Self-realization is a concept that has become widely popular in the Western and that has great influence from some Eastern religions.
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Peter

I am slowly coming to believe that self-realization or self-actualization involves the one thing I still struggle with: truly loving myself and believing that I deserve love. And here I mean LOVE in its highest, most spiritual, universal form.

I can do this on a philosophical level - in other words, I can understand the concept of self-love, and how it is need before one can ever really love others - but in real life I still can't truly believe that I deserve such love yet, and am incapable of fully giving it to myself.

It's like there's this dark subconscious part of myself that doesn't think I deserve happiness - that inner critic that tells me I'm not good enough, I need to do more before I can earn the love I desire. I know I need to face this dark part of myself, to find its origins and conquer it, or perhaps integrate it,diffuse it, HEAL it. For me this process will also be my process of self-realization.