Being Rooted in Real Love

I love the poet Rumi. I think many of us who tend toward addiction also tend toward desperate, chaotic attempts at "love," which in the end are not true, real, pure love from the heart. Love that comes of pleading and coercing is not real love. We cannot truly love another until we learn to truly love ourselves. How can I love myself today?

Love

Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name?
Love has a hundred forms of pride and disdain,
and is gained by a hundred means of persuasion.
Since Love is loyal, it purchases one who is loyal:
it has no interest in a disloyal companion.
The human being resembles a tree; its root is a covenant with God:
that root must be cherished with all one's might.
A weak covenant is a rotten root, without grace or fruit.
Though the boughs and leaves of the date palm are green,
greenness brings no benefit if the root is corrupt.
If a branch is without green leaves, yet has a good root,
a hundred leaves will put forth their hands in the end.

--Rumi