Self hatred is a highly toxic form of thinking because it directly resists your well-being.
When you have thoughts of inferiority about yourself, or when you feel undeserving/unworthy, it’s a form of self hatred because through these thoughts you are undermining yourself and not valuing who you are. Always remember that who you are is a unique expression of life, and there is no-one like you in this whole universe, and the very reason for your presence here in this reality is because life choose to express as you to fulfill a certain expression/intention.
Your uniqueness is evident, not only in the way you look externally, and the unique aptitude/attitude you possess, but also in the way you perceive reality in your mind through the unique make-up of your brain.
All forms of self-hatred arise out of comparison, and the only way to stop self hatred is to acknowledge your uniqueness and avoid trying to meet up with someone else’s standards.
Let go of comparisons and be yourself fully
It’s fine to learn from others or desire a certain trait that you admire in others, but this should not happen at the cost of feeling inferior to someone else.
You are second to no-one, and life does not look at you as being inferior to anyone. To life, you are as valuable as any other living being, and it rejoices in your presence because you allow life to experience itself in a unique way through your physicality.
So stop negatively comparing yourself with others around you, though it seems like such a normal “habit” with the mind which is so prone to judging itself and others.
Only when you accept yourself as you are, and fully embrace your natural way of being, will you be able to allow your unique expression to unfold.
You will notice that you have certain preferences, likes and dislikes, inclinations and desires, and way of perceiving reality, that in combination make you a very unique “creator” of thoughts and thus a creator of a unique reality. The uniqueness of your way of thinking allows exclusive realities to be created through you, if you allow it to happen.
Don’t try to “fit in”, create your own reality
If your brain has the capacity to desire a reality that you wish to experience, this universe has the capacity to bring this “imagined reality” into physical manifestation. All it requires is that you believe in your dreams, and know that it will be manifested no matter what your circumstances may be right now.
Don’t doubt the fulfillment of your dreams, and don’t try to “fight it out” to manifest it, just relax and follow your heart’s calling (aligning with what feels good to your being) and life will take care of orchestrating the manifestation of your reality. You can only hear your heart’s call when you let go of self-hatred, when you let go of trying to be like others, when you let go of trying to “fit in” to a model subscribed by the society.
It’s usually the people who have a highly unique outlook towards life, the pioneers of new thought, who feel the most “out of place” because they don’t seem to fit in with the “herd mindset”.
It’s common for such people end up judging themselves, imaging that there is something wrong with them, developing strong patterns of self-hatred. If you have such thought patterns active in you, it’s important that you realize your value in this life and understand that you are perfect just the way you are – all that’s needed is that you let go of this negativity to start experiencing the well-being and abundance that life wants to express through you.
When you understand that all you need to do is align with yourself, that you don’t have to fit into to the model prescribed by others, you will be on your way to expressing your own unique reality. At every moment the pull of your life stream is calling you towards the manifestation of the realities you intend to experience, and you only need to let go of holding on to the negativity of the judging mind to merge with this pull.
Follow your inspiration, follow your heart, and be assured that life will take care of you plentifully – have trust in the fact that who you are is ultimately the one universal consciousness in this unique form and it’s your birth right as who you are to experience abundance of every form.
Good read again, Sen. I sometimes feel depressed because my life isn’t unfolding according to a typical plan (wife, kids, 2-car garage, etc.), yet at the same time, I know I don’t want that yet. It’s an odd conflict, but I will endeavor to apply your advice.
As long as you focus on finding joy in your present, by aligning with doing/thinking in the direction of what feels good to your being, your life will automatically move towards the manifestation of realities that are most congruent with your heart’s desires. It’s not about waiting for a particular reality to manifest to feel happy, but to align with your joy right now in your present because now is where life is. Let go of the waiting game, and start focusing on finding peace/joy in the present moment, either in thoughts or in your actions. When aligning with joy is a choice you start making on a moment to moment basis, you stay aligned with the movement of life and become an open channel through which your desired reality can manifest seamlessly.
Hi
I sometimes have such intense periods of self loathing . In the midst of these bouts I criticise my every action. I lose any sense of perspective and start berating myself for things that arent even valid or worth condemnation. Everything I do could be improved upon, everything I say is not right.
