Is loving yourself selfish? Many of us have been taught to fear loving ourselves, as if caring for our emotional needs will automatically make us self-centred or uncaring. However, true self-love is not about elevating yourself above others, but rather about meeting yourself with honesty, compassion, and responsibility. Healthy self-love reduces the need for approval, strengthens empathy, and empowers you to create more authentic relationships with others. Narcissism on the other hand has the mask of being in love with yourself, but is actually rooted in insecurity, an unhealthy need for admiration and approval, and a fragile sense of self.
What is Narcissism?
Firstly, I would like to clarify what I mean by narcissism and self-love. Narcissism is a scale and people can have a narcistic personality type where they exhibit lower levels of narcistic characteristics or experience higher level narcistic personality disorder. Characteristics of narcissism include:
- an exaggerated sense of self-importance and holding idealised views of your capabilities, position, success or power
- a consistent excessive need for recognition and admiration from others
- often making self-promoting and self-aggrandizing statements and attempting to solicit regard and compliments from those around you
- habitually trying to impress others and build up the view of yourself by bragging about yourself and putting other people down
- active manipulation or control of others to elicit or coerce admiration from them
- emotionally hungry for attention and approval from others
- protecting an inflated view of yourself at the expense of others and when that view is threatened experiencing excessive anger, shame, envy, and other negative emotions
- isolating people who are significant to you because you feel very insecure and jealous if they connect with or admire anyone else
- lack of empathy towards others. Preoccupied with what other people think of you and have little or no regard (or understanding) of other people’s feelings
It is generally thought that people with a narcissistic personality failed to develop a healthy sense of self. Narcissism can be a defence mechanism where a person takes refuge in some aspect of themselves that evokes admiration from others and then develops an inflated sense of self around that. The grandiose external behaviour they exhibit protects their true inner low self-worth. People with narcissism are likely to have a high level of external and conscious self-esteem, and low level internal and subconscious self-esteem. Externally they usually appear very confident and dominating, but internally they are very insecure.
“Sometimes I simultaneously feel above everything, above life itself, and also like a piece of trash on the side of the road,” she says. “I feel like I’m constantly trying to hide and cover things up. I’m constantly stressed and exhausted. I’m also constantly trying to build an inner self so I don’t have to feel that way anymore.” Quote from a person who experiences narcissistic personality disorder (2)
What is Self-Love?
When I talk about self-love what I mean is developing deep awareness of your self and conscious and subconscious mind, and learning to accept and love all aspects of yourself, both the positive and the shadow, and the strong and the weak. Self-love is the ability to sit in acceptance with all parts of yourself and to view yourself with both compassion and respect. Self-love is full self-honesty. It is laying yourself bare to yourself. It is moving away from hiding, deflecting, distracting and blaming and acknowledging and taking full responsibility for all your feelings, beliefs, thoughts and behaviours from a place of love. Self-love is giving yourself what you need emotionally. It is reparenting yourself.
Excessive self-love and care do not lead to narcissism, quite the opposite. Narcissism evolves from a deficit of self-love and is a protective shield. Most people who experience narcissism wear a mask of excessive self-admiration, but in reality do not have the self-awareness to truly love themselves. Control, manipulation, neglect and abuse of others comes from an energy of fear, and fear and love are opposite energies. Love is connected to light; fear is connected to darkness.
The Difference Between Self-Love and Narcissism
People with a narcissistic personality are very emotionally hungry for attention and approval from others. When you do not fill your own emotional cup, then the natural response is to try and get others to satisfy your emotional needs. Most of us do this to some level and in some way. Some methods of control are loud and obvious such as bullying, manipulating, and fishing for compliments. Others are more subtle such as passive aggressive behaviour like sarcasm and the silent treatment. People pleasing is also a form of manipulation because it involves a person behaving in a certain way to get a certain emotional response from someone else, e.g. if I am nice to you then you will be nice to me or love me. The more you love yourself, the more secure you are emotionally, and the less you need approval, recognition and admiration from others.
As you move into greater love and acceptance of yourself, then you naturally become more loving to others. When you love yourself, you move in the energy of love rather than fear and love becomes your mode of operation. Through forgiving and being compassionate with yourself, you naturally become more accepting and understanding of others. You have more patience with others and do not take their behaviour so personally anymore because you have a greater understanding of the subconscious needs and shadows that can drive what we say and do.
