We are like an inverted bike tire.  Our focus is exernal, yet the meat of us, the essence of us, and our true persona lies on the inside.  When we finally stop running from ourselves in the myriad ways in which we do (alcohol, drugs, ***, shopping, TV, lying, for example), we come to see ourselves as frightened and lonely children that only wish to be loved.  We feel this lack tremendously and we do everything we can to escape the helplessness and rejection.  As children, it is difficult to source our love and security from ourselves.  We don't know HOW to love.  Learning how to love is precisely so; a skill-set and behavior that we emulate and grow to understand. Therefore, it is very hard to self-soothe as children because we lack the experience and the skill.  However, as adults, if we've learned from our broken hearts and dissapointments, most of us have learned how to comfort ourselves, even if that is with eleven shots of tequilla. What we hide from is finding the love we seek from within ourselves.  How do you DO that?  Well, there's the mirror exercise: look at yourself in the mirror naked and say repetitively, "I love myself", with the hopes that one grand day, you will.  Sorry folks, that's too simplistic for many.  I'm not suggesting a solution to the struggle of learning to love yourself, you just have to organically create it from trial and error. And eventually you will discover your unique way of truly being there for yourself.  What helps me is I imagine myself as a child comforting myself with a hug or a pat on the back while I am sad as an adult.  It's nothing major, but it really DOES help me!  We all can find our own ways.  If you find that you run from your pain and seek consummation within the love of your own heart, stop seeking outside of yourself for that wholeness, that completion.  Instead, give yourself the warmest, most caring hug you can imagine and see how you feel.