Tag: selfloathing

  • A bitter end

    A bitter end

    Holding on to bitterness for a past betrayal is like drinking poison and hoping that your betrayer will die.

    Bitterness eats away at your peace while you hope that the intensity of your bitterness will somehow influence the karma of the person who treated you poorly.

    If you had that much power, you’d have been able to enforce  justice with them already.

    The longer you hold on to the bitterness, the more harm you cause for yourself more than any harm that they may have imposed on you.

    When you fixate on your reasons to feel bitter, you prevent yourself from considering whether your assumptions about their intentions or motives are true.

    You also prevent yourself from seeing the impact of your bitterness on those around you who had nothing to do with that betrayal or hurt caused by someone else.

    Sometimes people betray trust because their own fears are stronger than their convictions, and not necessarily because they deliberately wanted to use or hurt you.

    Anger in the face of betrayal, even hurt, is understandable.

    But just because it is understandable doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

    Own how you feel.

    Understand what you can do to handle such situations better in future.

    Move on.

    Life awaits.

  • Your misery is your downfall

    Your misery is your downfall

    We rarely share with the world the conversation that we have with ourselves in our head.

    Our internal conversations are only shared when we’ve exhausted all avenues in trying to understand why someone important to us could have had reason to treat us so badly.

    The harsh tones and unwarranted criticism that we try to convince ourselves is true about who we are or what we’re worth is how we project on ourselves what we think a significant other thinks of us.

    In other words, we put ourselves in their place and then assume why we would treat someone that way if we were them.

    What we forget is that we’re not them, and they’re not us.

    And the same way that our insecurities about ourselves are closely guarded secrets, the same is true for everyone else no matter how amazing we think they are.

    Self-loathing is born when we assume that how others show up for us is a reflection of how they feel about us, when the reality is that they treated us the way that they did because of who they are and what they were grappling with in their own minds.

    The moment we lose ourselves to self-loathing, we focus on demands for our rights to be fulfilled despite not fulfilling the rights of others.

    We focus on playing on the sympathies of others so that they don’t think less of us when we fall short in showing up for them.

    The war within results in the harsh treatment, or even abuse, of those around us.

    While we’re feeling justified in our rage or complacency because of the self-loathing that has taken over our perspective of who we are and what we’re worthy of, we treat others the way we were once treated, with insensitivity and inconsideration.

    That’s how we pay forward the misery that we received, while complaining about the miserable state of life.

    We always want to believe that we’re justified in feeling miserable about life while failing to see that we’re taking for granted the very life that can lift us out of our misery.

    Ingratitude for who we are is the root of our self-destruction.

    It always starts with you.

  • Burn yourself, why don’t you.

    Burn yourself, why don’t you.

    Anger always claims a higher price from ourselves than it ever will from the people on whom we project it.

    And before you assume that to be false because of the lasting impact that it has on its victims, understand that that lasting impact is because of their anger at the one who was taking out their anger on them.

    When we carry the impact of such anger for long after the incident has passed, it’s because we cannot make peace with what was done to us, while waiting anxiously for our pain or suffering to be acknowledged, and the perpetrator to be given a taste of justice.

    No matter the circumstances, our anger is because of our feelings of insignificance or dry the hands of those who treated us badly.

    What we hold onto them keeps us on high alert for any signs of anyone else treating us in that way.

    That’s why innocent gestures from others will trigger us, because it feels like those experiences that still haunts us.

    Anger is our demand for significance from the world, especially from significant others.

    Anger is always expressed in a space where we have no fear of repercussions, but is kept at bay when we have reason to fear the consequences of our angry expression.

    The one who is angry is the one whose self-worth is low in that moment of anger.

    Therefore, as long as you hold onto anger, you diminish your self-worth.

    For this reason, we must own our anger, and we must recognise the source of the anger from those around us.

    The moment we react in free, we become a willing participant in their war, while believing that we are justified in giving them a taste of their own medicine.

    The question is, at what price do we lose ourselves to anger in our fight for justice or in our efforts to correct the wrongs around us?

    Anger is not needed for firm and resolute action against injustice.

    If anything, it distracts us from our purpose and causes us to become oppressors, just like the ones who oppressed us.

  • Own your misery

    Own your misery

    Miserable are the ones who compete with their companions, and then go searching for companionship among those that will ruin them.

    Self-pity and self-loathing are the marks of ingratitude that turn your greatest supporters into your greatest distractions.

    All because you think that they see the inadequacy and shame with which you view yourself.

    That’s why at times, when someone believes in us, we convince ourselves that they’re simply trying to humiliate us.

    Such is the seeds of ingratitude and self-loathing, that we end up taking advice from enemies, and discarding advice from those who care most about our success.

    Your self-loathing is your ingratitude for who you are.
    Stop blaming the world for you getting in your own way.

    It always starts with you.

  • Wow! Look at me now…

    Wow! Look at me now…

    Of all the things that test our resolve, the acquisition of knowledge is the most important.

    It’s easy to get lost in the praise and social elevation that accompanies achievements such as professional qualifications, religious standing, or even business success.

    And because each of it demands a lot of personal sacrifice and discipline, the feeling of entitlement to its rewards takes root without much effort at all.

    Especially since there are many who would treat us with privilege because of their need to be associated with such social standing, or success.

    However, that’s when we lose ourselves to the trinkets and luxuries that accompanies such success.

    That’s when we lose ourselves to the power and influence that such social standing offers.

    That’s when the true tests of our convictions and our value systems present themselves.

