It isn’t. Not in the way it’s portrayed.

We constantly hear: “love yourself first”. Hell, no! Enough of that bs. I love everyone, and so what?! I love others a lot! and so what? I tend to love those who don’t know how to love, and so what?! I pour myself onto others, and so what?! Isn’t that a blessing, a strength? I have ENOUGH FOR ME AND FOR THE WHOLE PLANET. So what?! Do I look to you like I am not loving myself because I put too much care onto something/someone else? You’re then deluded by perception. You can’t ‘see’ beyond. Can you not think for a second that I overflow with actual love and so I am able to withstand the shittiest shit? Do I suffer? Perhaps, that’s up to me, I can deal with it. But do you not suffer ‘practising’ your self-love with journals and affirmations while you isolate yourself from everyone? While you ‘hide’?
Those who run away from pain do not have enough love inside.
Love requires courage. To face it all.
All.
When you know that you are Love, you don’t need to think of it. You just are it.
Love spreads, it is not to be kept. It is to be given and taken. And, in the process, it is meant to hurt, because if it doesn’t take from someone, it’s not true. If it doesn’t give, it’s not true. If it doesn’t follow a movement, it is not true. Therefore it gives and takes, it lifts you up as if you had wings and it crushes you in excruciating pain.
If you think that ‘practising’ Self-Love (whatever that means) is going to sort things out, you’ve been conned.
Love is everything there is.
The answer is to just be.