How to Love Yourself When Your Self-Esteem Is in the Toilet

Believe it or not, it is possible to love yourself even when your self-esteem is in the toilet.

Like everything else on this planet, love and self-esteem continually cycle through seasons. When we feel on top of the world, it's as if we're sailing through a warm and sunny emotional summer. When we can't find a single thing about ourselves that seems worthy of love, then it's as if we are slogging through a cold and dark emotional winter.

Even during those winters, hope survives like crocus bulbs slumbering beneath crusts of snow. Spring and summer will return. However, the starting point for your journey to the long, warm light of self-love's summer solstice is the despair that you feel right now, and there's no way out but through the bleakest night of winter solstice.

In the midst of our dark night, many well-meaning people will offer advice like: "Fake it 'til you make it," "Plenty of people have it far worse than you," and "C'mon, smile!" As an occasional traveler through shadowy realms, I find that counsel like this, however well-intentioned, sends me deeper into winter's embrace. "He can talk himself out of this," I cry, "so why can't I? What's wrong with me?"

I suggest that you practice the art of mindfulness. For a little while, simply notice and accept the feelings that are crushing your heart and the thoughts that are using your mind as a punching bag. Refrain from attempts to explain or justify them, whether to yourself or anyone else. Let yourself be right where you are for now, even if that's lying on the cold hard ground while bitter winds drive snow against your body, creating a drift that threatens to bury you so deeply that your body won't be found until the spring thaw.

By not trying to force your feelings and thoughts to flee, or beating yourself up because of them, you attend to the part of you that has shown up as angry, sad, or confused. Isn't that what you do for the friend or child you love when they ask for your help? You pay attention to them as a way of saying, "I care about you. I see you. You're not alone."

In a poem known as "The Guest House," Rumi suggests that when you feel joy or anger, it's as if the emotions are people knocking on the door of your house. You open the door, and they storm in. "Welcome and entertain them all," Rumi implores us. "Even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight."

When a former lover began seeing other men shortly after we broke up, I denounced not only her, but also God. "How can she do this to me?" I screamed. "This shouldn't have happened!" Blades of jealousy and rejection pierced my chest, and I fed those daggers to the beast of my anger, even though their energy dragged me further into a pit of despair.

Then I discovered words of Julian of Norwich, a medieval English mystic: "All is well, and all is well, and all manner of things shall be well." Immediately I knew this was true, even as I could not see how everything would be well again. I began whispering this mantra as I walked and ran from place to place. While the pain did not disappear, peace joined the dark dance in my chest and brain, and I grew calmer. In time, love and light did return.

In the midst of your winter sojourn, let Julian's words accompany you. Give yourself permission to be where you are, even in the toilet. In allowing yourself to feel what you feel right now, you love yourself in a profound way. This love can lead you back to the long days of summer when you will see your own beauty. You will turn around, then, and have compassion for the person you are in this moment, the one who is not giving up, the one who loves even though you don't feel loving. Eventually you'll feel the love.