Over the past few decades, deaths of despair have climbed steadily in the United States. We seem to be a culture progressing into deeper and broader levels of hopelessness and personal anguish.

Many have pointed out how more and more people seem to hold an intense self-hatred also, the most likely cause of these increasing deaths. Naturally, it is assumed that the cure would be more self-love. More self-affirmation. More “me time.” But this assumes that self-hatred and self-love are mutually exclusive, and that they cannot exist in the same body.

In my experience, that assumption could not be further from the truth. Indeed, I have seen in my own life how the times of overabundant “self-love” have fueled the self-hatred that followed. Urging people to pursue more self-love might be like seeing someone who is drowning and bringing them a helpful glass of water.

In my experience, love is the cure to despair, but not self-love, divine love. I don’t need to find myself, I need to find Him. I don’t need to give myself what I want, I need to give myself what He wants for me. The true self-love that actually drives out self-hatred is only found in the love that we cultivate with our Creator.