Loving ourselves is so deeply mixed in our history of not receiving love (or being seen and celebrated) for who we actually were.  Many of us got messages growing up about how unlovable we were (often unintentionally) in a variety of ways.   Add in years and years of trying to get our love needs from outside —wanting others to love us —most often unsuccessfully, the idea of loving ourselves is like gibberish, we don’t have a reference point. 

Here’s the funny (not funny) thing.