship rewires years of self-doubt. It’s why we rise to meet the belief that someone else has in us.
I’ve seen it firsthand. The more someone loves me, the more I believe I’m lovable. And the more I believe I’m lovable, the more I rise to meet that love.
And that’s what people don’t talk about enough—how relationships are not just places where love is given, but where self-love is built.
So no, you don’t have to fully love yourself before you love someone else. Because self-love isn’t a destination, a certificate, or a checklist. It’s a relationship—one that is shaped by every connection we have.
But what does matter? Like you said, “That you like yourself.” That you make choices from a place of worthiness, not desperation. That you build or enter relationships that strengthen you rather than diminish you. Because when you do, self-love naturally follows.
This deserves to be plastered everywhere. Because if more people understood this, we’d have less fear, fewer walls, and a lot more love.
What a great and thoughtful perspective, I love this!