I cannot understand this thought process. It serves no purpose and narrows my perspective. During these periods I cannot even begin to entertain the possibility of thinking positively about myself. I’m unable to challenge the validity of these self critical thoughts because they come too quick, and feel too painful. My mind will tell me to shut up if I try to contest them. The best I can do is to try and apply mindfulness, and disengage with them as best I can. They still pain me though.
What can I do? How can I continue living like this? Is it possible to reduce the intensity of this self loathing even slightly?
These criticisms teach me nothing. They’re unfair and leave me in a lot of pain. My mind is clearly against me.
Any insight you can offer will be much appreciated. I respect your judgement and your website is one of the few self help sites I derive any value from
It’s important to understand the actual “scientific” reason behind this uncontrolled momentum of negativity in the mind, a clear understanding of the mechanics behind this “process” will give a clear insight into how to reduce (and be free) of the intensity/perpetuation of self-loathing. A lot of people feel that they are quite helpless against their mind because it seems to have a “mind” of its own and seems to get into cycles of uncontrolled negativity in spite of there being a part of their consciousness which wants to be free of these negative thoughts (and sees through the toxicity of the negative thought patterns). The good news however is that you can reach a state where the mind no longer has the intensity, or the momentum, to disturb you with its negativity. In fact, if it were not for the “intensity” of the negative energy you would not even be bothered by the negative thoughts of the mind – it’s the “intensity” that makes you feel scared of it, it’s the intensity that makes it so “painful”. When the intensity of the negative energy reduces, you will find that you are no longer bothered by the negative thoughts in the mind because they don’t affect your state of being. Just like there is a difference between being in a room where a radio is blaring out bad music at a very high volume and being in a room where the volume is really low, in both cases the music is still bad but when the volume is low it does not affect your “being” as much. The question is how does one reduce the intensity of this negative energy movement, and the answer can be found when you understand the actual mechanics of how this momentum got generated in the first place.
You need to be familiar with two aspects – “Attention” and “Law of attraction”. The human mind/brain is an organ which is capable of exerting “attention”/focus/concentration during its conscious/waking hours. The attention generated by the human mind is a highly powerful force because this “attention” instigates the force of “attraction” in any thought that it focuses on. “Attention” is the fuel that gives power to a thought because it allows the thought to “attract” onto itself. In the absence of attention a thought does not have any “power” of influence because it cannot attract onto itself and hence has no pull, and will simply drift out of your energy space. The problem however is that once you give attention to a thought, for a chronic period of time (say a few days, months or years), the thought pattern gains immense power because it develops a “momentum”, and now it seems to have a life of its own because it can use the momentum to perpetuate itself. Even if you let go of believing in that thought now, it will still continue to swirl in your energy space because of the “past” momentum it gained due to past attention – the intensity of this movement depends on how long you’ve been giving attention to this thought in the past, and it also decides how long it will continue to swirl in your energy space once you stop giving attention to it. However once you stop giving attention to this thought (by consciously seeing through its negativity), it will keep ebbing away in intensity each day until it finally slows down and dies away (it usually takes a month or two for a chronic thought to die away once you plug off the fuel of attention from it). It can easily take 8 months to a year before the momentum of negativity in the mind, as a whole, starts dying away once you dis-identify from the pattern of negative thinking altogether, given the fact that you were unconsciously identified with negative thoughts for many years in the past thus giving it a lot of “self momentum”.
When you give attention to a negative thought, it starts attracting onto itself in that it attracts more thoughts like it. In simple words “A thought begins to think”, it begins to attract more thoughts akin to its vibration. The more thoughts that are attracted, the more attention it gains because of your sparked interest, and thus more fuel it gets to attract unto itself. The more attention you give it, the more it starts gaining momentum to swirl in your energy space – in the beginning the thought is like a thin thread, with attention it starts attaching more threads to itself becomes a stronger and stronger rope, owing to the law of attraction. This is what obsessive thinking is all about, in that the thought just start swirling intensely in your energy space owning to the momentum it has gained from your attention, and now it seems to have a life of its own. Continued attention to this thought causes it to become so strong that it attracts a “physical reality” onto itself and manifests into your reality in some form or the other – like a negative life situation, a financial crisis, a health problem, a relationship problem or a some other undesired reality. Once it attracts a physical reality onto itself, it becomes even more difficult to remove attention from this thought pattern because now there is a physical reality to give evidence and support to it. This is what I call the “vicious cycle of negativity”, and this is the reason why people feel so helpless to come out of negative realities and negative thinking in general.