    Not only does it matter how we treat people after enjoying such accomplishments, but more importantly, how we utilise the resources that we have access to, including the social structures of privilege that we belong to, that determines the true value of our accomplishments.

    A healthy self-esteem is the only grounding point to prevent such erosion of values or ethical standing.

    A healthy self-esteem, not an inflated ego, is what will keep us focused on how much more good we can achieve, or value we can create for those who cannot benefit us, so that we don’t squander our success or opportunities on self-enrichment or extravagance of lifestyle.

    The sweetness of life lies in the upliftment of others.

    It’s the only accomplishment that doesn’t leave us chasing for validation or acceptance.

    It’s rooted in gratitude for who we are and what we have.

    Without such gratitude, we forever chase opportunities to subdue the fear of inadequacy.

    It always starts with you.

  • Destroying peace to find peace

    Destroying peace to find peace

    Rage is a destructive demand for significance when we believe that who we are is not enough to be important to those we love.

    The anger that spurs on the rage is a defence mechanism to protect ourselves from becoming invisible.

    We try, in our own little futile ways, to be enough without being able to express ourselves the way others may expect, which leaves us feeling unappreciated when they don’t realise how difficult even that little expression was for us.

    That’s when we feel the rage build up, because we’re reduced to love languages, and token gestures that define how we must express ourselves, when all we want is to just be appreciated for who we are.

    But, that feeling of frustration at not being able to express our emotions in a healthier way was instilled in us long before our adult years.

    Therefore, the rage at our partners or children is simply years of bottled up anger at never being enough, or never feeling heard or seen, by those we relied on most to make us feel safe, and whole.

    It is our invisibility in childhood that creates our demands from the world as adults.

    It is our feelings of inadequacy as children, that fans the rage of abuse and marital rape in our adult years.

    It is our obliviousness to the value of who we are, despite the failings of our parent/s, that keeps us raging at innocent ones who had nothing to do with the nurturing of our insecurities in childhood.

    That’s how we end up repeating the very cycles that destroyed our sense of self.

    When you judge your parents harshly for what they didn’t give you, you fail to see their humanness.

    The very same humanness that you fail to see in yourself, that causes you to rage at the world, instead of appreciating the beauty and peace that it offers.

    You cannot give what you don’t have.

    And you cannot grow if you’re waiting for others to treat you right before you let go of the rage.

    It always starts with you.

  • That war within

    That war within

    Sometimes that village is a family, sometimes it’s a group, and sometimes it’s just one person who represents everything that the village stands for.

    That child grows into the raging adult who destroys every wholesome thing, because they feel like no one deserves peace if they were denied love and acceptance.

    When you treat the vulnerable, or the gentle one’s, with contempt, you create the same monsters that made you.

    That’s how the raging adult spawns more troubled souls that are driven towards burning down their village, with each generation growing more destructive, until someone chooses self-respect over self-loathing.

    The distraction of their rage prevents them, and us, from seeing their plea for love and acceptance.

    It’s a war within that rages without, because what they feel is at odds with what they need, and despite their best efforts, they don’t know how to achieve it.

    So, the shame that bubbles beneath the surface – the shame that they hide from the world about that internal war – drives them to behave in ways that appear to claim what they believe others will not care to give them.

    Thus, they project their rage on any innocent being that expects them to be better than that, because they’re no longer children…and only children throw tantrums.

    Adults don’t throw tantrums because they don’t need someone else to destroy for them.

    They destroy others to feel significant, not because they want the destruction, but because it at least gives them reason to believe that they’re not invisible.

    That they still have an impact.

    That they will be taken seriously…or else…

    Your anger at the world is yours to tame.

    You either rage at those who don’t have what you need, or you create it yourself through the alchemy of your soul.

    Because that’s what makes us human.

    Not that we hurt, or that we love, but that we can create love in the midst of hate, and calm in the midst of chaos, without any aides but the attributes of who we are beyond the rage.

    It always starts with you.



  • Whose pedestal is it?

    Whose pedestal is it?

    When we see people for what we need them to be, rather than who they are, we elevate their position in our lives through no fault of their own.

    When they fail to meet the expectations that we created because of that unrealistic perspective that we had of them, we feel betrayed and then blame them for hurting us.

    This is yet another sign of a deficient self-worth.

    Our need to be associated with something or someone of a favourable standing often leads to us exaggerating the good or the virtue in them, or it.

    This is because when we believe that we’re not enough to earn the respect or social standing that we desire, then we find ways to appear more than who we are through associating with what others will respect or admire.

    The irony is that our efforts to place others on pedestals is because we want company for placing ourselves on those pedestals so that we don’t appear arrogant or vain in claiming such standing for ourselves.

    A healthy self-worth means that praise or support will be authentic, rather than opportunistic or insincere.

    Sometimes we justify the insincerity by convincing ourselves that we just want others to feel good.

    But when we shower praises on one who we believe isn’t truly praiseworthy, we’re doing it to feel good about being seen as generous and kind in spirit, and not because we want them to feel good.

    We also deny them the opportunity to be better by instilling a false sense of confidence about who they are or what they’ve achieved.

    Thus, the pedestals are built and destroyed the moment the lack of authenticity in our motives are exposed, or when they reveal, in an undeniable way, that they are not who we held them up to be.

    Sincerity on our part, in such moments, will be reflected in how we understand and support them to be who we believe they’re capable of being, rather than judging them for letting us down.

    It always starts with you.