RIGHT SELF-LOVE

“We come now to the two laws of love towards our neighbor, the general and the particular. The elder law had the one commandment only, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This implies that there is a right self-love, a sense in which we ought to love ourselves, and err if we do not. The right self-love loves self because God does, and for no other reason. It wants what God wants for itself, and nothing else. This is no more than common sense. How shall we not love the self that God has made, that he so loves, and for which our dear Lord took flesh, and died, and rose again? Pious writers sometimes speak of “hatred of self” as the necessary concomitant of love for God, and the mark of the saint; but that is wrong. We have to hate our sins, for they are blemishes on God’s beloved, but most emphatically we are not to hate ourselves.”

(From The Community of Saint Mary the Virgin (CSMV), an Anglican religious order in Oxfordshire, England) 

Or, as the gifted Brene Brown, professor and author says: “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.”

“‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” Jesus