Dealing with Self Hatred and overcoming Self Hatred
-longpipe
Jesus said: “Love one another as you love yourself", and "Do unto others as you would do unto yourself”
But what if you dont love yourself? Many people find it easier to love others than loving themselves, but how can you truly love someone else if you dont love yourself.
I suffered for years with strong feeling of self hatred. I actually would curse at myself in my head all the time. I would feel a crunching kind of feeling towards myself. I would also think about cutting myself out of dislike or hatred of myself, but I actually never did take the next step towards cutting myself, I just had such intense self hatred that I wanted to cut myself.
I have been working to overcome this for years. Here are some of the conclusions and thoughts that I have worked through in working on these issues.
For one thing, in my experience, self hatred, or any negative thought could be compared to a gnat or flea. Its tiny, but annoying. Imagine if every time you thought a thought it manifested as a small insect flying around your head. Suddenly a whole swarm of gnats might be there if you were mad at yourself for doing something or feeling a lot of negative feelings.
Now, lets also say that the more intense your thought is, the more emotion behind it, the bigger the bug. So some thoughts might be gnats, but others might be spiders or beetles, or much bigger bugs.
So, now, you are walking around with this big cloud around you, and you go to a self help seminar, and they tell you to think positive thoughts. So lets say each time you think a positive thought, its like a lady bug or a butterfly. But it would only be a butterfly if you have a lot of emotion behind the thought.
So now you have a few lady bugs but tons of gnats. Maybe one butterfly, but lots of spiders.
What is my point?
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A few positive thoughts are not going to counteract years of negative thoughts
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The more emotion behind the thought, the stronger and more lasting it is.
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Realize that you have to do a lot of work to generate positive thoughts about yourself
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Stop thinking negative thoughts, and try to catch yourself every time you do think a negative one, stop creating gnats!!!
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It is possible to change your thinking and create positive and loving feelings for yourself...If I can do it, so can you.
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Thoughts are not the only things that are needed...your soul is more powerful than any thought. The light within you is more powerful than any thought, and it can overcome any negative momentum
So how can we stop creating gnats and spiders, and instead create more butterflies, and lightning bugs? How can we create a beautiful dove that comes and eats all of the bugs and all that is left is a radiation of light around you?
Part of the work is to investigate and find out when or where did this self hatred start? Did it come from your parents attitude towards themselves? Did it come from messages they gave you whether consciously or unconsciously? Sometimes finding out how it all started can help us to change or start letting go of these feelings. Forgiving yourself and your parents can help start the process of letting go of self hatred. It is a process. An important one. Identifying how this all started can help you stop the feelings. You may want to try to find a psychologist or counselor to help you work through your feelings.
If you read on, I have a lot of information for you to try on your own.
Nevlille Goddard was an amazing man who lectured about the power of the imagination, and about being in the state you want to be in, in order to get what you want.
So how much do you want to get over your self hatred? Are you ready to put up with some uncomfortableness in order to make progress? Are you willing to give up your self hatred?
IF so, then lets imagine what it would be like to like ourselves. How would you feel?
Often, I would spend much time thinking about how I should have done this or should have done that. If you do this, instead, try saying “ What I did was what was meant to be at the time"
Lets try putting some of Neville Goddard's suggestions into practice to correct our self hatred.
Start out by deciding to accept your actions for being right no matter how wrong it seems. Pretend as if you are doing everything right. How would it feel?
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What would it feel like to like yourself? -Just imagine it, and try everyday to feel the feelings you might feel if you did like yourself.
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What lectures or habits do you have that promote this self hatred?
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Do you lecture yourself in your head? (I used to do that) What would it be like to stop lecturing yourself? Would you lecture someone else, the way you lecture your own self inside? How are you treating yourself? Are you being civil to yourself? If you wouldn’t do it to someone else, then you shouldn't do it to yourself either.
We are often so used to living in a certain way, that to change that way feels very uncomfortable. Actually, deep down we may be very resistant to change. For example, I was so used to hating myself that it was a comfortable feeling. When I tried to change the feelings, I noticed that I would actually set up a situation so that I could hate myself.
Here's an example:
I am a messy person, I have a lot of clutter around. I was living in a space where I didn't have enough room for everything. I would get mad at myself for letting my closet get messy so that I couldn't find what I needed. Suddenly, I realized that I was setting myself up to get mad at myself and hate myself by keeping the closet messy. If I would just clean it up, I wouldn't have an excuse to get mad at myself. Realizing this was a real break through for me.
Try to think for yourself an instance when you are feeling a strong sense of self hatred about something. What if you were to change that action or thing? The simplest thing, like just cleaning a messy closet. But, if you cant get it clean...is it really because you need to hate yourself?
Or, aother approach is…” is it really that important to clean the closet?” Can you accept yourself for who you are?
1. Realize every time you think it, you are creating a gnat. Stop doing that!!!
2. Use a bigger momentum than yourself to get rid of all the gnats….If you are a Christian, when was the last time you really asked for forgiveness and then took communion…forgiveness of sins….forgive yourself…..ask for forgiveness for hating yourself.
If you are not comfortable going to church, here is another method to clear your chakras and clear out self hatred: Sahaja Yoga, https://www.sahajayogameditation.online
3. Try not to judge yourself at all-judgement is postive and negative. What if you went throught your day and thought about everything that happened but did not judge it as positive or negative. Just observe. Can you do that? Go through your day and withhold judgement of any kind? Just Be
4. Pretend like you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Feel the feelings of love and just give yourself a big hug. How would it feel to do that? Imagine yourself being the parent to yourself. Give yourself a hug, tell yourself its okay, and its going to be okay. Everything is going to work out. Everything you are doing is exactly right.
5. Visualize yourself surrounded by pink and yellow light.
6. Notice your daily thoughts but do not judge them as bad or good, simply notice them
7. Notice what is underneath the thoughts, the impusles that you don’t even know you have? Start changing those deep seated thoughts of negativity. Notice the wrong-thinking patterns and start heading them off at the pass.
8. Notice how you create situations so that you can berate yourself, then change it!
EXERCISE:
Then, imagine that you did not create situations to berate yourself about... how would it feel? Or don’t allow yourself to create a situation like that. (depends on how serious it is as to what technique you use, or how much control you feel you have over that situation)
Can you accept yoursefl for who you are, and love yourself for being messy? What if no matter what you did, you sent yourself a feeling of love?
EXERCISE:
The color Pink is the love ray. Before you go to bed at night, visualize yourself surrounded in pink and yellow (yellow is wisdom). How good does it feel when you feel love? Concentrate on the feeling of love and see yourself surrounded by pink and yellow light.
Disregard any mean messages you might be giving yourself, ignore them, and concentrate on accepting yourself, not rejecting yourself. Imagine a pink light or flame coming out of you and filing the air with a beautiful smell and all of a sudden you are surrounded by sunlight, that is pink and yellow. You feel bright and airy, light, not burdened. And you feel thankful for everything that has been given to you. If a negative thought comes, just postpone it, or try to let it go. It may feel very uncomfortable to regard yourself in this way. Just sit with the feeling. Allow yourself to feel uncomfortable, because this is how you are going to start changing yourself into who you want to be...into letting go of the false beliefs of self hatred.
Written by Longpipe