The good news is: We don’t have to like everything about ourselves in order to love ourselves. Ajahn Sumedho, the American who became a monk in Thailand, says that as you learn to love yourself, you don’t have to “pretend to feel approval towards your faults.” You just don’t want to “dwell in aversion to them.” Instead of getting caught up in judgment and self-hatred, which only feeds a negative state of mind, you can begin by shifting your focus to more positive ways of regarding yourself.
