It seems to me that physical self love and spiritual self love can be frequently at odds with each other. For example:
Seeking to store up treasures on earth would be physical self love, where as seeking to store up treasures in heaven would be spiritual self love.
Likewise, submitting to desires of the flesh could be physical self love where as resisting those same desires would be spiritual self love.

A view of self which is in line with Frank Sinatra’s “my way” in which my skills talents and abilities are the result of my own work and ultimately for my own benefit would be physical self. love. Whereas, acknowledging that one has talents, gifts and abilities and that these are from God to be used for the benefit of the church, others and to glorify Him, would be spiritual self love.

To neglect our bodies and minds because of physical / mental laziness would be submitting to the fleshy desire for laziness and therefore physical self love.

To look after the body and develop thinking so as to better serve God , may, to some, have the appearance of physical self love but would be spiritual self love.

To consider love as ‘my gift to give to myself and others as I see fit’ is clearly wrong.

To consider love as ‘God’s gift to me, to flow through me and from me to others and back to Him’ is clearly right.

A self love that puts me at the centre, as the most important etc. is a sinful love.

An attitude that recognises that despite my sinfulness, and because of the cross, God sees good in me and loves me, and that therefore I should respect that there is something to be loved in me; a knowledge that gives me the confidence to try and love others, even those whom I see as utterly sinful, in the same way, must be right.

The converse (often seen in Christian circles I suggest) is a lack of confidence based on a spiritual false humility, or low spiritual self worth; an attitude of ‘I am an unworthy sinner unable or unfit to do God’s work’ rather than a ” even though I am an unworthy sinner, because of God’s grace, there is much in me that I can use to glorify Him” attitude.

Because the inward curvature of self love is the essence of sin it is a topic that needs careful handling, but rather than deny self love should we not seek to refocus and redefine it?

This has not been my experience; or of people when I get to know them well. Naturally we all feed ourselves, clean ourselves, clothe ourselves, exercise ourselves and so on; so at a superficial level love ourselves. But most have some self doubt, guilt, despair … those who “love” themselves have been proud, arrogant, self-seeking, dogmatic, always right / never wrong and so on.

Did Jesus imply that we all love ourselves in the right way?

Kierkegaard in “Works of Love” explores this text in great detail and with some insight.

Having written of ‘loving thy neighbour’ and telling us that Love does no harm to its neighbour he then turns his attention to ‘self’.

We see the separation and the turning the focus from neighbour to self at the beginning of 13:11 “Besides this…” Having given examples of not offending against the neighbour in v9 he gives examples of not offending against ‘self’ in v13. (clearly in all cases we offend against God but what is in sight here is the human ‘victim’ of our offending) Is Paul not here saying “love does no harm to its neighbour – and love does no harm to itself”

In many respect this is a mirror of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees “these you ought to have done without neglecting the others” (Matt 23:23) The pharisees loving their own self righteousness but neglecting the love of others. Therefore we should love our neighbour without neglecting neglect loving ourself.

I see Paul saying here that one of the ways that we offer our bodies as living sacrifices is to love ourselves as we love our neighbours,i.e. by not offending against ourselves in the same manner that we should not offend against them.

This is not a contradiction of the concept of self love being the essence of sin. But as in most, if not all, things Biblical there is a tension or balance to be struck. Humility is after all, not thinking less of your self, but thinking of yourself less.

It is possible to focus so much on loving our neighbour that we neglect ourselves and slip into temptation’s trap. We should do the former without neglecting the latter. Paul is telling the Romans – who were experiencing some levels of persecution because of their faith, to wake up from their sleep. That they are under attack , not least by their own desires of the flesh. Of course it could be argued that submitting to the desires of the flesh is an egregious act of self love, and on a physical level that would be right, but on a spiritual level it is offending against oneself.

Surely a danger in teaching that there is no place for self love can lead to the In ascetic approach being adopted by some in Ephesus which Paul advises against in I Timothy 4.