When people talk about self-love, they often confuse it with ego boosts: your looks, your job title, your accomplishments, your intelligence, your talents. That stuff? That’s maybe 2% of the equation. Real self-love, the kind that lasts and heals, is unconditional. It has nothing to do with your résumé or how many compliments you got today. It’s the love of self with no terms attached.
I’m not going to pretend I have this all figured out. In fact, repairing my self-esteem has become the central theme of my recovery work. One of the best ways I build self-esteem is by doing things I can be genuinely proud of: like making sure my children don’t inherit my trauma, or practicing non-violence, or helping someone who needs it. Small, clear acts of goodness. Service. Integrity. That’s the real medicine.
The truth is, self-esteem, just like our mood, fluctuates wildly throughout the day. It responds to where we put our focus and what we allow into our nervous system. When I sit quietly in nature and fully drop into that parasympathetic, relaxed state... something happens. Even with my wounded inner child still hobbling along behind me, my self-esteem soars. Not because I earned it, just because I remembered to be still.
I can compare that experience to how I felt as a child: fragmented, vulnerable, insecure, confused, broken, nonexistent at times, and other moments, overinflated and grandiose. In hindsight, my self-esteem was erratic and unstable, always reacting to whatever was happening around me.
These days, I have a different vision of what healthy self-esteem should feel like. It’s like a diesel engine, it just works. Reliable. Steady. Humble. I know that when I fall into an anxious state, I’ve lost connection to that engine. I can’t always tell what part is missing, but I can feel the drop.
Honestly, writing a short book on self-esteem might be one of the most useful things I could ever do. Because maybe recovery isn’t just about quitting a behavior, it’s about repairing and returning to a healthy sense of self-worth. Maybe recovery is just another word for that.. We had to react in the same way the same way an animal would react to instinctive behaviors that are programmed within.