The only thing that I have observed with people that have a high level of self-love that could be construed as arrogance is a high level of self-confidence and self-assurance. This is not arrogance however. It is based in that person being in a deep state of self-awareness and self-acceptance that allows them to honestly acknowledge their strengths, set loving boundaries, and be in loving acceptance of all parts of themselves. They have also usually processed and integrated a lot of their subconscious emotional energy and limiting beliefs which gives them a very clear energy. These people have faced their shadows and lovingly integrated them which makes them less susceptible to being triggered and manipulated. They know and accept all of who they are. They speak well of themselves and have a healthy appreciation of their strengths but do not have a need to promote these and receive validation from others. All of this can feel very uncomfortable to other people who are not feeling so aligned within themselves and are still utilising controlling and manipulative behaviours to meet their emotional needs. People with a high level of self-love can become largely un-fuckwithable in the sense that they are very steady in themselves and are quite non-reactive, and this can be disconcerting to other people who may see it as “they think they are better than me”. The self-loving person does not feel higher, but rather in the presence of self-love the other person becomes aware of how low they feel in themselves.
Does Loving Yourself First Make You Selfish?
Okay, so we’ve established that loving yourself won’t turn you into a narcissist, but is it still selfish to love yourself first? Loving yourself first does mean that you will not be as available to others, not because you have become uncaring of others, but because you have a greater understanding of resourcing and balance. When someone gives from an empty cup it is unsatisfying for everyone because the giver has less to give. Also, let’s acknowledge that selfish often actually means “you are doing what you want to do rather than what I want you to do or think you should do” which is an issue of opinion and expectation rather than higher truth. It is also ironic to accuse someone of being selfish because they are not doing what you want them to do, or because they are taking care of themselves rather than you. For me practicing loving myself first is about being fairer and more balanced. I care deeply about others, but I am more conscious of where I place my energy and am becoming more comfortable setting loving boundaries. Instead of just helping wherever I see there is need I pause and ask myself:
a. Do I have the capacity to help in this situation?
For example, I am learning to be honest with my partner when listening to him discuss a problem feels overwhelming to me. A phrase like this can be helpful: “I’m sorry, I really want to listen and support you, but I am feeling overwhelmed and do not have the capacity to hold space for you right now. Can we talk about this another time please?”
b. Is this my responsibility
I used to carry a lot of worries on behalf of other people. Worries about things that I had no control over and couldn’t really do anything about. Now, I care, but don’t carry things that are not my responsibility and not in my control.
c. Will my help really help?
There are two aspects to this. Firstly, am I the best person to help or would it be better to refer this on to someone with more resources or knowledge. Secondly, will helping (rescuing) this person keep them from learning life skills that will be helpful to them living their life more effectively in the long term even if it seems really hard for them to go through.
Jumping in to always help and serve others is not actually always helpful or a good thing. Practicing self-love can help you to have a more balanced win/win view of what action will get the best outcome overall. There is a big difference between saying no to someone from a place of fear or not caring to saying no from a place of love. The person receiving the no might feel disappointment in both cases, but how they respond to that is reflective of their own inner state, and our thoughts and feelings are our responsibility to take care of. Loving yourself first does not mean that you neglect others, it just means that you practice greater wisdom in how you support yourself as well as others.
“Self-love creates the clarity to give with intention, not depletion.”
Shartaya Mollett – Rooted in Joy (substack.com@shartayamollett)
Key Point Summary:
- Self-love is developing deep awareness of your self, and conscious and subconscious mind, and learning to accept and love all aspects of yourself, both the positive and the shadow, and the strong and the weak.
- As you move into greater love and acceptance of yourself, then you naturally become more loving to others. When you love yourself, you live in the energy of love rather than fear and love becomes your mode of operation.
- The more you love yourself, the more secure you are emotionally, and the less you need approval, recognition and admiration from others. Narcissists are emotionally insecure and have an excessive need for approval, recognition and admiration from others.
- People with a high level of self-love can become largely un-fuckwithable in the sense that they are very steady in themselves and are quite non-reactive, and this can feel disconcerting and uncomfortable to other people
- Loving yourself first does not mean that you neglect others, it just means that you practice greater wisdom in how you support yourself as well as others. Practicing self-love can help you to have a more balanced win/win view of what action will get the best outcome overall.
- Three key questions to ask when deciding how to support others:
- Do I have the capacity to help in this situation?
- Is this my responsibility?
- Will my help really help?
Arohanui, much love
Janine
Sources used:
- https://www.britannica.com/science/narcissism
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