Learning to Love

I had always felt less than, not good enough, broken, and unlovable. I used anything I could to not feel: food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, and exercise. I kept people away with my negative attitude, as well as with my excess weight. I was even afraid to be open with my Higher Power. I prayed, but deep down I didn’t think God could truly like me, let alone love me.

I never let anyone in my life see me fully. I realized that I was afraid to let people really know me. I couldn’t understand how they would like me after they got to know me. It all came down to that I didn’t like myself much, let alone love myself. People in my life had told me that they loved and cared about me, but that made no sense to me. I was polite and said thank you, but in the back of my mind, I thought, How can they love me?

Two months ago, my mom, who I took care of, passed away, and suddenly the only person I needed to care for and love was myself. Until recently, I had been struggling with that, because although people had been caring and loving, it bothered me because I felt like I didn’t care about myself like they cared about me.

Last week, I was headed for an emotional binge and my sponsor kept telling me she was worried about me. I was getting angry with myself and angry with my Higher Power. I just didn’t love myself like I thought I should. However, talking to my sponsor about it was eye opening. I understood that I needed to let go of my expectations of what loving myself looked like. I realized that it’s not like you see in the movies. I wasn’t going to wake up every day just dying to look in the mirror and say, “Good morning, beautiful.” I wasn’t going to have this euphoric feeling about myself every minute of the day. I wasn’t going to be happy with myself 24/7. I had to let go and let God in. I had to accept who I was and where I was in life.

I didn’t know how to love myself until my sponsor calmly and lovingly stopped me in my tracks. She told me that everything I do in FA is an example of self-love. She said that every time I go to a meeting, stay abstinent, make an outreach call, do service, get on my knees, go to AWOL, and work the tools, I am performing acts of self-love. I sat there listening to her and a feeling overcame me. I realized that I do love myself, but it just didn’t look like I thought it should. I realized that I do love myself in my own way.

The next night I went to my committed meeting. I got up to share and something happened to me. I started to tell the people in the room about the conversation with my sponsor and how I came into this program to lose weight and got self-respect and self-love along with the weight loss. As I talked, I looked out over the room of more than 60 people and a warm feeling overcame me. I realized as I talked that I was making eye contact and looking straight at the people in the room. It dawned on me that all the times I have shared from the front of the room, I looked down or over people’s heads. I never looked directly at the people before. It was so awesome to see them and let them see me. I cannot put into words the feeling I felt at this time. I knew that I actually do love myself and doing this program is my daily act of self-love.