Self-Loathing Gets Us Nowhere.

Do you ever find yourself getting mad at your bad habits or uncomfortable emotions?

Maybe you have a negative thought. Some judgment about someone you love, for example, and you know that’s not the way you want to be thinking about that person so you think to yourself, “No! Shut up!”.

Or maybe you’ve got a bad habit that you know you don’t want to keep doing (say… smoking… or eating junk food right before going to bed) and you think “God damn it! Enough of this! You’re doing a terrible job!”.

Well… who is it that you’re talking to?

It’s you. Isn’t it?

And what do you think happens to your relationship with anyone when you speak to them that way? Does it create a safe space where the person is free to express themselves to you? Or does it create an environment of fear that reinforces defense mechanisms?

I was speaking to a client recently who was telling me - on the one hand - that she really wants to learn how to be there for herself emotionally (finally, for the first time in her life), while simultaneously telling me that she’s angry for all the time lost in her life not being there for herself, and…

I couldn’t help but point out the paradoxical irony.

She’s literally judging herself (her past self) for the behavior and defense mechanisms that she had used to keep herself safe while attempting to finally love herself. And those things don’t go hand in hand at all.

All of the ways that we have betrayed ourselves have been defense mechanisms that we adopted because we didn’t feel safe to be or express our true selves, so how are we ever going to learn to escape those defense mechanisms when we judge ourselves and hate on ourselves, thereby making it clear to those inner wounded parts of us that we are STILL not safe to express ourselves… EVEN TO OURSELVES!

The more that we judge and shame ourselves for what we perceive to be our failures, the more emotional need we will have to resort to those very same behaviors that we consider to be failures.

If you want to FINALLY learn to be there for yourself emotionally, that needs to include being kind and accepting to the past versions of yourself that resorted to certain defense mechanisms and to the wounded parts of yourself that are still trying to express themselves and protect themselves via those defense mechanisms.

It’s all you…

So, stop hating on yourself.