However, once you understand that the secret to being free of the momentum of negativity (and thus bring an end to negative realities) is to refuse “Attention” to it, you become a conscious/deliberate human being. You must however be a little patient with yourself, and understand that it will naturally take some time before the momentum of negative thinking will slow down and die away (give yourself atleast 8 months to a year to gauge the change that starts happening when you start dis-identifying with negative thinking). A lot of people become too impatient and imagine that they are not getting results, when in truth huge progress is being made each day that you stay dis-identified with negative thinking. You will be amazed at the reduction in intensity of negative thinking within just 6 months of dis-identification. These are a few practices/insights you can incorporate to keep dis-identifying with the negative thought patterns
– Stop believing/defending negative thoughts in the mind, and understand that its only a “thought” (a perception) and it’s not the truth. Also understand that life/pure consciousness is pure positive energy and hence does not support a negative thought of its own. Only the human mind can support a negative thought, and hence if your mind stops supporting negative thoughts (by removing belief from it), then it starts working in direction of your life’s movement – in this way your mind becomes co-operative towards life and thus brings forth your well-being.
– Negative realities will automatically get dissolved and be replaced by realities that reflect well-being, as the momentum of negative thinking keeps ebbing away. Because the fuel for a negative reality to be in place comes from the negative thoughts in the mind. Don’t focus on the negative realities in your life right now, and find ways to give attention to the positives around you every day.
– Don’t add more negativity to an already negative thought pattern by feeling guilty or angry about it. Don’t judge yourself for the negativity in the mind, understand that it’s uncontrolled momentum is stemming from the stored up fuel of your past attention.
– Be patient with yourself and know that its only a matter of a few months before the intensity will start ebbing away, now that you have consciously started dis-identifying with negativity. Always soothe yourself knowing that each day you are getting closer to being free of the momentum of negativity.
– Whenever possible, try to focus consciously on positive thoughts – visualize your desired reality, visualize some positive life situations, read positive material, contemplate the nature of your being and dwell in appreciation. When you focus consciously on positive thought, you start creating a new momentum in your mind – the momentum of positivity as I call it, and with time it will start becoming stronger and stronger until it feels like your second nature.
– Understand that life is already pulling you towards your desired realities (through the force of attraction created by the thoughts of your desires/thoughts of creation), and the more the momentum of negativity ebbs away the faster you will see positive manifestations and positive realities being attracted in your life situation each day.
Hopefully you’ve gained insights into the nature of how the momentum of negativity is created, and how it can be destroyed/de-constructed through the poison of in-attention or dis-identification. Law of attraction becomes your enemy when it comes to negative thinking, because it causes the attraction of more negative thoughts – once you understand this “mechanics” of thought and attention, you are well on your way to being a deliberate creator of your reality by dis-identifying with negativity and thus allowing well-being and abundance to flow in through your life stream. I understand it’s tough when you feel the pain created by the resistance generated by negativity, but you will need to endure it for a small period time while you transition towards becoming free of the momentum of negativity – don’t give up, and stay rooted in dis-identification with the negativity of the mind and I assure you that you will see huge shifts in your reality/thinking within a period of 6 months.
thank you so much for the swift reply.
External events are not playing in my favour at present as im searching for employment. This predicament naturally brings up criticisms about failure and inadequacy.
I have no qualms about giving it time. I understand these thoughts have been embedded for around 5 years now so its going to take a while to shift. A commitment of 6 months is nothng to me. Can you give me an example of the mental process that would ideally take place in order to stop believing/defending negative thoughts?
To take a rudimentary example, if i said to myself for example ‘you’re useless, everyone is more intelligent than you’, how would I reduce the impact that that thought has on me?
