Walter
Trobisch:
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Do I Love Myself?
A young woman entered our hotel room. It was the
day after my wife and I had given a lecture at a university in northern
Europe. The hotel room was the only place available for counseling. She was a beautiful Scandinavian woman. Long blond
hair fell over her shoulders. Gracefully, she sat down in the armchair
offered to her and looked at us with deep and vivid blue eyes. Her long
arms allowed her to fold her hands over her knees. We noticed her fine,
slender fingers, and we sensed in her a tender, precious personality. “I Am a Beautiful Woman”
As we discussed her problems, we returned again
and again to one issue which seemed to be at the root of all the others.
It was a problem we least expected when she entered the room: She could
not love herself. In fact, she hated herself to such a degree that she was
only one step away from putting an end to her life. Pointing out her obvious gifts—her success as a
student, the favorable impression she had made upon us when first meeting
her—seemed to be of no avail. She refused to acknowledge one good thing
about herself. She was afraid that any self-appreciation would give in to
the temptation of pride, and she believed that God would reject those who
are proud. She had grown up in a tight-laced religious family and had
learned that self-deprecation was Christian, and self-reproach the only
way to find acceptance by God. We asked her to stand up and take a look at herself
in the mirror. She turned her head away. With gentle force I held her head
so that she had to look into her own eyes. She cringed as if she were
experiencing physical pain. It took a long time before she was able to whisper,
though without conviction, the sentence I asked her to repeat, “I am a
beautiful woman.” Loving Ourselves
It is an established fact that we are not born
with the ability to love ourselves. The German psychotherapist Dr. Guido Groeger
summarizes the findings of modern psychology by saying, The opinion seems to be widespread that everyone
loves him- or herself, and that all that is necessary is to remind people
constantly to love others. The psychologist has to underline the fact that
there is in humans no inborn self-love. Self-love is either acquired or it
is nonexistent. The one who does not acquire it or who acquires it
insufficiently either cannot love others at all or love them only
unsatisfactorily. The same is also true for that person’s relationship
to God. It is true that the foundation for this ability to
accept oneself is laid in early childhood. But it is also true that an
adult needs the assurance of being affirmed and accepted—sometimes to a
greater and sometimes to a lesser degree, depending upon the different
situations of his or her life. Because this affirmation is often
withheld—especially in Christian circles—a type of Christian is
created who loves out of duty and who in this way tortures not only
others, but also himself. Often the choice of a profession is motivated by
such a deficiency of love. One hopes to satisfy one’s own needs by
satisfying the needs of others. But this is a miscalculation.[i]
The Catholic philosopher, Romano Guardini, writes in
his essay, “The Acceptance of Oneself,” in a similar way. The act of self-acceptance is the root of all
things. I must agree to be the person who I am. Agree to the
qualifications which I have. Agree to live within my limits. … The
clarity and the courageousness of this acceptance is the foundation of all
existence.[ii] If both these statements are true, that on the one
hand self-acceptance is the foundation of all existence, and on the other
hand no one is born with the ability to accept and love oneself, we stand
before a tremendous challenge, and we have to ask ourselves these
questions: Have I fully and completely accepted myself? Have I accepted my gifts? My limits? My spiritual, my
emotional, my physical dangers? Have I accepted my lot in life? My gender? My
sexuality? My age? Do I say yes to my marriage? My children? My parents?
To being single? Do I say yes to my economic situation? My state of
health? The way I look? In short, do I love myself? Psychologists and counselors have commonly begun to
replace the word love with the word acceptance. I regard
this as helpful since the word love is often abused and thus has
become trite and meaningless. The word acceptance avoids both the
misunderstood romantic and sentimental notion of love as well as viewing
it as something merely sexual. To love means, first of all, to accept the
other as he or she really is. And this was precisely one of the problems of our
student visitor in that hotel room. She could not get along with anyone,
not her fellow students, nor her professors, not even her neighbors, or
her own family. She was consumed by hostility and criticism. When we asked her for an explanation she blamed it
all on herself. She said she loved herself too much, thought only of
herself and was therefore an egotist. That’s why she could not accept
and really love others. We had to contradict her. We claimed just the
opposite was true. The reason it was difficult for her to love others was
because she did not love herself enough. It is impossible for us to accept
the other person as he or she really is if we have not accepted ourselves
as we really are. [i] Dr. Guido Gröger, unpublished letter to Walter Trobisch, 1967. [ii]
Romano Guardini, Die Annahme seiner selbst. Den
Menschen erkennt nur, wer von Gott weiß (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald
Verlag, 1993) 5th ed.
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