Recently, my attention was drawn to a couple videos by a young Christian woman named Allie on CRTV talking about self-love and self-care… and how they are un-Biblical. My husband wanted to get my opinion on these videos as I am a Christian who is also a mental health professional and often teaches these concepts to clients.
These videos became a big topic of conversation in our home as we both work with vulnerable populations where teaching self-love and self-care brings about huge changes in the lives of those we work with. We also witness how closed-minded and ill-informed Christian rhetoric, such as the rhetoric in these videos, can cause havoc on the lives of those we work with. Rhetoric like this demonstrates a lack of insight and understanding to these concepts; as well as a lack of insight and understanding to the lives and struggles of those at risk populations who need self-love and self-care most. It is more damaging than helpful for those who are suffering.
What comes out of such rhetoric is tone-deaf and judgmental with a sugar-coated cure-all of “Jesus is the answer” with no real promise of solutions to genuine pain and suffering. When those we work with are bombarded with this type of rhetoric, they are left feeling hollow, dejected, and like failures because no matter how hard they try, that sugar-coated promise of “all you need is Jesus” is not enough. The end result is a falling out of faith or even complete rejection of a faith that could have had so much to offer in terms of healing when these concepts are brought to work together with faith rather than made to fight against it. This is not a place where it is “either, or” but rather “both, and” as the concepts of self-care and self-love are not incongruent with Christian faith. One does not automatically disqualify the validity of the other.
Another blog on a similar topic came to our attention while discussing the previously mentioned videos. This blog, “Pass the Avocado Toast: The Limits of Self-Care” by Amanda Wortham, presents a far more balanced view on the concepts of self-care and self-love with out dismissing them whole-heartedly, while simultaneously pointing out a growing trend of using these concepts to justify self-centered, self-indulgent, and self-absorbed behaviour.
Ms Wortham, like Allie, still seems to have a misunderstanding of what self-love and self-care actually means as she is critical of how they are used, all the while missing the boat on the reasons why it is important to practice self-care and self-love and how and when to practice them. Both Allie’s videos and Amanda’s blog are a push back against the concepts of self-care and self-love based purely on a misunderstanding of what these two things really mean. The blogger, Amanda, is pushing back against the current trend of misusing these concepts as a shallow justification for self-centered, self-indulgent, and self-absorbed behaviour, where as Allie’s videos are more a knee-jerk reaction to the use of the word “self” in these terms as many Christian circles pathologically shun any concept revolving around self. The core idea behind the knee-jerk reaction is that everything is about Jesus and we as individuals are unimportant and unworthy.
So what does self-love and self-care really mean, and how do we practice it, and when do we apply it? Self-love and self-care, while being two different things, go hand in hand. A blog article written in Psychology Today by Deborah Khoshaba, Psy.D., called “A Seven-Step Prescription for Self-Love” clearly outlines what is self-love and the importance of practicing it along with how to practice it. I will not go into breaking it down here as her article is on point on this topic. Her blog clearly demonstrates how self-care is a part of self-love because when you love yourself, you are more inclined to also take care of yourself. As Deborah points out, self-love is not self-gratification, but rather it is something that grows from developing our physical, psychological, and spiritual growth.
Loving yourself is not self-serving as Allie claims in her videos, nor is it a justification for self-indulgent behaviour as Amanda writes in her blog. When following what self-love really is about, you learn that it is the foundation of building self-esteem and self-respect. This concept is crucial in the healing of those who have been victimized and abused, where they have had every shred of dignity stripped from them and have been left to feel worthless and unlovable. Self-love is a perfect cocktail of self-esteem, self-respect, and self-care that helps a vulnerable person assert themselves, stand up for themselves, choose healthy relationships and set healthy boundaries within those relationships, and fight against further victimization so that they can finally heal from the pain and suffering inflicted on their lives.
