How to Stop Loving Yourself
The message is everywhere—love yourself. It’s in self-help books, therapy sessions, and motivational pop songs (I’m looking at you, BTS). The idea is well-intentioned, meant to inspire self-compassion and inner peace. But what if you don’t always find yourself lovable?
The pressure to try to love ourselves no matter what can paradoxically create distress. It sets an impossible standard, one that doesn’t leave room for the messiness of being human. The alternative to self-love doesn’t have to be self-hatred, however, it can be self-tolerance.
For many, the idea of self-love feels distant. It assumes we should admire ourselves unconditionally, even in moments of failure, regret, or self-doubt. This expectation, though meant to be liberating, can be quite suffocating. Psychologists have long understood that forced positivity can backfire. When people feel pressured to feel a certain way they often end up feeling worse (Gross & Levenson, 1997). Telling ourselves we must love ourselves can become just another standard we fail to meet.
There’s also the reality that some aspects of ourselves are, frankly, not admirable. We all have habits we’re not proud of, moments of selfishness, anger, or avoidance. Trying to force self-love in these moments can feel inauthentic, even invalidating. A more useful approach isn’t to love these parts of ourselves, but to acknowledge them.
Self-tolerance is different from self-love. It doesn’t ask us to celebrate everything about ourselves. It doesn’t require admiration. Instead, it invites us to make peace with reality—to say, “This is who I am and how things are right now; I let go of the need for it to be otherwise.”
Self-tolerance allows us to hold space for our flaws without being crushed by them. It recognizes that growth is possible without needing to already be perfect. Indeed, people who can tolerate their flaws, rather than harshly judge themselves, are more likely to engage in positive change (Neff, 2003).
Therapy often emphasizes this idea. In a therapeutic space, clients are encouraged to acknowledge their struggles without immediately trying to fix them. As explored in previous posts, therapy is healing precisely because it asks us to sit with uncomfortable truths about ourselves rather than escape them (either through harsh criticism or forced positivity). Learning to accept ourselves, even in our most imperfect states, fosters genuine transformation.
A common misconception is that self-acceptance means giving up on improvement. That if we simply accept ourselves as we are, we will stop striving to be better. But acceptance and change are not mutually exclusive. In fact, real change often starts with acceptance. If we can’t face who we are right now, we can’t meaningfully move forward. Psychological flexibility—the ability to accept our current state while still pursuing valued goals—is a key predictor of mental well-being (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). Self-acceptance says nothing about taking action to change our behaviors. It simply means that, whether we choose to act or not, we are still fundamentally okay. Or, to put it more precisely, that we can remain psychologically regulated and integrated even as we seek growth.
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When we let go of the expectation to love every part of ourselves, we create space for something deeper—authenticity. We stop pretending, stop striving to meet an impossible ideal, and start living as we truly are. When we stop demanding constant admiration from ourselves, we gain the freedom to simply be. And in that space, we might just find something even better than self-love—peace.