We were having a discussion about something tangential to this. Someone was talking about the crazy amount of gun violence in the States, and asked, "Whatever happened to 'love thy neighbor as thyself'?" After a moment, I suggested the sad part is that many of these haters do... they have levels of self-hate just as high as the levels of hate they turn on others. So maybe, if they learned to love themselves more (really love themselves, not infatuation with some aspect of themselves) they'd love others more, too.

My two suggestions for increasing self-love are digging down and uncovering what makes you think you're not enough, or not deserving of love. (This one took a LOT of work, because most of those fears were so old and core that they'd been completely scarred over and were invisible.) The second is a trick our counselor showed us, when you discover one of the events in your life that led to one of these beliefs. Stop the memory, and ask what the younger you wants but isn't getting in that moment. Then put your current you into the memory, engage with younger you, and offer what you can to give younger you. It works great for memories where you felt invisible/unseen. Not so much for memories of a health crisis or other physical issue.