What does "love yourself" mean for you.

[November Fox]

Hi all.

I have a philosophical question for you.

Today, I got told to "love myself more" and have self - compassion after I told someone how dysphoric I was, also taking into consideration the obnoxious crotch problem (PSAS) that I wrote about earlier.

Now I´m wondering. What does it mean to love yourself when you´re transgender and you possibly have dysphoria. A lot of us resent our own bodies and having compassion with certain body parts seems like a long shot.

What do you think?
What does it mean for you, to love yourself?

[Ms Grace]

When I was younger I hated myself quite a lot. In the years that followed I did learn to appreciate my good qualities as a person (neither male or female) and to care for myself, care about my well being and my happiness. And then I learned to have as much love and compassion for myself as I would for anyone else who was dear and close to me. That was all pre transition And I tell you what, it made such a difference for when I went through transition this time... no hours spent crying alone, no hating how I looked, no telling myself I was a failure and that transition was never going to work. When you have compassion and respect for yourself you approach life in a totally different way - you are open to your potential and the possibilities you are capable of. When I hated myself I was miserable all the time, I'm so glad those days are gone.

[captains]

For me, it means fighting more and fighting myself less. I tend to be very willing to just "take my hits" so to speak, and so self-love becomes somewhat synonymous with self-advocacy, as well as just a general willingness to slog through the crap and get back up again. As for fighting myself -- the first few years of my trans identity were characterised by an enormous amount of anger directed inward. I spent way too much time being like, "This is stupid, you're stupid, why would you lie to yourself like this? You're a girl: just accept it, just accept it, just accept it." Everything was an ordeal for no reason.

So self-love means, in part, accepting my dissatisfaction and acknowledging my unhappiness with my body, rather than shoving it away. Bad is good, because the good was fake.

[Tysilio]

So self-love means, in part, accepting my dissatisfaction and acknowledging my unhappiness with my body, rather than shoving it away.

This.

To me, self-love means accepting myself as I am. That doesn't mean that I can't work to change things I don't like about myself, but it does mean that I try to be gentle with myself when I don't live up to my own expectations; and that's pretty much what it is to have compassion for oneself.  It means recognizing and accepting the negative feelings we all have at times, and knowing that it's OK to have them and that they don't define who we are.

For me, this has also turned out to be a path to being able to notice and appreciate when I'm feeling good about something. That's been hard for me to do, having spent my life convinced that there was something seriously wrong with me, that I didn't deserve to be happy or to have anything good happen to me. I just wish I'd been able to figure out a lot sooner that there was never anything wrong with feeling like I was really supposed to be a guy...

[November Fox]

I think I feel very threathened by my body because I feel like it´s trying to convince me that I am female. Which I am not.

I posted this inquiry on Facebook also and one of the transmen said: "I used to hate my body, but in time I learned that my body couldn´t help thinking it was female, so not to resent it so much". They said they also used to take their body´s behavior very personally. Which makes it difficult not to loathe it.

To me, self-love means accepting myself as I am. That doesn't mean that I can't work to change things I don't like about myself, but it does mean that I try to be gentle with myself when I don't live up to my own expectations; and that's pretty much what it is to have compassion for oneself.  It means recognizing and accepting the negative feelings we all have at times, and knowing that it's OK to have them and that they don't define who we are.

This is very helpful.

I don´t hate myself at all - I think in fact I´m friendly, and fun to be around. But I do blame my body for giving the "wrong representation of me", and I do also blame it for not living up to my expectations presently (which will probably change a lot when I transition). I see it as the enemy when in fact it´s not, it just has some features I really don´t agree with.

[Kylo]

I think I have plenty of love - or at least tolerance of myself - mentally. I believe that what is "me" is in my head, my thoughts, personality, perceptions. The body to me is more like a mobility suit. I get along just fine with myself - in my head - in that sense and I don't fight or blame myself there.

My body is to me more just a bag of meat and bones that I cannot really control. It's my flesh prison and if something happens to it, I go too. I've never been able to "love" or "like " my body, because I can't control it at all... it does its job, tries to do female things like bleed and flood itself with hormones back and forth and store fat, but I do try to look after it because without it I'm screwed. I used to actually hate it, but for some reason I've never been able to harm it myself, despite how much I hated it.

I don't think you necessarily need to start loving and accepting your body to be at peace with your internal self. But that depends on if you view your body as a real representation of who you are or an important representation of who you are. I don't believe my body represents me at all, so I don't feel much about it other than that I want it to stay basically functional and healthy, and I want it to resemble me a little more closely. Other than that... I don't think I'll ever love it.

it seems to me that it's far more important to deal with one's mental issues first and acknowledge that being trans isn't anybody's deliberate fault. It's unfortunate, that's all. Like a birth defect is, but hardly worth despising and beating yourself up over. But I think you have to reach a point where you like the person you are (not necessarily the body) inside, to be able to really love yourself more. That can sometimes take a lot of work, as it did for me. I feel like I started out in life as the most pathetic human being imaginable, and had to slowly work myself through what felt like it was wrong or right to be and to get myself up to the level of everyone else who seemed like they all had some massive head start just being normal and capable in life. I suppose that's why these days, even though I just figured out I'm trans 'properly' about 4 years ago, I don't feel that much dysphoria anymore. I know I've tried and fought hard to live this long and get through all the things I have, to the point where I'm proud of myself for managing it, without any help. It's hard to hate/blame yourself when you know you've done all you can to make things right.

[cindianna_jones]

For me it is accepting me as I am. Not what I can't control. Those things are relegated to the file cabinet.

Cindi

[Deborah]

I have at times hated being trans but that never became a hatred of myself.  I always viewed it as kind of an external imposition on me that forced me to suppress part of myself, but not hate either that part or the unsuppressed part.  Other than that I am fortunate either by fate or genetics or obstinance and I love myself a lot.  Maybe too much sometimes.

Referring to one comment above, while I do have a fair amount of physical dysphoria I do not view my body as a representation of myself.  It's just a thing I have to do my best to deal with.  I suppose if we wanted to get philosophical about it I am a dualist believing in an immortal soul stuck for a time in a physical body.  For now they are stuck but I am not the body.  I am the soul.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Wednesday]

Focusing on your virtues, focusing on what can be done, focusing on what can be improved. Concentrating your energy, will and efforts on doing all you can do.

Stopping at worrying about what cannot be fixed. Stopping at looking to what cannot be solved.

Forgiving yourself for your mistakes. Learning from your errors.

Keep on going with your life knowing that this one is gonna be your best try until now. And being sure if another try is needed, it is gonna be even better than the last one.