Toxic Self-love
6 shadow signs to look out for
It’s hard to scroll through social media these days without coming across endless streams of “love yourself first” and “put yourself at the top of the priority list” posts. Don’t get me wrong, loving yourself is essential. But there’s a subtle, yet important difference between self-love and loving yourself. That difference has everything to do with a mechanism of the ego called self-positivity.
If you’ve ever wondered if there’s more to this self-love thing beyond what is promised in new-age and self-help circles, keep reading.
In a nutshell, self-positivity describes our ego’s incessant tendency to see itself in a positive light. When self-love is pursued through this egoic mechanism, it becomes toxic.
Here are 6 toxic behaviors that often masquerade as self-love, and their corresponding thought-terminating cliches promoted in new-age and wellness circles.
1. Harming others or being disrespectful & rude under the guise of 'speaking your truth.' E.g. "If you don’t love me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best."
2. Avoiding or shutting down conflict under the guise of 'personal boundaries.' E.g. "If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all."
3. Invalidating your own or others' experiences under the guise of 'positivity.' E.g. "I'm only surrounding myself with positivity."
4. Engaging in unhealthy, irresponsible behaviors under the guise of 'self-care.' E.g. "I'm just doing what feels right for me."
5. Refusing to change behaviors or traits that are harming yourself and others. E.g. "I love myself no matter what."
6. Prioritizing own needs, desires, and interests over the well-being of others. E.g. "I'm putting myself first no matter what."
These are behaviors we've probably all encountered at some point, maybe even in ourselves. But recognizing them is the first step toward genuine self-growth and well-being. That first step starts with contacting, understanding, and working with the shadow side of self-positivity.
The good news about self-positivity is that it’s a bias. The bad news about self-positivity is that it’s a bias. This is because our biases are not inherently good or bad; they are mechanisms of survival. It’s only our lack of awareness of it, when our ego hijacks our biases and distorts our worldview.
Is there such a thing as too much self-love? Short answer: yes. Long answer—it depends.
In my latest blog post, “The Spiritual Psychology of Self-love: the good, the bad, the ugly,” I delve into the “it depends” part and unpack the self-positivity bias, offering a grounded and refreshing way to look at self-love.
This post is a must-read for anyone who is craving a nuanced and practical perspective of this trendy, yet complex topic.
In a society grappling with collective trauma and hyper-individualism, we need a shift in perspective. Through this blog post, I demonstrate why self-love has contributed to our loneliness epidemic by turning self-love into a mere tool for survival. And let’s not forget the commercialization of self-love by the cult of self-help and wellness industries, which has only lead to more self-focus, more narcissism, and more social disconnection.
Join me on this journey to demystify the complexities of self-love and its impact on our individual and collective well-being—let’s explore and pave a new path forward.
Set 15-20 minutes aside to read my blog post.
Enjoy!
You laid all of this out so succinctly and beautifully, and I appreciate how much time and effort you have put into really getting to know this subject and it's larger context in society.
I really feel that you hit the nail on the head when you explored the connection between deeply LOW self esteem/lack of connection and toxic self love.
I believe this is EXACTLY what we are experiencing in our culture at large.
The hyper-individualism that is celebrated as our best of way of being, the fact that we are forced into a state of viewing everyone around us as competition, the fact that we are trained to hide, deny and reject who we really are so that we can 'fit in' to culture, the fact that we are trained to see ourselves purely through the lens of what we consume and produce (and thus lose so much of our actual humanity), the fact that spirituality has become another commodity that we use to try to 'be good enough/achieve a goal' so we can SHOW others and the fact that we are all deeply insecure because we lack true self awareness or the safety of a culture that allows us to be ourselves and find connection in that ALL leads to this place where we are now - where people are simultaneously totally self obsessed while having little to no actual self awareness or actual self esteem.
When we get on the REAL self love path, when we start to build true self worth via understanding that we ARE flawed, we are always going to make mistakes, that we aren't necessarily 'special' but we ARE unique and that there are ways of being that serve our humanity that work BETTER than what culture is offering us (learning to process emotions, learning to communicate clearly, learning to identify needs/wants/desires and how to meet those things healthfully) we are ALSO going to start to become aware of the greater SYSTEM.
We are going to naturally find that this path of connection to our OWN humanity leads to a path of connection to GREATER humanity - we will start to see the flaws in the logic of our culture AND we will naturally start to develop a sense of care and empathy for others as we realize it's the whole game of being individualistic that's harming us - it's not the route to freedom.
The true self love path takes us out of spiritual toxicity and into true humility and the desire to do what's right by all beings - and that's the actual gift of it.
It's not a checklist as you state - it's a connection to all the aspects of being human that the system is robbing us of - and this is going to be in large part a reconnection to community and care beyond what others can do for us.
This is what happens when we really love ourselves, because there truly is no separation in real reality.