Self-Love Is A Scam When You Don't Know Yourself

Override Evolution to Reclaim Your True Self

Telling someone to love themselves is like planting flowers in concrete.

It’s a generic phrase that is used like a band-aid.

Band-aid becomes a to-do list you check off without any internal work.

It is hugging a stranger in the dark — you don’t know what you’re reaching for.

“We are not rational beings. We are emotional, instinctive creatures trying to survive in a world our brains were never built for.”
— Dan Ariely

Evolution doesn’t allow for self-awareness

Our brain was built for a simpler world.

A world where judgments were easy.

Danger or bad. Non-danger or good.

Compared to much of the natural world, we don’t have many defenses. We don’t have big teeth, sharp claws, or run fast. All we have is our brain.

Our greatest tool.

So our brains adapted to assess situations.

Our brain creates patterns to recognize situations that could harm us quickly. This is how humans have survived and adapted—neuroplasticity at its finest.

Danger patterns in our brain are based upon memory.

The memory of the situations that set us up for danger in the first place. These memories become a litmus test for other conditions. Our brain compares stories to our own experiences.

We can react without needing to conduct a thorough analysis.

This worked well when we needed a system like this.

However, we no longer need this system.

I am not saying that the world can't be dangerous, but our average life is pretty tame now. We are not constantly looking around corners for danger.

However, evolution hasn't caught up with modern life.

"The amygdala doesn’t know the difference between a tiger and a tense email."
– Rick Hanson

Our interactions are much more complicated.

There is a more information to process. More human interactions that go beyond survival mode. A global world we are a part of.

Not to mention our complicated relationships.

Here's exactly how this ancient wiring hijacked my marriage.

Turning 30 years of dinners into a battlefield over nothing.

30 years of food fights

It seemed that my husband and I couldn't agree on what to eat.

My spouse is particular about food. I like a variety of food and trying new things. He has the opposite characteristic and is very cautious about trying new foods and tastes.

Growing up, I got the starving children in China argument to clean my plate.

I learned to tolerate any quality of food.

And if someone is kind enough to make me a meal, I eat it with gratitude. Even if it isn’t what I would make for myself. I am not a picky eater.

These are years of food beliefs built up from stories of my childhood. Stories of scarcity and nothing was wasted. My mother bought what was cheap and on sale.

I also learned that, as females, we often put everyone else’s needs ahead of our own.

I never prepared meals with my preferences in mind. Meal planning was like hoping for a winning lottery ticket. Someone would request something I liked.

I had a whole story now of beliefs about food.

The evolutionary pattern was set.

My spouse and I had food differences. Meal times became a negotiation game. The battles started when I tried to get him to like the same meals I did.

This way I could make the things I liked while still putting his needs first.

It felt like my meal choices had to be put on hold while I took care of him. If we agreed on the same meals, it would be a win-win situation. After a few years, I was tired of making meals for him and wanted to start cooking for myself.

I had dietary changes I wanted to implement, but he disliked them.

I wanted to include a broader range of foods and different cooking methods. I bullied him to get mad and not want to eat. Then I could make the things I wanted.

Image by Leonardo AI

I got tired of the arguments.

I tried to find a balance for making meals.

Meal times became a negotiation. I would give him choices to include the things I liked. He never chose them. I made meals for me, him, and both of us.

It took a lot of time, and I wasn’t eating according to the new guidelines I wanted to.

Then I became the food general.

Every time he entered the kitchen, I would strengthen my self-defense.

After so many years, all I heard is criticism. Then he started naming dishes. I almost lost it. My favorite name was "horse puke casserole"—a nice pasta casserole he asks for often. (I hadn't picked up on the naming thing... he gives nicknames to things he likes.)

The latest was "goblin puke"—actually a delicious cream of asparagus soup. By now, I was so deep in my head that I didn't register what he was really telling me.

Food on the evolutionary scale

This is a pretty basic need to meet.

My belief in food scarcity replicated my mother’s. As long as there was food on the table, quality was subjective. It came and went.

The basic need I couldn’t fill was to take care of my food or take care of myself.

I was now searching everywhere for proof to support this claim.

My brain was lining up stories as evidence. Failure after failure to make good meals produced the stress factor. I couldn’t take care of myself.

Once this belief took hold, my confidence vanished.

I was shamed. A belief like this spreads to all facets of life.

I judged myself, and any slight failure brought more judgment than that. It was a cycle that started. It compounded itself. Pretty soon, I wasn’t good at anything.

This is the complication of evolutionary thinking.

More complex situations don’t fit into neat labels.

Our brain tries and keep the labels simple. There is no subtlety in the distinction of the labels. This is how thinking gets messed up.

It is not keeping one simple story to one label.

It becomes many stories to one label.

For example, instead of saying I don’t make a good hamburger, it lumped everything into the category of 'I don’t do anything right.'

It has become a part of my marriage now.

Evidence provided a self-fulfilling prophecy

It was astonishing how this affected all aspects of my life.

All I heard were criticisms and complaints everywhere not just at meal times. My trust eroded. I became super reactive. I was protecting myself based on false beliefs about food preparation.

We were not partners, we were roommates.

There were outside situations that influenced me.

There was childhood trauma besides the normal stressors we encounter day to day. It started overlapping. I couldn’t keep one situation separated from another.

It just became a jumbled mess inside my head.

All because I assumed my judgments were correct. Pretty soon, the labels became one label. I was a piece of shit.

Situational awareness overrides evolution

The turning point was that I was a walking wound.

I knew things had to change.

I started looking at past situations. I started small. I looked at things from a different angle. I stopped the judgments.

“Self-love is not a destination. It’s a daily practice of remembering who you are beneath the stories you’ve been told.”
— Brianna Wiest

I began to have mercy and compassion for myself.

Situations became experiences of wisdom.

After examining enough situations, labels began to fall apart. The lies I believed about myself changed to truths. I discovered qualities I never knew were there.

Bad qualities became quirks as I accepted them.

This helped my marriage.

I was able to reframe many of the situations in a different light. Instead of a roommate, I saw my best friend. The war in the kitchen changed.

I listened to the stories I had about meal time.

I watched his behavior.

I started seeing stories that were unlike anything I had expected. He would thank me for meals. He told me how good they were. Gratitude, I didn’t hear.

I was even more surprised when he made suggestions.

They were not criticisms.

They were just suggestions.

I started noticing that he didn’t care as much about dinner as I thought he did. I also saw that he wanted to help. He was also eager to see what I was doing. Like a kid who was really curious.

He enjoyed the time that we spent in the kitchen.

The truth was coming out.

During good times, we would talk about all kinds of things while I cooked. I could feel the situation healing. The other part that I realized is that he was just showing me parts of his personality.

Self-love is the result of knowing yourself

Dismantling the stories and labels was a result of knowing myself.

The more I saw, the more I liked.

By looking through the lens of situations, I was able to see myself under fire. I could appreciate how I acted and felt without judgment. I saw character strengths and quirks.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
— Rumi

I started to love myself.

I loved the unique individual I was.

I had to dig deep for the truth. This simplified my life. I have fewer beliefs now. I take each situation as it comes.

I dismantled the evolutionary thinking.

Loving myself is a natural conclusion.

Here is a checklist to help you get to know yourself:

1. Stop reacting - Notice when you're triggered

2. Start observing - Watch without judgment

3. Question interpretations - Ask 'What else could this mean?'

4. Seek truth - Look for evidence beyond your stories

As you begin to examine your beliefs and stories, you will gain a deeper understanding of yourself.

You will love what you find.