Seeing Yourself With Kind Eyes

I’ve crossed paths with many people who have gone to therapy hoping to unveil self-love. And it is due to these interactions that it has become immensely clear to me that, for the most part, talk therapy alone is seldom effective at shifting self-perception.

In this post, I want to focus on why insight and reframing often aren’t enough to cultivate genuine self-love and respect. Using an exercise, I then will talk through what I've noticed actually helps, and about why we must don our dancing shoes before the self-love soundtrack even starts playing.

So, Why Hasn’t It Worked So Far?

I've observed that many people move between therapists and modalities for years, even decades, in pursuit of uncovering a kinder lens of self-perception. Most, to no avail at all.

If you are one of these people who have years of self-criticism behind you, it is important to understand this from the very beginning:

Self-love is not lurking in the abyss, waiting for you to finally reveal it in its full form.

No matter what your brain tries to persuade you, the ability to see yourself with kind eyes is not waiting on the other side of self-enhancement. Not by finding the “perfect” body, by becoming productive enough, successful enough, or somehow otherwise acceptable enough. Neither is it sustainably created through a promotion at work, external validation, or endlessly proving your worth through achievement. And while cognitive reframes, mindfulness, and talk therapy can absolutely provide valuable awareness and understanding, sustainably positive self-perception is usually not found here either. This is because success, insight or rationale alone do not fundamentally shift how a person feels about themselves. For, the nervous system does not learn primarily through logic. It learns through repeated lived experiences of unconditional safety.

It is for this very reason that some people are able to intellectually understand that they deserve compassion whilst emotionally feeling deeply unsafe receiving it. Someone, perhaps you, may indeed recognise that their inner critic is harsh, irrational, or rooted in past experiences and yet still feel emotionally governed by shame, fear, self-disgust, or inadequacy. Shame (and trauma) are often state-based experiences, not purely cognitive ones. They live not only in thoughts, but in the body, in habits, in emotional reflexes, and in long-standing patterns of self-treatment.

In our journey to healing, therefore, it is less about accruing more insight or applying intellect. Instead, it is rooted in accumulative acts of self-support and reflected in how we treat ourselves regardless of whether we are succeeding or struggling. Self-love, respect or compassion is not a feeling reserved only for the version of us that has finally “earned” care by becoming something more. It is a relationship we build – brick by brick - through repeated acts of unconditional compassion, consistency, nourishment and protection.

And to you, who is reading this and feeling miles away from it, I sincerely promise that a kinder self-perception is budding within you right now. Your role is to be the gardener Improved self-perception is something you must nurture; it is a working practice, a training, a verb. And often, it’s one that must begin when it feels like (*) there is an absence of warmth toward yourself altogether.

*(I would contend the idea that there is no single seed of self-love currently present. If you’re reading this now, searching for ways to care for yourself differently, then perhaps some part of you already believes you are worth helping. Even if only very faintly.)

What Does Self-Love Even Look Like?

One of the saddest admittances that often arises in coaching sessions where the topic of self-love arises is ‘I don’t even know what loving myself would look like…’.

And in those moments, I know that it is not my role to offer over my definition of self-love, but instead to help that individual reconnect with their own understanding of care and emotional safety as best I can.

One of the most valuable ways I have identified to do this is by stepping outside of ourselves for a moment and asking a different question:

 “How would I want to be loved by someone else?”

An Exercise: What Is Love To Me?

If you have access to one, please do take out a pen and paper and spend a few moments imagining a romantic partner ‘of your dreams’. I know that this might seem silly, but please do entertain me. As best you can, please try to picture somebody who you imagine to make you feel sincerely loved, seen, emotionally safe and is kind, attentive, and caring.

Now, with them in mind, please do jot down your thoughts to the following questions:

On an ordinary day, how would you want to them to turn up for you?

For example:

• They keep their word

• They consider my preferences

• They ask if I need anything

• They speak to me with compassion

• They make me feel loved with kind micro-gestures

• They encourage me to look after myself, for example, prompting me to getting round to putting off that haircut I've been delaying

When you’re overwhelmed, sad, or struggling, how would you want them to respond?

For example:

• They sit with me instead of rushing my emotions away

• They comfort me physically (when desired)

• They ask what I need

• They bring me something comforting (tea, flowers, a favourite snack)

• They try to lift my mood with music or humour

• They invite me somewhere soothing or familiar that tends to help my mood shift

After a difficult day, what would feel supportive?

For example:

• They cook my favourite meal

• They remind me it’s okay to feel deeply

• They offer space without withdrawing love

• They speak gently to me

• They listen without trying to fix everything

• They help lighten my responsibilities

• They encourage rest and/or healthy distraction

What This Exercise Reveals

When you look over your answers, I wonder how you interpret them. Prior to recovery, I know that my own answers would have resulted in an immediate dismissal of my desires as exorbitant, “too much” and unreasonable.

However now, having been through my own journey, I can plainly see that these yearnings are not anywhere close to excessive. They are information; clues about the care, reassurance, consistency, and safety my nervous system longs for.

Thus, this exercise only doesn’t show us how we want to be loved and cared for by others.  It also provides a handy blueprint for how to begin loving ourselves.

Self-Love Is, Largely, How You Treat Yourself

As I mentioned earlier, seeing yourself with kind eyes is not an occurrence that happens by waiting until you feel worthy enough to unveil a new affirming gaze. It is built by behaving as though you already are, even when your inner world feels tremendously hostile. But exactly what this needs to look like will be different for all of us, and relate to the unique answers each of us provided above.

As you review your desires, can you begin to ponder how can you relate them to your own treatment of yourself?

For example:

If you long for reassurance when you’re struggling, will you learn to stay with yourself instead of self-abandoning?