Without self-love, self-esteem, and self-respect a person’s life is chaotic, disorganized, and rife with pain and suffering. With out these things, people are more prone to suffer from depression, anxiety, suicide (ideation), self-harming, and addictions. Self-care likewise, is a far cry from self-indulgence and self-centeredness. Self-care is work. HARD work. It is getting up and taking care of basic necessities and going through the motions of life when you honestly can’t cope. It includes taking care of physical needs like eating regularly, getting enough sleep, basic hygiene; practical needs such as getting groceries, running errands, going to work or school, etc; and emotional/psychological needs like talking to someone, hanging out with friends, going to therapy, going on vacation, etc. It is what mentally healthy people do everyday without giving it a second thought because it comes naturally to them, and with as little effort as breathing. For mentally healthy people, it is a daily practice that reduces stress and anxiety and wards off mental illnesses.
In vulnerable populations, self-care isn’t common sense, and often difficult to achieve even with the smallest tasks. Self-care then becomes about re-stabilizing someone who has become completely unable to function in life due to mental illness or trauma. Reminding them to do these basic things improves their ability to cope, function, and practice personal agency over their lives. It helps them to regain control over their lives rather than live in the dysfunction of their struggles. Self-love gives them the confidence to persevere in difficulty.
Self-love and self-care are not incongruent with a person’s faith or belief in God, and certainly not taught in place of turning to faith. Faith and spirituality play a significant role in the healing process as they can be the foundation of self-love. When these concepts are aligned with faith and not pitted against it, faith informs these practices and transforms them through the lens of finding your worth in God’s eyes. It becomes inclusive, not only to others outside of yourself, but also inclusive to you in all your brokenness. the Bible gives many examples of what love is, what God’s love is, and how to love.
Mark 12:31 tells us to “love your neighbour as yourself”. But what if you don’t love yourself? What if you have been so torn down, abused and stripped of all dignity that you are unable to see your own worth or value as a human being? Love, compassion, or even empathy for another person could not possibly exist in such conditions. In such circumstances, we will either hold others above us so much to the point where we allow them to abuse us, or we would assume that everyone else is as terrible as we are, and would find ourselves being the abusers. To genuinely love your neighbour requires knowing how to love yourself. When you have high self-esteem, and self-respect, you demand that you be treated well, and then you expand that expectation to those around you. This is empathy and compassion that grows from being able to connect to another’s experience. To do this requires being able to value someone else’s worth, but that starts with knowing your own worth as a human being and extending that beyond yourself.
My favourite passage in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13, The famous “Love Chapter”. This is the code that I personally live my life by as I see that God is love, but his love is not just about worshiping him, or loving others, it is also in loving who you are and were made to be. Imagine what it means when we apply this scripture to the principles of self-love. It is a dynamic passage that promotes healing. When we take a closer look at verses 4-7, it becomes a road-map for personal healing. These verses tell us to be patient and kind to ourselves rather than internalize criticism, to let go of our envy of what others have and to not believe that we are beneath them for for not measuring up. These verses tell us to not strive for perfection which is a standard we can never meet. It teaches us that we are not alone in our suffering and that there are others who understand our experiences and that by reaching out to them we won’t feel so alone. These verses teach us to forgive, not just to forgive others, but more importantly to forgive ourselves for all our faults, failures, and short-comings. These verses tell us to search out truth, and that includes the truth about who we are, that we are not worthless and unworthy. These verses teach us to defend ourselves, to protect ourselves, trust ourselves, and to persevere in hard times because we are worth it.
Self-love and self-care are not incongruent with the Bible because their principles begin in the Bible. The most common mantra for self-love is, “you can’t love others until you learn to love yourself” that is a paraphrase of Mark 12:31 mentioned earlier. Sure there are those who will twist things to serve their own purposes and justify self-centeredness, but don’t assume that everyone practicing self-care is doing so, they could simply be on a journey of learning how to love themselves so that they can learn how to love others. By using the concepts of self-love and self-care along with faith, those who are suffering are given a starting point in the healing journey and hope that things will be better in their future. It becomes more than rhetoric and is a perfect union of God’s love, faith, and a how to guide in putting it into practice.
My Head Inside Out 