Is the response just to watch it in my mind and try not to pass judgement about it? Or for example should I consciously tell myself that this is just a thought not a fact?
thank you for your advice
Understanding is the key to freedom, awareness of negative patterns is the foundation to allowing understanding to start coming in. Seek to gain understanding and insights on how the mind works and how to dis-identify from negative thought patterns by breaking through their falseness. Let me illustrate how to de-construct this negative thought of “Everyone is smarter than me” through understanding life at deeper level. The mind has the tendency/capacity to make interpretations. When the interpretation is “negative” it creates a low vibration thought which stands in contradiction to your natural vibration of joy, love and wellness. The thought “you are useless, everyone is more intelligent than you” is an interpretation in your mind about you – the reason why the mind has come to interpretation could be because it was given some negative conditioning during your childhood years, during your growing up years when the mind was highly influenced by the opinions and judgments of others. May be you had highly critical parents or teachers or friends, who created some negative conditioning in your mind about your potential and self-respect. If you introspect for a while, you can identify the reasons why your mind thinks these negative thoughts about you and can go back to the time when such a negative conditioning started taking root in you. All self-loathing stems from “comparison” with others. When you compare yourself with others, it gives you a very skewed and incorrect view of who you are. You, as a human being, are highly unique and have a unique make-up as an individual, as this human consciousness. You will never be able to understand your uniqueness, your skills, your talents, your capacities, your passion, your drives, unless you stop comparing yourself with others. And as long as you try to copy others or try to fit into to other’s model of life, you will can never be true to your own life stream. You are here to be an expression of your uniqueness, life intended to take form as “you” in this physical body to express itself and experience reality in a unique manner. You will defeat this intention if you are not true to your uniqueness. When your mind starts understanding this truth about itself, it will stand true to its uniqueness and not invest belief in this negative thought pattern again.
Hi,
I always have this constant self-hating thoughts in my mind, telling me I don’t deserve happiness and everything I do is bad/wrong. I don’t deem myself the most pitiful person in the world or whatso because I am in quite a good environment; money, food, shelter, I have them. However, I find myself really pathetic due to the way I think. I have been trying for years now, trying to think positively. In few cases, it gets better but things rebounded afterwards and gets worst. I hardly finds happiness. I find it hard to smile or laugh. In order to be ‘normal’ , I pretended to be happy and all but there’s times when it’s hard to do these and that was the time friends started leaving me(for someone better). Families gets tired of my negative outlook. I used to cut myself because somehow, it release the hatred and anger I felt in me but later I learnt when the scars stays, all it reminds me is pain and all the shit I been through/felt. So I no longer cut and I don’t want to die anymore. I couldn’t find any other ways to help release the anger and in time, it came piling up. Sometimes, I would have those ‘seizure’ or something, I don’t know what but it’s like, I would find it really hard to breathe and I can hardly move, my whole body was constraint. Perhaps I should consult a psychologist etc but I don’t want to be known as a nutcase.
I just wanted to get out of the misery, fulfill my dreams, live a life and be happy. I want to stop feeling pathetic for myself, stop deeming myself worthless, ugly, useless and such, I want to find myself useful or that have anything I’m good at. I tried and tried and tried, it never works. I know this is a really long comment and full of rubbish but, I really do hope you can maybe understand a lil and help.. if not, it’s okay I understand.
Thanks by the way.
Sher, the reason you feel helpless to the “negativity”, that’s doing its rounds in you, is because it has a strong momentum/force right now due to the energy has accumulated over the past, stemming from your identification with such thought patterns. What’s required is get on a journey towards releasing this past-gathered momentum of negativity, the way to do so is work on the practice of conscious allowing (which requires you to allow your mind/emotional movement while developing the attitude to no longer give it habitual identification). As few posts that can give you some detailed insights on the practice of allowing are as below
http://www.calmdownmind.com/reaching-a-place-of-total-allowing/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/faq-on-the-state-of-allowing/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/reducing-mind-momentum-is-the-key/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/freedom-from-the-grip-of-negativity/
You can take your time to read through most of the posts on this blog (especially the ones written this year), as it will give you a clear understanding of the dynamics of negativity and dynamics of finding inner freedom.
