February 3, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of Permission to Love, we dive deep into the pervasive struggle of self-hatred and how to begin the journey toward self-love.
As a part of this episode we examine the research-backed strategies and practical tools to help you break free from cycles of self-loathing.
Learn how to reprogram the negative beliefs that have been holding you back and embrace the transformational power of self-compassion.
Whether you've struggled with self-esteem for years or are just beginning to recognize these patterns, this episode offers a roadmap to healing.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding the roots of self-hatred and how it manifests in daily life
- The role of childhood trauma, societal pressures, and internalized criticism
- How to disrupt negative thought patterns using cognitive tools
- The power of self-love mantras and habit reformation
- Practical exercises, like the 30-day mirror challenge, to rewire your brain for self-compassion
Free Self-Love Webinar: Join me for a FREE webinar on "Learning How to Love Yourself" this Wednesday, February 5th, at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Register 👉 here or visit www.jerryhenderson.org/selflovewebinar
Chapters:
00:00 - Welcome and Introduction: Practicing Self-Compassion
00:41 - The Prevalence of Self-Hatred and Why It Matters
05:45 - The Possibility of Change and Reprogramming Your Mind
09:11 - How Self-Hatred Manifests in Daily Life
13:01 - Understanding the Programming of Self-Hatred
17:13 - Research on Causes of Self-Hatred: Childhood Trauma and Societal Influences
20:09 - You Don't Actually Hate Yourself: An IFS Perspective
26:34 - Healing the Underlying Pain Beneath Self-Hatred
30:44 - Breaking Free: Key Steps to Letting Go of Self-Hatred
38:56 - Practical Tools: Self-Love Mantras and Positive Affirmations
46:57 - The 30-Day Mirror Exercise: Telling Yourself "I Love You"
50:00 - Webinar Invitation and Coaching Program Details
I am grateful you are here,
Jerry
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jerry Henderson (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of
the Permission to Love podcast.
I'm your host, jerry Henderson,and I am so happy to be here
with you today and I want to saythank you.
Thank you for sharing this timewith me.
I just want to encourage youfor a moment, before we get
started in this episode, to bekind to yourself, to be gentle
with yourself, to practiceself-compassion, self-acceptance
(00:23):
, practicing self-care Each oneof those are so important in
order for us to have a healthy,thriving relationship with
ourselves and with others.
So take a moment, be kind toyourself and direct some
compassion towards yourself inthis moment.
Now, today, we're diving into atopic that's deeply personal for
(00:46):
many of us and, honestly,deeply personal for me, and this
subject, this topic, is one ofthe reasons that I started this
podcast on giving ourselves thepermission to love ourselves,
and the topic today how to stophating yourself.
I know that might sound intense, but the truth is self-hatred
(01:07):
and self-loathing are morecommon than we often realize.
According to the NationalInstitute of Mental Health,
nearly 85% of people strugglewith low self-esteem at some
point in their lives, andchronic self-loathing or
self-hatred affects 20% ofadults, or one in five people.
(01:28):
So one in five people that youencounter are going to be
struggling with this, and youmight be one of them, and if you
are, that's okay.
And if you are, I'm glad you'rehere today listening to this
episode.
Now, even though so many peopleare struggling with this, there
is good news, fantastic news,and it's that you were not born
(01:53):
with self-hatred.
It's something that's beenlearned, it's something that got
programmed in us over time, andthe way it might have gotten
programmed is by our family oforigin, toxic relationships or
the way that we speak toourselves.
That's embedding it into ournervous system.
And why is it such great newsthat it's something that you
(02:15):
learned, something that gotprogrammed?
Because if it's something thatwe've learned and it's something
that got programmed in us, wecan reprogram it, we can unlearn
it.
You know I talk often about howa lot of healing is not about
what we learn, but a lot of itis about what we unlearn letting
go of patterns and beliefsystems that don't serve us
(02:36):
anymore, unlearning toxicthinking patterns, unlearning
what feels familiar to ournervous system, making that
which feels familiar feelunfamiliar, and that which feels
unfamiliar self-love becomingfamiliar to us.
