Thanks Sanat
The time of your post was 11:11.....perhaps it was meant to be?
I'm not overly-keen on the term 'self-love' simply because it's so misunderstood.
I tend to think 'self-acceptance' fits my personal outlook best.
For me there are two distinct journeys in life. The first begins when you are able to comprehend the world around you and the influences of your immediate circle of family and then, friends. Who we are at this time is often not known to us because we have built a picture of ourselves based on the opinions and words of others. And how quickly we absorb those tiny, often throwaway negative remarks! How quickly we compare ourselves to others and find ourselves wanting
From others we learn whether we are fat, thin, bright, stupid, athletic, clumsy, worthy, unworthy - ad infinitum. We may only need to hear the same attribute assigned to us a couple of times and in our minds it becomes a reality. We truly are fat/thin/clumsy/stupid - and so on.
We take our influences about almost everything from that first circle, adding to it with others such as school teachers, sports coaches and so on - how we view the world, what we think about money, justice, politics, education, whose 'fault' something is - we are truly not our own person - but it takes so, so long to realise that. Some never do
Because it feels uncomfortable to be wrong - the judgement and censure of others being so paramount in our lives to date - we may also become quite defensive. Being wrong and not knowing everything is to be feared.
And so on into adulthood. With any luck we might come across a book, a person or any other medium that creates a catalyst for self-examination. Hopefully, we begin to realise that who we really are is an amalgamation of everyone we ever knew.
To reach the point of self-acceptance we have to acknowledge how our concept of 'self' has been built up. To know that it's OK to be wrong; it's just fine not to know it all. Given the trillions of facts that exist in the world, it's quite ludicrous to even think we can comprehend all of them.
There is such ease in saying 'I don't know'. There is ease in being able to say 'Oops, sorry - I was wrong'. There is ease in saying "I made that mistake" But perhaps the greatest gift of self-acceptance is that having accepted yourself, warts and all, you find a tenderness in your heart for humanity, knowing it is perfectly OK to get it wrong and this creates a knock-on effect in your relationships.
It may never be possible to be free of judgementalism - we have to judge things in order to arrive at our opinion of them - but instead of reacting to words with righteous indignation and hurt, we might stop and consider the 'intention' behind them. More often than not, people close to you don't set out to hurt you. They just haven't expressed themselves tactfully. Even strangers don't necessarily set out to hurt you - they just react from the point of their own level of self-acceptance. So you can be more tolerant and understanding. You don't have unrealistic expectations of others because you know how darned hard it is to try and be God.
It becomes easier to deal with situations in which you feel that squirmy, embarrassed sense of having screwed up. You don't submerge it in masses of excuses or denials. You let it go, knowing that you're human and whatever the incident was, it was something that allowed you to learn and hopefully, to grow.
You put the whip away and stop beating yourself up. And in turn, you stop doing it to other people.
You accept that where you are in life has arisen mostly because of choices you made and it gives you a greater ability to make the right ones in the future. As the poem says 'So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers'
To me, striving towards self-acceptance will always be a work in progress but it's becoming an easier journey as time goes on.