From the time i turn 15 my life has never been the same. I felt as if i died or something and as bad as it sounds today i still struggle to find myself on a daily basis. I have a constant negative outlook on life followed by the “why me ” conclusion at the end of ever negative thought that cross my mind. I live as if i am trying to find that lost inner child of mine who once roamed freely in a past life or something. But when reality sets in all that is left is that dark and cold shadow that follows me around from sun up til sun down. We all have feelings of self hatred and though most of us will never officially branch out to receive that help we so long to seek. If we at least live with the thought of one day breaking this cycle that has held us down for so long we can crack a smile and hope that our words will impact some individual who will benefit much more than we could ever imagine.
I just wanted to say that I can relate so much to what people are saying on this website. I find that I get intensely angry for seemingly inconsequential events. I am ridiculously jealous of my boyfriend and I hate this about myself. Also if I perceive that he is criticizing me at all or he is upset with me I either get infuriated or go into self-hate. I think things such as: I am a waste of life, I am a piece of crap, I have nothing to offer, I do everything wrong, and I should just die. I too have tried suicide several times. I used to cut also but I have so many scars and I can’t stand to have any more. I am trying to figure out how to deal with these bouts of self-hate without hurting myself or others. This self-loathing truly does feel like an unstoppable force. I have tried all the “typical” coping skills and they don’t seem to help at all.
I wanted to look up something on this topic because I do not believe that this emense feeling will go away. If you’d want to describe my level of self hatred towards myself, I’d say I’m at a level 10. I 1. Hate being African American. 2.I hate that I had to grow up quickly and have NEVER felt my age. 3.I hate that I cant walk anywhere with my head held high.This self hatred does have a root. My then boyfriend who is now my husband, used to cheat on me emotionally with (White and Hispanic ) girls. This happened so much, that somewhere during those years, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes down to it, black people, more-so the black woman is not as desired as the white and hispanic women. Mind you, I am NOT a racist. I have NO issue with interracial couples. (I’ve dated other races) but when you think you’ve found THE ONE, and he proves himself being inconsistent in his ways or what he says he likes/desires, you start to believe that maybe there is something wrong with you. There was a lot of talk about how white and hispanic woman better a man etc and I finally now believe it. I feel sorry that I married my husband even though he’s apologized for his wrongs in the past and he loves me, but I still am very sorry. he lied to me a lot and he contradicted himself a lot as well. I love my little girls but I look at them and I worry for them.I feel like I’m going crazy and I cant even feel confident within myself like I used to. What makes matters worse is I definitely feel like I don’t belong anywhere. My Husband used to tell me back when we were still dating that he always felt inferior to me. he was intimidated by me. I keep wondering, How can God use a wreck and mess like me. How can me being me going to help someone. I have struggles this depression on and off for over 14 years as well as suicide. I paint smiles on my face and try to show that I’m o.k but I really want to leave some times. I know that eventually, my self hatred and negative words will force my husband to leave me and in a way that’s what I want. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life loving someone that I really don’t know if he loves me. Please trust me when I say that I know my husband loves me. He has changed so much since back then but somewhere I got completely stuck and ever since then, I have not been able to move on. No matter how hard I try, I cant get past this and it is killing me. I feel at times like I’m going insane. My husband is afraid at times to leave me. I’ve threatened to leave with the girls because I’m afraid to TRUST him again. I know that God made men to look at the outward appearance, but he BROKE me completely down with the things that he said and did. I read and saw things that really made me wonder who he really was and it scares me that I might not end up being the love of his life or what he truly wants and desires. I cant even look at myself in the mirror because I feel like being BLACK for one is a curse. we have NOTHING to offer in the looks department. Majority of Black woman are stereo typed as BIG BOOTY HOES, who wear weaves and fake EVERYTHING and get booty shots, on welfare, got 8 different baby daddies and are most likely booty calls. NEITHER of any of that am I. There is so much more to the story, but this is not a book and other peoples problems are way worse than me. Thank you though for this article. it helped some.
T.Christine, your issues with your physical appearance and emotional tendencies are not necessarily the problem, it’s your resistance to them. Not only that, but if you went to let’s say Ethiopia and asked a village “Do you hate being black?”, they would probably all look at you crazily. What I’m getting at is that your hate for being black is the equivalent of other peoples’ “I’m too fat”, “I’m too short”, “I hate being a girl”, etc.