So now, before we move on, Ijust want to take a moment with
you and I want to ask you areyou struggling with self-hatred?
(03:01):
And if you are, how long haveyou been struggling with it?
How has it been impacting yourlife, your relationships, how
has it been holding you back?
Has it caused you to play small?
Has it caused you toself-sabotage?
What has this belief, what hasthis feeling, been doing in your
life?
(03:21):
Now I want you to take a momentand imagine how would you feel
if you didn't carry that senseof self-hatred.
What would life look likewithout it?
Now you might say I can't evenimagine, I can't even put my
head around that, because itfeels so true to me that
self-hatred feels like a part ofwho I am, and so the idea of
(03:45):
not hating myself or notloathing myself and who I am, I
can't even wrap my brain aroundthat and I want to say that's
okay.
It's okay if you can't seeyourself doing it, if you can't
imagine it.
That's where we all start, okay.
I just want to encourage you totake a moment right now and
(04:06):
just try.
Give it a shot.
And if it feels veryuncomfortable to you, awkward to
you, you feel a lot ofresistance around it, that's
okay as well, and that's normalas well, because if you've been
practicing self-hatred,self-loathing and having a sense
of low self-esteem, it takessome time to begin to reprogram
(04:27):
that and get comfortable withfinding your way out of it.
So if you can't imagine nothating yourself, then take a
moment and ask this question howwould it feel to not have that
burden in your life right now?
Just take a moment and imaginewhat would it look like, or what
(04:49):
would it feel like if thatburden was relieved from you for
just a moment.
Because if right now you can'twrap your mind around what that
would look like long term, youcan just pause in this moment
and begin to think about whatwould it feel like to pull that
burden off of your back oroutside of you, or you carry it,
(05:12):
maybe you carry it in yourchest, maybe you carry it in
your gut.
If you were just to giveyourself permission to lay that
aside for just a second, whatwould that feel like?
Are you able to do that rightnow?
And if you are, what does itfeel like?
How much lighter would you feelif you weren't always telling
yourself how much you hateyourself, always feeling like a
(05:35):
loser, always feeling likeyou're not enough, that you
can't do enough, that you'llnever learn how to love yourself
.
How much lighter would you beif you didn't have to carry that
burden anymore.
Well, I want to tell yousomething it is possible to let
go of it.
Even if you can't see it rightnow, it is possible.
(05:55):
I absolutely know it.
I know it.
I know it to the core of mybeing.
I've seen it happen in my life,I've seen it happen in the
lives of others, and that thingthat keeps you from having hope
that it can change, that it willchange for you, is that
self-hate talking expressingitself, trying to pull you back
(06:17):
to what feels comfortable.
And that's one of the bigparadoxes or challenges with
self-hatred is that we hate thatpart, we hate the self-hatred,
but we also keep findingourselves going back to it
because in so many ways it feelscomfortable, it feels like home
(06:37):
and, as we'll talk about later,it feels safe to us.
But I want to let you know thatjust because it feels safe, just
because it feels normal to you,just because it feels like such
a part of your life doesn'tmean that you have to stay stuck
in it.
You can heal that part of you.
You can heal the part of youthat you feel like hates
(06:59):
yourself.
You truly can.
You can learn to love all theparts of yourself, accept all
the parts of yourself and let goof that self-hatred.
And today I'm going to besharing some personal insights,
some research and some practicaltools to help you start to let
(07:20):
go of that self-hatred and tostart moving towards
self-acceptance and self-love.
Now, on that note of self-love,before we go any further, I want
to extend an invitation to youto be a part of a free webinar
that I'm hosting this Wednesday,february the 5th, at 10 am
Pacific Time, which is 1 pmEastern time.
(07:42):
The topic learning how to loveyourself, discovering the
transformational power ofself-love.
It's only one hour and it'scompletely free.
So if you'd like to learn moreabout what self-love is, what
might be blocking you frompracticing self-love and then
how to actually start practicingit, then join me for this free
(08:04):
webinar.
Once again, it's Wednesday,february the 5th, at 10 am
Pacific time, which is 1 pmEastern time.
