Self Love
Do you love yourself? Exactly as you are right now? In the body that’s yours? Self love does not come easily to many of us, and yet it’s something that we yearn for.
If there’s one thing that leads to happiness in life, it is true, abiding, and unconditional self love. The trick is figuring out how to love yourself if it isn’t just happening naturally. And in our culture there is a lot working against us when it comes to loving ourselves. Capitalism needs consumers who are unhappy and dissatisfied with various aspects of ourselves and our lives. There are lots of messages, overt and covert, telling us that we are not ok just as we are. We’re too fat or too scrawny, breasts too small or too large, skin too dark or too light, mood too low, nerves too fried, productivity too low. With so many things wrong with us, how can we love ourselves as is?
In addition to the larger culture that moves all of us, the circumstances of your childhood have an impact on how easy or difficult it is to access true unconditional self love. If you grew up with parents who surrounded you with unconditional love, it is easier (though still not necessarily easy) to access self love as an adult. And if you grew up with inconsistent, conditional, or withholding love, it is generally more difficult (though not impossible) to fully love yourself as an adult.
The extent to which we love ourselves impacts every part of our lives. It shows up for me professionally because low self esteem and body image issues get in the way of sexual pleasure and the ability to have really good sex. People commonly have a hard time getting out of their heads and into their bodies. Lots of different things go on in a busy mind that doesn’t want to shut down and shift into sexy mode. Some things don’t have much to do with sex; for example, thinking about work, household chores, logistics, or that difficult conversation you had yesterday or need to have tomorrow.
Other thoughts that impede embodied presence during sex do relate directly to the sexual experience you’re having. One of those is worry about how your body looks to your partner. If you’re worried about how big your belly is or how flat your butt is or any other number of ways that you feel the shape of your body doesn’t measure up to some ideal, it makes it much more difficult for you to let go and be present for pleasure. This goes for worry about genitals as well. Many people worry about the size or shape of their penis or labia in particular, though self consciousness about genitals can take lots of forms.
Another common thought that gets in the way of experiencing pleasure is worry about sexual performance, most often tied to orgasm. Some people worry about their ability to please their partner sexually, whether that has to do with skill level, hardness or longevity of erection, or natural lubrication. Other folks tend to worry more about their own ability to reach orgasm without taking “too much” time or effort.
All of these thoughts about how our bodies or our sexual performance are inadequate get in the way of our ability to fully enjoy the pleasure of a sexual encounter. Truly loving your body just as it is, particularly for its ability to bring you pleasure, results in better and more pleasurable sex. There are feedback loops going on here. If you hate your body, then sex isn’t good, which further disconnects you from your body. And if you love your body, then great sex is possible, which reinforces how much you love your body. If you’re currently in a negative feedback loop with your body image and your ability to experience sexual pleasure, and you want to shift to a positive feedback loop, you have two inflection points to focus on: 1. Loving your body as it is, and 2. Focusing your attention on pleasure. One of these may be more fruitful than the other for you, but putting some energy toward both will be generative.
I have my own story about finding my way to unconditional and all-encompassing self love. In my teens and twenties I struggled to truly love myself. I was self conscious about my body, and although I could appear confident, I harbored a secret belief that I was not enough. In this state, I was very susceptible to flattery, especially by men, and I easily focused on what men wanted from me, losing touch with my own pleasure as well as what I wanted for my own life.
My journey to self love was embodied. It started with tuning into the felt experience of my body through hatha yoga. I discovered festivals where people dance and drum all night long around fires. Clothing in these spaces was optional, so I became more comfortable with nudity and saw a wide range of bodies that helped break down my assumptions about what constitutes a beautiful body. I also saw all these different bodies in motion, erotic energy flowing through them as they danced. I loved the feeling of dancing, letting my body move to the beat of the drums in ways that felt delicious. I tested the limits of my body to express my spirit and experience pleasure through dance.
I have a distinct memory of having danced all night, and around dawn, I was still dancing, quite tired, and I felt overcome with self love. I was holding my own body as I continued dancing, one hand on my head and the other on my belly. With tears streaming down my face, I said to some other dancers “I am so in love with myself.” That was a pivotal moment for me in my own journey of self love. It came through embodied action, following the lead of my body and my spirit, which quieted the analytical self-sabotaging mind.
Has anyone ever told you that you have to love yourself before someone else can love you? I don’t think that’s true, although I do think that love of self and love of others tend to go hand-in-hand. When you truly love yourself, you are in the best position to create a healthy and balanced partnership with another person who also truly loves themself. However, we can grow love for ourselves and others within the context of relationship. Surrounding yourself with people who truly see you and love you and make you feel good about yourself is absolutely supportive in cultivating your own love for yourself. It’s also true that having people in your life who cut you down or mistreat you makes it more difficult for you to grow love for yourself. Loving other people well and choosing to surround yourself with people who love you well are important practices on a self love journey.
Another essential practice in cultivating embodied self love is to focus on sensation in your body in the present moment. How your body feels is so much more important than what your body looks like. Thoughts that take you out of the present moment sabotage self love. Move your body and touch yourself in ways that feel delicious. Massage your own shoulders, one at a time, to loosen tight muscles. Stretch. Tighten muscles and feel how they bear your weight, pushing you away from the floor. Release muscles and feel how you can let your body relax. Massage your scalp, your feet, your genitals… whatever feels yummy.
When having sex, whether solo or with a partner, you can make the experience its own meditation practice by repeatedly returning your attention to the sensation in your body. Self pleasure is empowering, both in solo and partnered sex. It sends the message that you deserve pleasure. You are worthy. Caress your body tenderly. Touch your erogenous zones in ways that feel good to you. Take your time. There’s no goal here apart from feeling as much pleasure as possible. Your pleasure is a gift to yourself and to anyone you choose to share it with. When you’re able to take that in and truly believe it, your experience of pleasure expands.
Here’s the tricky thing about self love: Loving yourself includes both giving and receiving love. You’re simultaneously loving yourself and being loved by yourself. When you’re struggling to love yourself, can you discern whether it’s more difficult to give the love or more difficult to receive it? Someone once gave me the advice to “be the one who loves.” That felt more doable to me because I know how to love others. Directing my own love toward myself felt possible, and although I couldn’t always feel it at first, consistently sending love my way was a healing practice. Separately, you can also work on receiving love, from others as well as from yourself. Love is healing, relaxing, empowering, enlivening. There can never be too much, and in love’s eyes, you are always enough. May you love well, and may you feel the love from others and especially from yourself.
©️2025 Sarah Goodrich, Goodrich Sexuality Education, LLC. All rights reserved.
