How can one love one's self?

@Dreee what helped me was learning mindfulness meditation practices and also meta meditation (also known as loving kindness meditation). This was after listening to some ‘inner child’ guided meditation and a book on being happy. When we grow up we have to take over the job that our parents did or ideally should have done. We are still as precious now as we were when we were babies. The world has many measuring sticks for what makes a ‘good’ human being, but you should throw those out, or at least the ones you find you are beating yourself up with. You have one life. It really is a gift that we are alive, but we often get caught up in stories in our head about who and what we should be. Being kind to yourself, loving yourself makes a lot of sense because you’ll always be with you. Also, it is better than the alternative which is not loving ourselves. Instead we are tough on ourselves. We give ourselves firm lectures if not outright punishment. It doesn’t really do much good to be the mean coach or drill sergeant to ourselves. So you’re really doing something great in learning to love yourself. People who love themselves also tend to treat other people better. I hope this helped in some way.

@Dreee I'm still struggling with this myself, practising self love is not easy🙁 the things that help me most is art and crafts creating something I can be proud of makes me feel good maybe even special🙂 also doing the little things that make me smile, things that remind me of gratitude. For me it's simple things like sitting outside, watching the sunrise and hearing the birds wake up. Gives you a giant tiny hug 💗 good luck sweetie 💗

@Dreee hello 😊 it's vital you love you first before you can ever see how much you deserve to be loved by others. When online forums refer to self care, it is refering to exercise, healthy eating, doing something that you love, feeling good in yourself, for example if we didn't wash or get fresh air or sleep sufficiently, we wouldn't feel good . For me it started small, I hated compliments, never took a photo, never used a mirror, I carried deep pain, I slowly started by daily writing even one took I liked about myself, and built it up, i took photos, i looked in the mirror, for like five seconds, but i built it up, it took practice, a new mindset and honestly hard work. I genuinely want the best for you and for you to truly fall in love with the beautiful person that I know you are, take care and best of luck with everything from the bottom of my heart ♥️