“You look good!
“Wow, that was amazing! I never knew you were so talented”
“Great job tonight! You really showed your skills tonight!”
Do any of those phrases make you cringe? If you’re anything like me, you can’t accept a compliment, especially from a stranger! What are they talking about? If they only knew who I was, they wouldn’t be saying that. They would run away. How could someone believe somebody like myself could do anything great? Let alone to vocalize it to me! I couldn’t stand compliments for the longest time, people would try complimenting me from time to time and I would love to distract from it or deflect from it, better yet, I would say something negative about myself to take away it! That would show them, don’t try telling me something nice about myself! I’m a piece of shit and I know it, thank you very much!
Okay, maybe you never actually think those things about yourself or even say it out loud! Yet if we can’t accept a compliment from someone, what does that say about us? When we stay in an abusive relationship despite knowing the damage it’s doing to us, what does it say about us? When we eat that junk food, knowing it’s going to make us sick, what does it say about us?
Why do we continue to stay in things and do things to ourselves that have and will always continue to hurt us. Can I tell you why? Promise not to get mad at me? Okay. It’s because you hate yourself. I know, I know. You don’t hate yourself, you love yourself. You post inspirational memes on your facebook everyday, you eat kale twice a week, you stopped talking to that booty call (finally). You don’t hate yourself. *COUGH* Yet, you kind of do. Sorry.
It’s not the kind of “hate yourself” where you’re going to start buying whips and chains to torture yourself for all of your failures, no it’s a much more subtle kind of self-hate, a devious kind. A kind that whispers in our ear from time to time, the one that talks out of spending some money on ourselves, the kind that talks ourselves out of going to the gym because we’re “too busy”. It’s a kind of self hate you never really knew existed until you started putting the pieces together.
Yet, I think the most damaging form of self-hatred I did to myself was not allowing myself to pursue my dreams with the passion and desire I’ve had in my heart.
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I hated myself for a long time, I allowed myself to stay in a two and half year toxic relationship, knowing it was going to be the death of me. I’ve spent all of my savings on alcohol and food, I allowed myself to eat junk food even if it made me literally sick and throwing up. I never bought anything nice for myself, I didn’t deserve it I told myself, I could save that money or spend it on good things! (which I never did).
Yet, I think the most damaging form of self-hatred I did to myself was not allowing myself to pursue my dreams with the passion and desire I’ve had in my heart. When I’m not writing sappy articles to “help” others, I perform stand-up comedy and act,write and whatever other creative type thing you can think of, I love it. I’ve always loved it. I remember watching movies when I was only ten years old and knowing in my heart, that’s what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was going to move to Hollywood when I was eighteen and pursue acting full-time, maybe work some waiting job part-time, struggling for money and going to auditions during the days. That was my dream and it still is. When I graduated High school, I didn’t move to L.A. Instead I made excuses, I found distractions, I talked myself out of it.
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I let that whisper get to me, I let the voices pass through my mind and into my soul. It became a part of me, It was no longer an outside voice, it was now inside of me. Controlling my actions and decisions. Now when I decided to do something, it was the voice telling me I didn’t deserve good things telling me what to do. I hated myself, I had to. What kind of person denies themselves things that make them happy? The kind that doesn’t believe they deserve it.
I hated myself for a long time, I allowed myself to stay in a two and half year toxic relationship, knowing it was going to be the death of me. I’ve spent all of my savings on alcohol and food, I allowed myself to eat junk food even if it made me literally sick and throwing up.
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I had to stop hitting myself, I had to learn that it was okay to think that not only was I a decent person, I was a great person! I wasn’t my mistakes or failures or shortcomings. I was someone who deserved a bright future, I’m someone who deserves good things and happiness. I’ve done bad things in my life, but that doesn’t make me a bad person. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone deserves forgiveness. If you’re reading this, I challenge you to think about area of your life where you may be hating yourself. I challenge you to stop it. Stop hitting yourself, you don’t deserve it. You’ve paid for your crimes already, you’ve dealt with the consequences of your bad decisions.
It’s time to let that go and start treating yourself kindly. I want to share a story with you before I go. When I was in seventh grade, I took Spanish. I am of Spanish descent and therefore my seventh grade teacher thought it would be a good decision to write my failing grade on the board in front of all of the other students and shame . She said “You should be doing better because you’re Spanish”, needless to say once I informed my parents of this, the teacher was fired and I started taking French.
I wonder though, what if that teacher came up to me after class, what if she came to me in a gentle way and just asked me what was wrong, what could she do to help? Maybe Spanish just wasn’t for me, what if she treated me with compassion instead of shame. Would she have kept her job? Would I have stayed in spanish? Who knows. It taught me that shame never does what you think it would do. Stop shaming yourself for those things you’ve done, it doesn’t work, It hurts you in the long run. Be gentle with yourself, talk to yourself gently when you’re not doing well. Ask yourself what’s wrong, what can you do to help yourself today? Need a day off? Need to connect with friends? Do whatever it takes, just be nice to yourself.
I’m happy to say in three months I will finally be moving to L.A to pursue my lifelong dream of acting and writing. I’ve finally decided to stop hitting myself after all of these years.
I encourage you that you don’t have to keep hitting yourself anymore.
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