If you crave comfort after a difficult day, will you offer yourself nourishing food, comfort and permission to rest?

If you want kindness from others, will you begin noticing the tone of your inner voice and make a concerted effort to reframe it?

If reliability matters to you in relationships, can you begin keeping promises to yourself?

When you climb into bed at night, can you try to treat yourself with the same softness and care you would offer someone you deeply loved? For example, by providing a small embrace or tucking yourself in?

If you miss a train, will you buy yourself the 'unnecessary' overpriced coffee to allow the time to pass a little more joyfully?

And truly, this willingness is the shift that changes everything for a great deal of people.

The realisation that we are the only person who is ever going to truly know our dynamic needs results in an understanding that we are the best person to consistently attend to ourselves. Though letting available love in from the external is essential, our actions towards ourselves are where the strongest roots of self-perception grow.

As you head into this journey, please be aware that whilst each moment will not feel to make a difference as it unfolds, each occasion will add accumulative value. Feeding yourself adequately, resting when you’re tired, speaking to yourself with compassion, meeting your needs without guilt, checking in with yourself emotionally and following through on promises to yourself – or at least TRYING to do so, sends the message to your brain and body: “I am someone worth caring for.” And gradually, this begins to feel true.

As you might notice I keep mentioning, this does indeed take time and willingness to try. Stable self-respect is about consistency, not intensity. So rather than grand gestures, it is repetitive, ordinary acts of care day in-day out.

Discomfort of Self Love

As confirmed by my own experience, this work can feel tremendously uncomfortable at first. If you’ve spent years appraising yourself, neglecting your needs, or only accepting care conditionally, self-compassion can initially feel false, indulgent, and as some people report, even threatening.

Ignoring needs, overriding exhaustion, criticising emotions, and tolerating harmful dynamics becomes the emotional “normal” for so many people during a struggling with an eating disorder. So naturally, changing those patterns can feel like an almighty jolt to the system.

Furthermore, this discomfort is not always resistance in the simple sense. For many people, receiving care genuinely feels unsafe. For some, care can trigger vulnerability, guilt, mistrust, and anxiety. If criticism, neglect, or conditional love were familiar experiences growing up, kindness can feel strangely foreign. And again, based on experience, what is unfamiliar often feels less safe than what is familiar. In this way, self-criticism and hostile self-treatment is sometimes clung to not necessarily because it feels good, but because it feels known.

When I first began this self-respect ‘training’ myself, I was constantly followed by the inner narrative insisting that I didn’t deserve care at all. And because of that, alongside the consistency this work requires, the practice rarely felt natural. If it didn’t feel artificial, it felt tremendously awkward.

If that is the case for you, or even imagining this kind of self-treatment makes you uneasy, that’s okay. We are not practising self-love because it feels natural immediately. We practise it because it aligns with the kind of relationship we want to build with ourselves: one in which we meet our own needs, respond with care rather than criticism, and continue showing up for ourselves consistently.

The final note to make about the discomfort of this all is a nod towards grief. It feels important to mention this because grief accompanies a self-compassion journey for many, many people.

Often, when people begin treating themselves with genuine care for the first time, alongside the relief that arrives is an unexpected sorrow.

The presence of grief can arise for many reasons. It might be grief for needs that went unmet for years, grief for how harshly you have treated yourself in the hope of becoming acceptable, grief for the amount of your life spent surviving rather than feeling safe enough to fully live… and so much more.

For some people, grief emerges when they realise how long they have been entirely disconnected from themselves. They begin listening to their exhaustion instead of overriding it, acknowledging emotions instead of suppressing them, or responding to pain with compassion rather than punishment. And suddenly, there is an awareness of just how absent those experiences once were. This recognition alone can ache a great deal.

There can also be grief for the younger versions of oneself who learned far too early that love needed to be earned through performance, compliance, perfection, conformity, achievement, or self-denial. Many people come face-to-face with the painful understanding that they adapted in whatever ways they could simply to feel worthy of acceptance, safety, or care. And while those adaptations may once have served a purpose, recognising the sincere cost of them can be deeply emotional.

I have had many conversations by now in the weeks after the commencement of a self-love journey. Almost always, I am told of a face-to-face meeting with honesty that has occurred about just how little softness was previously received (both from others and from themselves). This awareness can understandably bring with it such a wide emotional range, from sadness to anger to feeling let down.

There is very often grief for time as well. Grief for years spent at war with oneself. Years shaped by fear, hunger, self-monitoring, expectations, comparison, punishment, or emotional deprivation. Years spent trying to become “acceptable enough” before allowing rest, care, nourishment, or peace. Many people, including myself, find themself mourning the experiences they could not fully inhabit while consumed by survival.

And importantly, grief within self-love work is not a sign that something is going wrong. In many ways, it can be a sign that emotional numbness is beginning to wane. When we stop constantly criticising, controlling, distracting, or abandoning ourselves, we create enough internal safety for previously buried emotions to finally surface.

Naturally, this all can feel incredibly bitter-sweet. Sometimes it’s closer to plain overwhelming. But this grief is not evidence that you should turn away from yourself again. It is evidence that you are finally turning towards yourself more honestly. It only calls for letting more love in. With self and external support, the warmth and mourning that a self-compassion journey invites in can be allowed to exist together.

The Takeaway

As I have written throughout this blog, if you want to feel deep self compassion, respect and love, please don’t believe that you need to wait for the feeling to arrive first. These states are seeds waiting to be watered; by you living as though you are already worthy of care and consideration.

In Eating Disorder recovery, there is a fundamental decision we must make:

Am I willing to give myself an opportunity to try to change my self-perception?

The harsh truth is, those who are terrified but willing can heal.

Those who are closed to the prospect will not. 

The other core realisation must be that yes, whilst I may be able to survive without self-love, I do not have to.