You can register for the eventby seeing the show notes in this
episode or you can go to mywebsite at jerryhendersonorg
forward slash selflovewebinar.
That's all one wordselflovewelove webinar.
(08:25):
I hope to see you there as wegather together to explore how
we can learn to love ourselves.
So let's jump back into today'stopic on how to start letting go
of self-hatred.
Now let's start off byunderstanding what self-hatred
really is.
It's defined as a pervasivepattern of negative
(08:46):
self-evaluation involvingchronic self-criticism, feelings
of worthlessness, shame, guiltand contempt towards oneself.
It's often rooted in pastexperiences of trauma, rejection
or failure.
Now, self-hatred orself-loathing has also been
described or defined as anintense dislike or negative
(09:09):
perception of oneself.
Now, it is important todistinguish between the
occasional self-criticism thatmany of us might experience from
time to time and deep-rootedself-hatred.
Those are two different things.
Right, we all struggle withbeing critical and learning how
to love ourselves and speak toourselves kindly, but that's
(09:29):
different than this sense of adeep rooted self-hatred that's
gotten wired in our nervoussystem.
It's become a part of ourpersonality, our thought
patterns, the way we allowourselves to be treated by
others, etc.
Because everyone has momentswhen they feel down about
themselves, right.
But when that feeling becomespersistent and pervasive, that's
(09:51):
when it crosses intoself-hatred territory.
Now let's talk about how doesself-hatred manifest.
What does it look like?
How does it show up?
Well, it might look like verypersistent negative self-talk.
That little voice in your headain't so little anymore.
It's always pointing out whatyou did wrong, never allows you
(10:13):
to celebrate any of your wins.
Now, for many people whostruggle with self-hatred, they
might avoid looking atthemselves in the mirror or in
photos.
I remember working with aclient who had most of the
mirrors removed in their houseand they would never look at
themselves in the mirror andthey didn't like looking at
pictures of themselves.
Why?
Because it triggered all ofthese self-hatred feelings.
(10:36):
It caused them to start beatingthemselves up.
They began to get flooded withshame and we really had to work
on how could they begin to letgo of all of those feelings of
self-hatred, how could they movetowards self-love?
We went through a process, atransformational process of
helping them let go of all thosestories, all the stuff that was
(10:57):
stored in their nervous systemevery time they saw themselves
in the mirror.
That triggered this cascade ofshame, self-judgment, everything
that began to unfold as webegan to understand the sources
of that self-hatred, thatself-loathing, and allowed that
to heal and then begin to movetowards practices of self-love.
(11:17):
They eventually got to thepoint where they could look in
the mirror and tell themselvesthat they loved themselves.
So if that's you and youstruggle with even seeing your
image or looking at yourself inphotos, I want to encourage you.
You can heal, you can transformand you can get to the place
where you look at that image ofyourself and your response
begins to become one ofself-compassion, self-acceptance
(11:40):
and self-love.
Now, another way thatself-hatred will manifest itself
is engaging in self-destructivebehaviors, like engaging in
substance abuse, self-sabotagingbehaviors, self-harming
behaviors, or choosingrelationships that reinforce
those negative beliefs aboutyourself, that you're choosing
people who will treat you theway that you feel like you
(12:02):
should be treated, the way thatyou feel like you should be
treated, or, to more accuratelysay it, choosing people who will
treat you the way that feelsfamiliar, which is the way that
you've been treating yourself.
A few other ways that it mightshow up is overly
perfectionistic behavior, sothat you can try to prove to
yourself and others that you'renot what you feel about yourself
.
We might be struggling with theimposter syndrome.
(12:24):
You might be having chronicfeelings of inadequacy.
You see, all of these can beexpressions or manifestations of
self-hatred, because we feellike there's something wrong
with us, that we're broken andthat we need to try to figure
out how to prove ourselves, fixourselves, and no matter what we
do, we still feel like animposter, we still feel
(12:44):
inadequate, which then createsanother loop of self-loathing
because we think, hey, no matterwhat I do, it doesn't work.
