Thoughts after bad poetry

[danaeris]

I realized, thinking about the poetry I wrote...

I often hate myself, the world, my life, the people around me. I often love the world, my life and the people around me. I often have an overblown and high opinion of myself. But I've never had feelings of actual love for myself.

Does anyone? I mean, actual love, warm fuzzies, like you feel for a close friend or SO or relative.
I'm trying to figure out if this is normal or if this is a dysfunctional thing about me.

Comments

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

I think I'm really cool. Flawed, but cool anyways. It's deeper than an ephemeral attraction, so I suppose it counts as love.

[astrodan.livejournal.com]

Not warm fuzzies so much as a sense of rightness, well-being, maybe centered-ness. Awe at the world around me and how I perceive it differently from all others who supposedly belong to the same species I do.

Not that I've felt this much this last year, but I think what you describe is close to what I would call loving myself, loving who and what I am. Waiting and wondering and anticipating what I will become: Wanting to share it with those around me.

[lokiswings.livejournal.com]

We tend to be far more critical of ourselves than of anyone else. It would be impossible to maintain a relationship if I was as critical of an S.O. or friend as I can be of myself.

Also, if you think about the situations where you feel love for someone...there is the delight with someone doing something wonderful...which is lost when you plan and carry out the something wonderful for yourself. There is nurturing love, which I don't feel towards myself. Taking care of my needs is a chore. There is attraction, which I don't feel towards myself. I think I can be very attractive sometimes, but it's more just a matter of confidence and security for me, not desire.

A huge part of what I consider to be love, is a connection between two people. Love is a kind of interaction between two people, with a strong, positive emotional response.

Self-love really is, for me, more or less the same thing as pride. I obviously don't think that pride is a deadly sin...I think we all need pride. We need to feel satisfied when we do things well, we need confidence, and we need dignity.

[baniszew.livejournal.com]

I've been a good friend to myself through thick and thin and I am accordingly grateful, as I would be to another person.

[aaangyl.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I'm often noted for my fondness for myself. It's not that I'm not supercritical of myself, it's just that love and criticism aren't like, mutually exclusive things. There are many who claim fondness for self is "ego" or "narcissism" or other such negative terms, but I wonder how one can find love for those one is closest to, or even humanity itself, without first developing a loving relationship with your own buddha nature, as it were?