Your hate for having to grow up quickly is (upon first glance and hunch) directed at blaming your parents. If that is not the issue, then please correct me, but the ego always looks to attach blame to anybody or anything outside of itself. Some children act as if they’re adults and some adults act like they’re children, it could be either their natural makeup or a deep unconsciousness. The bottom line is were you acting like yourself back then or did others or yourself reprimand you when you tried? Society has a lot of constructed roles for you to follow, as in “you have to be mature as an adult”. While you naturally develop a maturity as you age, this maturity doesn’t have to be a concrete identity. The underlying assumption of someone in a serious profession such as a judge is “no fun”, “too serious”, “a drag”, etc. Eckhart Tolle has some great material in his books about the ego getting a sense of identity from dwelling on the past, when the past and future only exist in thought in the mind. You should check his stuff out, if my post gets approved, I’ll take it as permission to post links to his audiobook downloads, they’re awesome.
As for your third qualm, the very act of holding your head high is usually based on a feeling of success derived from comparison, faking it to appear like a “big (wo)man”, or you coasting off of the high of a temporary achievement. If you closely examine the examples I’ve listed, can you see why you would not want to “hold your head high”? What you really want is to find a balance between light and dark, where neither have the capability to affect you. You don’t want to jump from one polarity to the other.
You say that black women are the lesser preferred, which according to surveys, is actually correct. White people are listed as the most attractive in these surveys, which doesn’t mean that they are the most attractive as a *fact*, just that the majority preference is for whites. You could look at those numbers and feel lesser, but take a moment and think about that gays can have the same perspective. There is a much larger percentage of the world that is straight rather than gay, but when it comes down to it, the gay person is looking for a gay (or bisexual, asexual, whatever) person to love. So the fact is that you don’t wish that black people were the highest preference, you just want somebody to connect with you. Race doesn’t really have anything to do with it.
I can speak from my own socially constructed “flaw” in being short. I’m only like 5’6 and a short man is looked at as “lesser”, “unattractive”, a “loser”, etc. it used to really eat me up, before I stepped outside of the egoic perspective. If you look through the lens of your ego, even if I was chiseled out of stone and 6 foot 4, the ego would still find something that I was lacking.
The kinds of people you attract into your life has all to do with the kinds of thoughts and vibration are going on inside of you. It is easy, especially for the ego to blame outside of itself for its’ unhappiness and any other bad feeling. The identification with these bad feelings only makes you feel worse. In your case, your ego may say “This man who I thought loved me prefers whites or latinas, therefore myself being black is inferior to them”. Your reality is a reflection of what is inside of you. Examine your thoughts and see if this is not true.
The feeling of inferiority your husband felt for you is of course indicative of unconsciousness in him. I dwelt on inferiority for years, it was my ego’s favorite “food”. The ego claims it is inferior because it doesn’t have xyz. With a little introspection, look back to your childhood or another time, when you got this “end all be all, best in the world” toy you wanted so badly for Christmas. Beforehand, the ego told you that it will make you feel complete or happy. After the high diminished, this toy didn’t do what the ego said it would do, so the ego once again goes on the hunt for something that will make it whole. A toy turns into a car, into a house, into a job, into a spouse and still the emptiness is there.
Your thoughts about your husband not loving you are either rooted in delusion and compulsiveness or there is an inner knowing that he is not right for you. If you spend some time disidentifying with your thoughts, a stronger clarity will come in. Deep down, you know that life isn’t about suffering and unhappiness, so in that you know that being with a man you don’t feel good with isn’t what life is about at all. In time, the confusion, stress, hate, etc. will dissolve towards your husband and towards anything in general. Whether or not you end up staying with him isn’t the point, the point is to find freedom from bondage to anybody or anything – this includes the never ending loop of comparison and inferiority going on inside of you.
In regards to your opinions of black people and their looks, if you would refer to that part of your comment and then to the beginning of it, you can see that this distaste for your own appearance is being reflected in your reality by your husband. You can’t control your husband and his preferences, just like the immature actions of a gay kid’s parents disowning him based on his preferences, condemning the person is an unconscious action.