So yeah, I must befundamentally broken, there must
be fundamentally somethingwrong with me.
But I want to encourage you,it's not that, it's wiring.
So let's go on to start talkingabout understanding self-hatred.
Here's something crucial,critical to understand about
(13:09):
self-hatred.
As I alluded to earlier, you'vebeen programmed to hate
yourself.
That's right.
Self-hatred often comes fromexternal sources, in the
beginning, your upbringing, theculture, societal pressures.
And then we take all of thoseexternal things and we begin to
(13:32):
internalize them, and then webegin to program ourselves
around self-hatred and over time, these external influences, and
our own internal narrativeadded to it, create a narrative
in your mind that tells youyou're not good enough, there's
something wrong with you, you'renot worthy of love and you're
(13:52):
not worthy of your own love.
And what happens is we get stuckin a loop and a pattern of that
, and then our behaviors beginto reinforce our belief system,
which we then think is evidenceto confirm the way that we feel
about ourselves.
But what's actually happeningis that the way that we feel
(14:13):
about ourselves is producing theevidence.
It's backwards.
The evidence isn't confirmingor proving to you that you're
unworthy of love or proving toyou that you're unworthy of love
.
Your belief system is drivingthe actions.
That's producing what you callevidence of your unlovability.
And so, if we can reverse thatand realize that my behavior and
(14:37):
my choices are the outcome ofmy beliefs, where did the
beliefs come from?
They got wired in me.
They feel natural and normal tome.
Even though I hate them, Idon't like doing them, they
still are serving me in some way.
And what we have to realize isthat self-hatred is a habit, not
(14:57):
a fact.
And if you can recognize it asa habit, it is the first step
towards breaking free from it.
Because what that does is itcreates some distance from us
and the self-hatred, the loop,the pattern of self-hatred, the
programming that got wired intous, that's been following us
(15:20):
around for so many years that wefeel like a prisoner of.
But the truth is it's a habit,it's a pattern, it's programming
.
I mean, think about the storiesyou've been telling yourself.
Maybe it's I'm a terriblepartner, I'm a horrible parent,
or I'm always screwing things up, or I'm just not good enough,
or I'm a piece of crap, I'm sostupid, I hate myself, I'm
(15:43):
worthless.
All of those messages, all ofthose thoughts, all of those
emotions, all of those things,when you say it, you are
programming self-hatred intoyour system and it's become a
habit, it's become a core belief.
And once again, here's thegreat news Programming habits
(16:04):
and core beliefs are allchangeable.
We can change every single oneof them.
Now you might be saying but youdon't know what I've done.
You're right, I don't know.
And I don't need to know toknow that your mistakes don't
define your worth.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Let me say it again Everyonemakes mistakes.
(16:27):
But you might be saying not asmany mistakes as I've made or
not the type of mistakes thatI've made.
Everybody makes mistakes andthat doesn't mean that you are
unworthy of love.
And that doesn't mean that youare unworthy of love and it
doesn't mean you have to keep onhating yourself and punishing
yourself.
You can let go of self-hatred.
(16:52):
I'm going to keep saying thatover and over in this episode
because I want to drive home thepoint and I want your ears to
hear it and I want it to sparksome hope in you to go.
I don't have to stay in thisplace anymore.
It might be a long journey outof it, it might be a short
journey out of it, but whateverit is, there is a journey and a
path out of it.
(17:13):
Now let's talk a little bitabout some of the research
behind what are some of thecauses of self-hatred?
Number one childhood trauma.
Research from the Journal ofPsychological Trauma links
adverse childhood experiences,or ACEs, to lifelong self-esteem
issues.
Let me just say that againChildhood trauma is linked to
(17:39):
lifelong self-esteem issues.
Now, that does not mean thatyou have to carry it for the
rest of your life.
It means that it can have alifelong impact on us if we
don't deal with it.
And I want to tell yousomething the trauma that you
(18:00):
experienced as a child was notyour fault, and the outcome of
experiencing low self-esteemfrom having childhood trauma is
not your fault.
We're going to talk about thatsome more here in just a minute.
