Although self-love is a beautiful practice for bringing more love into our lives, our American obsession with self-reliance and rugged individualism can lead to unrealistic ideas that we need to become totally independent islands of love before we can love or be loved by others.
But there’s a dirty little secret about self-love: for many of us, the emotional wounds that prevent us from loving ourselves occurred in the context of relationships with other people, which means that receiving unconditional love from another person is often a necessary step in learning to fully love ourselves.
Embracing Love 