I feel like this was ultimately the point of the love yourself movement. I don't know how you could convince yourself to love yourself without conditioning yourself to do it, too.

We very likely conditioned ourselves to hate ourselves, and it so clearly works, so absolutely we can use those same tools to teach ourselves to be kinder as well.

I spent a whole year writing a journal and that basically put it in writing that things weren’t quite as bad as I had thought. Even without doing it now my mind will go to better places automatically because I built up that reaction and understanding.