In an environment where you areconstantly criticized, neglected
or abused, it can leave deepscars that begin to manifest as
(18:27):
self-hatred later in life.
Now the second thing iscultural and societal influences
.
We're constantly bombarded withunrealistic beauty standards
societal pressures to achieve.
We're also hit by all of thesethings in the media television,
movies, etc.
Social media that make us feellike we're not enough.
(18:49):
So it's no wonder we begin tointernalize those messages and
we compare ourselves to others.
And what's wrong with me that?
I'm not like that.
But once again I want toencourage you try to stay out of
the comparison trap.
I know it can be hard, but whenwe get into a comparison trap,
the natural result of that isgoing to be a lot of
(19:09):
self-criticism, and a lot ofself-criticism can lead us down
a path of self-loathing andself-hatred.
Now the third thing which I justmentioned is that internalized
criticism is a big factor forself-hatred.
We talked about this a littlebit that if you grew up with
critical caregivers, you mighthave internalized their voices.
(19:31):
Research shows that thisinternalized criticism which
means that you're in thererepeating what somebody else
said about you and you'veadopted the voice of your abuser
, of your criticizer that thatwhole story that you're
replaying can become the storythat you believe about yourself.
And when you begin to adoptthat as the story, as the belief
(19:54):
of yourself, no wonder whyyou're going to feel that
self-loathing and thatself-hatred.
Now, research also shows thatissues such as depression,
anxiety and other mental andemotional challenges can
exacerbate self-hatred.
It can make it feel like it'sinescapable.
You can feel so enmeshed withit and it can begin to feel like
(20:16):
it's not just a part of you,but it is you.
It's who you are.
Self-hatred is who you are, notsomething that you're doing
towards yourself, and that canfeel very painful.
But it also leads me into ournext point, which is that you
don't actually hate yourself.
Can I say it one more time?
(20:37):
You don't actually hateyourself.
Now this might be surprising toyou.
You might feel like, well, I dohate myself.
I know I hate myself.
I know how I feel about myself.
Take a moment, take a breathand just receive these words you
don't actually hate yourself.
(21:00):
I know you feel like you do.
I know you've been carrying itfor years.
I know it feels like you'llnever be able to escape it.
Maybe you feel like you'vetried everything.
Let me just invite you to beopen to the concept for just a
moment that you don't hateyourself and give me a chance to
explain why I don't believethat you really do hate yourself
(21:23):
.
Now, many of you know I love thework of Internal Family Systems
, which was started by DrRichard Schwartz, also known as
IFS for short, and I use itoften with many of my clients
because I have found it to besuch an effective way to help
people, to create a gap, tocreate distance from beliefs,
(21:45):
from thoughts, from behaviors,from emotions and from their
authentic self.
And when it comes toself-hatred, here's what I want
you to know from an IFS or PARTSapproach that there's a part of
you that feels self-hatredtowards yourself, but it is not
the whole you or the authenticself of who you are.
(22:10):
Let me just dig into that alittle bit more.
There is a part of you that istrying to protect you, to serve
you, to keep you safe, and itthinks that hating yourself is
going to keep you safe.
Are you confused?
I was too, when I started doingthe work of IFS.
So let me just walk you througha quick example of how
(22:32):
self-hatred can be a protectivemechanism, how it can be trying
to serve us.
For example, it might be yourattempt or a part of you that's
trying to keep you safe fromfurther pain or rejection.
You might be saying to yourselfconsciously, subconsciously if
I criticize myself first, no oneelse will be able to hurt me.
(22:55):
If I can beat myself up, hatemyself and be as cruel to myself
as possible, then when otherpeople do it to me, I've got a
shield, I've got tough skin,I've grown some calluses around
those spots, and so it's not aspainful, it's not as damaging as
if I didn't practice my ownself-loathing, my own
(23:16):
self-hatred.
Now that part of you might alsobe thinking well, if I think
that I'm stupid and I tellmyself that I'm stupid, then it
won't matter so much if othersthink I'm stupid, if I hate me,
then the rejection of otherswon't sting as much because I'm
already expecting it.
