Loving Others Requires Loving Yourself
The following is the transcript of my troop deployment (i.e. ending rant) from episode 103 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast
It's a trope for decades that you have to love yourself before you can really love someone else, but it's true.
Truly loving someone is not about viewing them as better than or above you. That's just putting someone on a pedestal. It’s worship. And it sets a person fundamentally apart from you.
Love isn't about seeing the other person as equal to you. That’s a necessary part of it, but it’s way too broad. Many people are my equal (though nobody on this podcast), very few of whom I love in the sense I’m talking about.
Love isn't about what the other person can give you or do for you. That's just viewing people as objects or need-fulfillment machines. It sets up a transactional relationship where your feelings are purchased or traded for.
Loving someone is about seeing them as part of yourself. It's expanding your identity to include them. Your whole sense of who you are broadens to include the other person. When you think about what you want, what you deserve, or what will make you happy, you intuitively include the other person in that. From an Internal Family Systems perspective, they are incorporated as a sub-personality. From a Methods of Rationality perspective, you have a copy of them living in your head.
So if you don't love yourself, when your sense of self includes other people, you won't love them either. If you hate yourself, you will hate them. If you fear yourself, you will fear them. If you think cruelty is justified against you, will will feel that cruelty is justified against them.
So care for yourself. It's the only way to truly care for your loved ones.