Phi 2: 3 Do not do anything out of selfishness or vanity; rather, with humility consider others as superior to yourselves.
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You love yourself more than anything, and that prevents you from growing, you love yourself above God, over your neighbor, which prevents you from loving them and serving them. and true love is not like that. We need to confront ourselves by reflecting on when we love God.
We love each other in an excessive way, this love is not love, it is attachment. We live attached to what we believe is what we are, but the spiritual man must discover that you are not what you think, but what you are inside.
Psychology has addressed this issue, trying to help those who perceive themselves in an abnormal way, trying to recover love in oneself when they think they are lost. But in reality no one loves himself, if they were loved they would not seek to hurt themselves, they would not make decisions that subjugate them to pain and their own destruction, if they loved they would treat others as they want to be treated. But no, as there is no self-love but attachment, some are submerged in depression attached to suffering and pain, which in the end for some becomes pleasant. Others only seek to take pleasure in everything and with this they believe that they love each other but not, again it becomes evident again the little true love, and the substitution of this for the desire and the pleasure that sooner or later consume it.
Many do not turn to God because of the delight they enjoy in their sin, this prevents them from seeing how wrong they are and how they are slaves to their own desires that consume them. And others do not grow because they find it hard to abandon many of their carnal desires that prevent them from growing.
Our carnal nature prevents us from really knowing love, it keeps us distracted in the pleasure of the flesh, apart from all divine consolation. Attached to everything earthly we believe we love ourselves, but it is a deception of the mind, it holds us captive believing that while we replace what we desire we will be well, and thus we are held captive and blind.
Love for ourselves disguises an excessive attachment, which makes us victims of our own choices. We all want to be respected and loved by all, but this yearning contains a greater esteem for ourselves, which limits us to love our neighbor.
Only true love can see with humility its own being and recognize as superior someone different from itself, let's see what the scriptures say about the true intention of the heart of man:
Luke 16:15 He said to them, "You make yourselves good to people, but God knows your hearts." Realize that what people hold in great esteem is detestable before God.
If we want to grow and mature we must humbly acknowledge our sin, our need for adulation, our weakness towards the delights and the pride that consumes us, only then we can break the outer man and stop living a life in self-satisfaction to truly consecrate ourselves to God .
What hinders us from growing is this shameful attachment to our carnal nature with which we should be struggling more often to see fruit in our spiritual life.
A man who loves himself too much can not love God more than everything. His need to self-pity himself will prevent him from seeking God, recognizing him and seeing his neighbor as an elder.
Humility is the way of the believer. The true believer is not afraid to be humiliated because he recognizes himself as a pilgrim, our humiliation is the exaltation of God.
Let us return to true love, to the one who surrenders, the one who waits and who does not stop being always, we reject our own opinion and that of others to recognize that we are failing, that it prevents us from growing, turning to God and loving him above all .
Let us pray, Lord, we recognize that we have an attachment that we call love that is excessive, we do not see it, but we notice it, help us so that we can abandon all ego, self-exaltation, self-satisfaction and self-justification to start trusting in you and turn with all our heart, Amen.