I already knew I was a terribleperson.
I already knew that I didn'tdeserve a loving, healthy
(23:38):
relationship.
So it allows me to stay onguard.
It allows me to stay protected.
If I hate myself and believeI've always been a screw-up and
I'll always will be a screw-up,it'll keep me safe from trying
something new and it'll keep mesafe by keeping me in the
comfort zone of feeling small,limited and not exploring my
(24:01):
highest capacity.
And when we've experiencedtrauma and we've been shut down
and we've not been seen orwhatever the story is, and we
felt like we've had to hideourself.
Well, hating ourselves, shamingourselves, will keep us from
trying to shine, to keep us fromtrying to be seen, because we
don't want anybody to see how wefeel about ourselves.
(24:21):
We don't want anybody to seethe person that we believe that
we are, and so it keeps us awayfrom people, and so it's a
protective mechanism.
That part of you that feelslike you hate yourself is
actually trying to help you andit is actually, in a very
strange, brain-breaking way, aloving act towards yourself.
(24:45):
And think about it.
Listen, for many of us who'veexperienced trauma or had
painful life experiences and wewent down the path of feeling
like there's something wrongwith us and we started to hate
ourselves.
Hating ourselves feels familiarto the decisions that we made
as children or the decisionsthat we made as a result of the
(25:08):
pain that we've experienced.
So, having experienced thatabuse and then the message that
we chose to believe aboutourselves and the self-hatred
that was developed as a way tocope with what was happening
because I must have been bad tohave those things happen to me,
right, that's a coping mechanismto try to keep us safe because,
(25:29):
as I've shared before, that ifwe believe that we're the
problem.
We can then try to figure outhow to fix ourselves, how to
solve us as the problem, and ifwe can do that, then we'll stay
safe.
Now, unfortunately, thatfeeling has become our home and
if I feel that way as a resultof programming and as a default
(25:52):
mechanism about the way I seemyself, that's tried to keep me
safe, it then feels veryuncomfortable to not feel that
way, and so we're going tocontinue to gravitate towards
that self-loathing, thatself-hatred, that shame, as long
as we think that it's us, aslong as we think it's something
(26:13):
that's broken about us that wefeel that way towards ourselves.
You're not broken because youfeel self-hatred towards
yourself.
You're not.
It's a way that you've learnedto cope.
It's a way that you've learnedto stay safe.
It's a way that you've used toavoid some of the deeper
emotional pain.
(26:34):
Right, if I can put all theenergy and the self-hatred and
feeling that, then I don't haveto look at some of the pain
that's underneath there, thatthat self-hatred is coming from,
or that, actually, moreaccurately, that that
self-hatred is coming from, orthat, actually, more accurately,
that that self-hatred is tryingto protect.
It's trying to protect the partof you that needed to develop
(26:55):
self-hatred as a copingmechanism.
And when we go in and we do thework to heal the part of us
that's needing protection, thenthe self-hatred will begin to
relax because it doesn't feellike it needs to use that as a
protection mechanism.
It begins to let go, it beginsto create some space and then it
(27:16):
begins to find a new job.
It then begins to go well, if Idon't hate myself, could I be
more accepting of myself?
Could I be more loving towardsmyself?
Could I be more loving towardsmyself?
Can I be more compassionatetowards myself?
And it can absolutely happen.
You can make that shift and oneof the first places to start is
(27:37):
realizing that you're not theself-hatred.
There's a part of you that'susing that as a coping mechanism
to keep you safe and creatingthat distance.
So you can observe it, so youcan see it is an absolute game
changer.
Listen, I've worked with peoplewhere it felt so uncomfortable
for them to think about nothating themselves, for them to
(28:01):
believe that they were worthy oflove, felt mentally,
emotionally and even physicallyuncomfortable, where it almost
made them feel sick.
They were repulsed by the ideaof loving themselves, that they
felt so horrible aboutthemselves that the very idea of
loving themselves, of saying tothemselves I love you, felt
(28:23):
disgusting to them.
Those are words that I've heardover and over from people and
when we're having those kind ofresponses emotionally, mentally,
physically it tells us thatthat self-hatred is embedded in
our nervous system.
