The self hate I took out Into the World

Self hate and my own sense of self worth has been something I have struggled with my whole life. Though there are times where it seems a lot more consuming then others. You see there has always been this old nagging voice inside of me that is continuously replaying all these old tapes of why I am not worthy.  There’s this piece of me that is always saying hide yourself, don’t ever let anyone see who you really are or they will see what I already know which is, how totally inadequate you are. I feel like I better hide my opinions, bury my truths and never speak up or I might bring attention to myself. People might point at me,  and I might be exposed for being as worthless and insignificant as I feel.

  

This hate has never served me, okay that is not totally true when I stopped running from it and I began to face it, it helped to transform me. This isn’t to say that these feelings of unworthiness are poof magic all gone now, believe me they are something I still very much struggle with and even consume me at times. But now that I am able to take a look at and examine the nature of these feelings; they have become a lot less crippling for me and helped me to look at others more compassionately. 

 

Why am I telling you this? Well in part, I will be honest it serves me. It helps me to feel freer, I feel like it helps break me out of that self hate propelling habit and that constant need to hide.  It’s kind of like flipping my inner critic the bird and telling that voice that is always telling me I have nothing useful to say off. I  also feel like when we share these parts of ourselves honestly it can help all parties to feel more open and comfortable about sharing those parts of themselves  that society often suggests we keep hidden. Furthermore I just want to let others know who maybe feeling these things that they are not alone.

So now I have told you what myself hatred has gotten me let me now tell you one of the things that it has robbed from me.  For a good portion of my life I would go out into the world assuming I didn’t belong. I felt awkward, I felt like everyone I came across was judging me, like they were all staring at me thinking, wow she is so fat and useless, wow she is so boring, or can you believe how stupid she is. I know how self involved right? But my own self hate crippled me and I was always reflecting my own thoughts about myself on to others. This also somehow managed to morph into how dare they think this about me, or I hate this person, or I’m going to judge them if they are judging me.  It’s like there was always this big battle going on within myself between me and others that never even existed.

To make matters worse I would seek out relationships and situations that validated these thoughts and beliefs that I had. I would try so hard to be friends with people who let’s just say were less then nice to me and ignore those who were kind. I am not totally sure of the psychology behind it, if I was looking for the people in those relationships to confirm how awful I felt about myself or if I was thinking maybe if I won them over and made them love me, well then just maybe I could love myself. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t wish to assign blame to any of these people after all they have their own issues and they gave me exactly what I was looking for.  At any rate I have played out these dynamics again and again with different people but it more or less always ended the same.

Anyways all these patterns and all these walls kept me so caught up and cut off from love and the feeling of belonging.  As I searched and tried to be accepted by only these certain key people, it kept my vision very narrowed and blinded me from the truth, and all the other things that surrounded me . I was so busy trying to stuff myself into one little box that I never saw that I already belonged.  When I become flooded with this realization last year and I carried this vision out into the world with me, I noticed how differently people began to respond to me and how the whole world began to look different to me. I began to feel like I was part of something larger. I felt more connected to everything, from people, to all kinds of creatures (even the little buggy guys) and to the earth it’s self.  When I began to love myself more and let my armour drop, I was able to let go of all my preconceived notions about how I was so sure everybody felt about me and really connect with them. 

Unfortunately I am not always in contact with these feeling and it is still very much a process for me. As I said before all my feelings of unworthiness aren’t magically gone now and yes I still cling tightly to some relationships where I am still in search of that validation that will never come. But just being more consciously aware and admitting to myself and seeing my own self hate for what it is and not continuing to constantly project it on others has been of great value for me. Just being aware of and being able to tap into that sense of belonging, worthiness and connectivity has helped me in ways I never thought possible.