The speaker is caught between two kinds of love: the love they give to someone else, and the love they can't seem to give themselves. The opening, with the quoted "love yourself," sounds like advice the speaker has heard many times. They agree it's "so easy to say / yet so hard to do," and the plain wording makes the frustration feel real.
The ache comes in the last lines. The speaker wishes they loved themselves, not for its own sake, but because then it "wouldn't hurt as bad" that the other person doesn't say "I love you" back. Self-love is imagined as a kind of cushion against rejection. The final line, "the way I love you," lands quietly and stings, since it shows how unevenly the feeling is shared.
The mood is sad, tender, and a little resigned. Without punctuation drama or fancy images, the poem sounds like a private thought, honest and unguarded.