You don't have to love yourself to begin understanding yourself

We hear a lot about the importance of loving, accepting and being kinder to ourselves. But what if that sounds like a good idea in theory, but the reality is that you struggle because you don't feel positively towards yourself? What if you are more used to self-judgement or being critical towards yourself, towards the parts of yourself you feel ashamed of, behaviours you wish you could change, or things you struggle to accept about who you are?

Being told to love yourself can feel like a big ask when your relationship with yourself is difficult. You can probably understand the importance of self-compassion, but still find yourself caught up in self-criticism, comparing yourself to others, or feeling that you aren't quite good enough.

When the reality is that there is less 'self-love', and more 'self-criticism', the starting point isn't trying to make ourselves feel differently about who we are, but learning to understand ourselves differently.

Moving beyond judgement

When we struggle with aspects of ourselves, it can be easy to move straight into judgement or criticism when we are going through something tough, question why we keep making the same mistakes, or become frustrated that we haven't managed to change patterns of behaviour that we know aren't helping us.

Judgement shows up when we tell ourselves that we shouldn't feel this way, that we should know better, or that there is something wrong with us for struggling in the first place. But rather than helping us to understand what is happening, judgement can leave us feeling ashamed, defensive or more determined to hide the parts of ourselves we find difficult to accept.

What might happen if, instead of immediately judging ourselves, we became curious about what we were experiencing? Where questions such as 'what is wrong with me', could be replaced by 'why might I be responding this way'? This isn't about making excuses or deciding that everything we do is okay, but creating the space to understand ourselves before deciding what might need to change.

We didn't become who we are in isolation

Our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and ways of responding to the world haven't appeared from nowhere. They have been shaped by our experiences, our relationships, the environments we have grown up in and the messages we have received about who we should or should not be.

We learn ways of coping with difficult situations, responding to other people and trying to meet our needs - sometimes these responses can help us to navigate the experiences we face in specific situations, but they become less helpful as our circumstances change. For example, perhaps you learned to keep other people happy because conflict feels uncomfortable or threatening, but people pleasing has become more problematic as life goes on. Perhaps you have become a perfectionist because getting things right felt like a way to avoid criticism, but it has become impossible to maintain the standards you hold over yourself, and you live in constant stress for fear of failure. Or maybe you have learned to hide your feelings because you haven't always felt safe expressing them, and so you struggle when it comes to supporting yourself or seeking support when you go through hard times.

Over time, these responses can become so familiar that we don't recognise them as ways we have learned to cope, but as fixed parts of who we are, or evidence that something is wrong with us. Understanding where our patterns might have come from doesn't mean we have to keep them, but it can provide a starting point to understanding that there are reasons we respond as we do, rather than treating our struggles as personal failings.

Understanding isn't the same as approval

Sometimes, we resist looking at ourselves with understanding because we worry it means letting ourselves off the hook. If we acknowledge why we behave in a certain way, does that mean we are excusing it? If we accept that we struggle with something, does that mean we are giving up on changing it? Not at all.

We can recognise that our experiences have influenced us while still taking responsibility for how we behave and the impact we have on others. We can understand why we react defensively, for example, while also recognising that our reactions might hurt someone. We can acknowledge why we find boundaries difficult while learning to respond differently.

In fact, understanding ourselves can give us a more useful starting point for change. When we are caught up in blaming and criticising ourselves, it can be difficult to look at our experiences openly. When we approach ourselves with curiosity, we create more opportunity to recognise what is happening and consider what we might do differently. We don't have to approve of everything we do to treat ourselves with understanding.

Making space for the parts of ourselves we struggle with

Many of us have parts of ourselves that we would rather not acknowledge. We might feel ashamed of our insecurities, frightened of rejection, or frustrated by how much we seek approval. We might try to push these feelings away at times because they don't fit with how we think we should be. We might believe that we should be more confident, less sensitive, more independent or better able to cope.

But, trying to suppress or deny difficult feelings doesn't make them disappear - it can leave us struggling with the original feeling and the additional judgement we place on ourselves for having it. What if we could begin by acknowledging what is there, without deciding that it defines us? We can feel anxious without being weak. We can struggle with insecurity without that making us fundamentally inadequate.

Our feelings are experiences we have, not the entirety of who we are. We can learn to notice them, become curious about what they might be telling us, and decide how we want to respond. Acceptance doesn't mean we have to like everything we discover about ourselves, it means allowing ourselves to acknowledge our experiences honestly, rather than feeling that we have to hide from them.

Learning to meet ourselves where we are

In reality, developing a different relationship with ourselves takes time. If we have spent years responding to ourselves with criticism, it is unlikely that we will suddenly become accepting and understanding simply because we recognise that it would be helpful. We might find that our inner critic still appears, that old beliefs continue to influence how we see ourselves, or that certain feelings remain difficult to acknowledge. Ironically, we might even become critical of ourselves for not being better at accepting ourselves.

Meeting ourselves where we are can begin here. Rather than expecting ourselves to feel differently immediately, we can notice what is happening, become curious and gently question the judgements we are making. We can ask ourselves what might be contributing to our feelings, what we have learned about ourselves, and whether the way we are responding is helping us.

We can begin by offering ourselves the same curiosity we would offer someone else who was trying to understand a difficult experience. We don't have to have all the answers, and we don't have to force ourselves into a place of acceptance before we are ready. Meeting ourselves where we are can simply be acknowledging, "this is difficult for me at the moment".

Understanding ourselves creates the possibility of change

We can spend a great deal of time trying to become a better version of ourselves, focusing on what we need to improve, what we need to overcome or what we believe we need to change before we can feel good enough. But there is a difference between wanting to grow and believing that we are not acceptable as we are.

When change is driven by shame or the belief that we are fundamentally flawed, we can become caught up in an endless effort to prove our worth. We might achieve the things we set out to do and still feel that something is missing, because the underlying belief that we aren't good enough remains unchanged.

Understanding ourselves offers another way forward - we can acknowledge where we are struggling, recognise the experiences that have influenced us, and take responsibility for the changes we want to make without treating ourselves as a problem that needs to be fixed. This is self-compassion as a whole process. We don't have to wait until we love ourselves to begin developing a different relationship with ourselves. We can start by becoming curious, by allowing ourselves to acknowledge our experiences, and by recognising that there is more to us than the things we struggle with.

You don't have to like every part of yourself to begin understanding yourself. And you don't have to understand everything about yourself before you can begin to treat yourself with compassion.

Meaningful change can begin not with trying harder to become someone else, but with learning to understand the person you already are.