How do I love myself when I am depressed?

I have read so many posts on social media about loving yourself and it is usually grand steps that honestly make you feel worse when you can't complete them/ I personally believe that loving yourself shouldn't be that complicated. It is the small, tiny things you do for yourself that matter. If you got out of bed today even when you absolutely did not feel like it, you are loving yourself. If you even completed one goal on your to-do list then you love yourself. You can love yourself in many small, tiny ways. Depression is a hard thing to go through and loving yourself shouldn't be a complicated thing that makes it harder.

That is a very difficult, and I wish there was a simple answer. There are things you do well at and positive traits about yourself. Maybe you should keep trying to remind yourself of all the positive about you. Sometimes I have to wake up and say positive things in the mirror. I do not always believe them at first, but I start to. Remember sometimes you have to take care of yourself first.

Forgive yourself, be gentle. Know that you are only human, that even you make mistakes. Be positive, keep your chin up, and love yourself no matter what. It's okay to feel sad and disappointed in yourself, but forgive yourself, too. Take care of yourself as well; don't stay up too late, get up out of bed, brush your teeth, and smile at your reflection. Don't forget yourself in the midst of it all. Treat yourself too! Get that item you've been eyeing, eat that scrumptious piece of cake you've seen. Don't hold yourself back. Be happy, and be positive. Always tell yourself this.

Start by saying all the good things that you do and breath and relax and mediate on the good you can produce into the world and try to take all the negativity of the world and focus it into a positive energy..you may also try things that you enjoy such as working out drawing playing an instrument anything that can give you a sense of control and empowerment. Reach out to a friend it is difficult to see ourselves as we want and at times need a outside perspective to give you that push in the right direction of self love

This is only a process by yourself. You can love yourself if you are depressed, but it is not easy. Same as when you are not depressed. Now I would like to give you an example for a way to build self esteem. At first you should buy a notebook in my opinion. So you can everyday write a few kind things to yourself. One day tell yourself what looks good on you. On an other day determine what you did good on that day. Be creative on what you can do. I hope I could help you. I wish you best luck.

I think this is one of the hardest things to do for a depressed person. So hard, that it may be impossible. But that's no reason to lose hope. I have found it isn't necessary to love myself in order to have self respect. I may not have self worth or self esteem, but I do have self respect. What I do is a kind of psychological jujitsu. I sidestep the issue. I make it so that self love is beside the point. Nearly irrelevant. I think the biggest problem for depressed folks is that we judge everything about ourselves, and we always judge ourselves badly. We are finding fault with ourselves before others find fault in us. It's a kind of defense. If we beat up ourselves before anyone else does it, then it'll be a snap when someone else does. They can't tell us anything that we haven't already told ourselves, only ten times worse. So the problem is self-judgment. And we can't stop it. However, we don't have to pay attention to it. With a little practice, we might even become adept at ignoring this dysfunctional kind of thinking. It helps to have a partner in this effort -- someone like you (depressed) who does the same things. When we talk and we say something disparaging about ourselves, the other person can call us on it. Eventually, we can make a pact that we won't do that kind of thing with this other person. We are slowly learning to identify this useless thinking and then to set it aside or ignore it, knowing it doesn't help. Sometimes I like to imagine these kinds of thoughts are like leaves. I take the thoughts, put them on leaves, and place them in the river of life that is always swirling around me. At first, they always swirl back to me, but if I am persistent, eventually they float away and don't come back. The result is that I am no longer paying attention to the fact that I don't love myself. It is irrelevant to my life. It adds nothing to my life. I may not be able to love myself, but I don't have to hate myself. Better that I focus on doing the things I want to do and stop myself from worrying about what anyone else thinks of it. Well, it's a work in progress. I'm not there yet, but I am doing better. Xxxxxx -kenzi

I think that when you are depressed, you should be kind to yourself and pick small objectives every day. For instance, you could decide that every day your objective will be to re-read the list of qualities that you have prepared. If you are unable to think of your qualities, you could ask friends what they like about you. Another thing that you could try is to write every day what are some of the good things that you did. For it to work, you need to work on an internal dialogue where you think like someone who loves you would. Finally, the best thing that you can do in order to love yourself is to be compassionate with yourself. We are often our harshest critique. Every time that you have hard or deprecating thoughts about how lousy you are, you need to pause, breathe and tell yourself: my mind is powerful, I control it, I will not let myself insult me. I hope this helps.