So to sum it up, even if you were magically transformed into a white woman, your problems would not end. Your ego would find something else to fixate on. The key here is to not deny your problems or try to force them to go away. It’s bringing awareness to all of these thought patterns, you can sense that they are a repeating loop of thoughts, which have been hardened by identification. If you keep at it, you will be surprised at what happens inside and outside of you, I know I was/am.
T. Christine, I’m a white woman, and I could have written a post very similar to yours if I just left out the part about race and filled in with other physical characteristics that which make me feel inferior and which I cannot realistically change. I struggled mightily with feelings of helplessness, anger, and anxiety and lots of “if only if I could change this one thing I could handle everything else”. It’s like a form of bargaining the ego does to still be in charge! Also, when you are emotionally a prisoner to what a man thinks of you, it’s a terrible place to be, because you will always be hitching the joy in your life to whether he currently approves of you or not. It’s very liberating when you become true to yourself, and stop letting anyone tell you how to feel about yourself. This is where you choose to have the inner freedom of which Sen speaks. It’s having inner freedom to not fear anything, even the fear of being inferior. Set your own standard of beauty, and then know that you are so much more than a physical body!
Michael, your post helped me tonight! Thank you so much.
Never done this before but hey-ho!
My self loathing has led to me questioning just about everything I do meaning I can’t cope with the simplest tasks and am prone to anxiety attacks, I want to completely change my way of thinking but have no direction…
hey !
thanks so much. any thoughts on how to stop feeling ugly . i can’t continue like this. its making me crazy sir . please help. whenever I see my loved ones talking to some one beautiful , i feel disgusted at myself and guilty maybe for having taken that spot . while the pretty and cute and sweet one deserved it. I know u said I shouldn’t compare. but how do I stop feeling so hated by everyone and myself. and feel like those who do , got stuck with me. i can’t share with anyone. its too close to my heart. and i don’t want to be so vulnerable in front of anyone. please help. i can’t take it no more.
Tanzy,
Don’t try not compare yourself to others, it just feeds the mind. Appreciate yourself as you are. This is done through a process of release that Sen talks about on this blog. With releasing tends to come an automatic appreciation for who you are, as you are. And as such an automatic non-comparison to others on a level of being better or worse than (this includes comparing images such as “do I look better or worse than them”).
I used to feel like I should be like everyone else in the world, or smarter than, or better than, or more successful than (you name it). And had qualms about my own expression. Now I tend to enjoy my own expression and my own life. I like my individualness. I don’t mind if I am not (insert comparative statement) than another person, or if I am more (insert comparative statement). By learning to enjoy my own expression I can enjoy others and allow theirs to be as they are.
That being said there is now a control over how I wish to be. For example, if I were to get fat now I would feel a general responsibility to go to the gym (because it’s part of my expression, not because I need to be a certain way society finds good looking) and want to look in the way I want to look (not super fit/super in shape like a top athlete, but a more balanced body). I understand some people may prefer a different body, but again it’s about how I want to look since I can’t really control others’ preferences). Of course in order to reach this authenticity with myself I had to go through the releasing process and become more aware of the competitiveness in my mind. It’s natural to want to feel good about ourselves, its just that we try to accomplish it through external things (such as having a great looking body). But if we use that as the basis it’s on shaky grounds because as soon as it disappears (even under uncontrollable circumstances) we will loose the ability to feel good about ourselves. The gray area that came through is that by looking how I like to look rather than feeling I need to be a certain way, allows for me to align with my expression and automatically feel good (regardless of the expectations of what we general think society wants).
Continue with the phase of release, what you are becoming more aware of now is a great step because it allows you to understand it and at one point disappear. When you get these feelings allow them through as much as you can. Not in an effort to make them disappear but just to be aware of them and give you space from them. Once you are more free of them you can start living your own expression and with that comes the self-love and enjoyment of your own expression.
Tyler,
I hate myself because I can’t seem to get the love I need from my husband; and I’m pushing him away because of that? How can I stop hating myself and find the love within myself without needing my husband’s love to validate me? I’m tired of not feeling loved by my self and him. Please help.