God wants us to love ourselves

I think one of the  hardest things for us to do as mortals is to love ourselves. If you think about it, you are the only one who knows all of your faults, you know everything you do wrong on a regular basis, you see all of your mistakes, and you see all of your bad qualities. Because of this, it is easy to have your thoughts overwhelmed by negativity aimed squarely at yourself. I know I struggle with this. One of the things I struggle with the most is my weight. Last night, I even had a dream that I had some guy belittling me because I was heavy, and basically telling me how worthless I was  because of it. When I woke up; I realized something: My dreams are one of the few places where I am completely alone (unless God is working through my dreams to reveal something to me). This dream was clearly not that type of dream. I was thinking about it, and the thing that bothered me the most is that the things that random strong, muscular, thin guy in my dream was saying to me were things I say to myself inside my mind. I don't actively belittle myself on a regular basis, but I certainly passively do.
Based on several scriptures, as well as several General Conference talks; this is not OK. Elder Wirthlin gave a talk during the October 2001 General Conference where he talked about working to improve yourself, while at the same time ensuring that you accept where you are. Elder Scott gave another one a few years later where he declared that we need to love the bodies we are in; if we have something we want to change and can for health reasons, that is OK; but anything else is inappropriate. We are temples to the Holy Spirit of God; we shouldn't be belittling ourselves, even mentally. This goes for everything we can belittle ourselves for, from thoughts, actions, features, even to perceptions. We need to love ourselves.
It is extremely hard to do this, and I am far from mastering this, but I am working on it.

I think one of the reasons we need to love ourselves is because God commands us to love everyone. He does not say "Love everyone... but if you hate yourself; that is juust fine, just make sure you show everyone else how much you like them."  Also, in Doctrine and Covenants section 19, Christ talks about the fact that He suffered and died for us. We are told just how valuable our souls are; that it was worth having a God come down and sacrifice Himself for us. These are not small things.

I invite everyone to try to be a little kinder to yourself. Show yourself the same care and understanding you extend to others. Forgive yourself. Tell yourself you are handsome, beautiful, loved, kind, I don't care. But most of all... tell yourself "I love you." It is surprisingly hard to say, and harder even to believe. But try anyway. God loves you, you'd be in good company if you love yourself. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.