Learning to like Yourself

Hello, my name is _________ and I hate myself. For many this will sound familiar. It is the opening introduction at AA meetings and most meetings where embracing your weakness is the beginning of the journey to finding your strength.

It was in this way that I discovered I hated myself. I have not manifested outward signs of this self loathing by cutting or with other diseases such as anorexia, bulimia or addictions. But that revelation makes my self-hatred none the less real.

A long journey brought me here. One littered with poor choices and good ones. Feelings of failure, striving to be all that I felt I should be and what everyone one else thought I should. Or at the very least what I thought they thought I should be. You see the dilemma? The impossibility of it all?

I am in my mid thirties and I have lived since childhood in a constant state of always trying to become something. Striving. Serving. Going. Supporting. Praying. Studying. Working. Playing. Being a daughter. A wife. A friend. A sister. A worker.

After a series of turns which brought me to a divorce, leaving my church and finding myself alone. I was forced to look at me. Squarely. And honestly. And realize that I hated me. Why?

We are told in the Bible that we are to love ourselves. And that we should not hate. The very definition of the word hate is to 'love less'. Less than what? We can only conclude less than the example of love we are given in the same book. The love of God. I looked at me and realized I didn't love me the way my Heavenly Father did. I didn't see my potential. I didn't love me enough to believe in me. I was always trying to be someone else. I didn't love me enough to just be the me He created me to be. To laugh, play, work, rejoice, cry, and all those things plus so much more with a simplicity that astounds. To understand that loving me means accepting me. So much so that even in the midst of my biggest failures, I am still acceptable. Worthy.

My value is not determined by what I do. It is determined in whose I am.