And if it's something that'sembedded in our nervous system
as a belief, as a reaction, as ahabit, as programming, training
(28:46):
, etc.
We can go in there and we canbegin to get it out of our
nervous system.
One of the most beautiful waysthat it happens is through the
practice of self-love, and youcan get there.
You can begin to love yourself.
Now I want to take a moment andI want to invite you to realize
that all the things yes, eventhe most destructive things you
(29:11):
do have positive intention.
There are ways to try to keepyou safe.
Now, the outcomes are notalways positive, right, the
outcomes can be really painful,but the intention is always
positive.
We are trying to get needs metwith our behaviors, with our
(29:33):
beliefs, with our innerself-talk or whatever it is.
It's trying to help you and,once again, often the outcomes
are challenging and difficult todeal with.
But I share all of that becauseit's a very important energy
shift to make to see thatthere's that part of you, as
we've discussed, that you feellike really hates you, that you
(29:55):
feel like you hate yourself.
It does have positiveintentions.
As I said, it's trying to keepyou safe.
Yes, the outcomes aren't helpful.
Yes, the outcomes can bedestructive and they can be
painful, but here's the truth.
The authentic you, yourauthentic self, is the you who
(30:16):
already loves yourself.
It's just gotten layered overby a lot of pain and part of the
healing work is unlayering themessages, the stories and the
belief to see the part of usthat still deeply and genuinely
loves us, wants our best and isthe part of us that can heal us.
(30:38):
So how does that healing beginto take place?
How do we begin to break freefrom self-hatred?
Let me just review a few thingsthat we've already talked about.
Number one, and maybe mostimportantly, realizing that you
don't hate yourself is key, thatyou've been trying to keep
yourself safe by carrying aroundthat belief system Absolutely
(30:59):
key and can be tremendouslyfreeing.
Number two recognize that it isprogramming, that we got
programmed to hate ourselves andif we got programmed and it
became a habit, we can unlearnit.
Yes, you.
You can reprogram your mind.
And so how do we go aboutreprogramming ourselves?
(31:22):
Well, the same way that we gotprogrammed to hate ourselves, we
can get programmed to loveourselves, and I've shared about
this before, but I want to talkabout it again because it
really applies to this work ofhow we begin to let go of
self-hatred.
Well, number one we've hadexperiences, right, and from
those experiences we gavemeaning to them and we made
(31:43):
decisions from them.
And so if we had an experienceof childhood trauma or painful
relationships, we may have madethe meaning that there's
something wrong with us.
And then we've made the decisionto begin to hate ourselves.
And then that begins to becomea loop, a narrative, right, and
then from that later, anytime,we have a triggering event, like
(32:04):
a mistake, a failure orrejection from somebody.
When that happens, we thenbegin to interpret that event as
a reflection of our ownpersonal worth.
Okay, so we have a triggeringevent.
Then we begin to internalize it.
We're interpreting that becausethat happened, it means this
about me.
And then we begin to reinforcethat belief.
(32:28):
We repeat the negative self-talkand that becomes a habit, a
self-criticism, it becomes ourdefault, because that neural
pathway has gotten so grooved inyour brain and it's become a
habit.
Right?
There's a lot of research inhabits where that first
triggering event cascades a setof dominoes, basically, that
(32:48):
almost are unconscious to us,that we have a trigger.
We then create a meaning fromthat trigger.
We might see it as a reflectionof our self-worth, and that
hits the next domino, which iswe start to repeat the negative
self-talk, we begin to ingrainthat and that's become a default
pathway for us and it's a habit.
And we don't even realize thatit's a habit.
(33:09):
We just think it's the way thatwe talk to ourself.
No, the way that you talk toyourself is a habit.
You learned to talk to yourselfthe same way that you learned
to do anything else in life.
You practice it over and over,you say it over and over, and
then it's a habit in your life.
And then, from there, the nextdomino that hits is the behavior
(33:33):
, the expression of what we do.
We then engage inself-sabotaging behaviors
because we're trying to confirmthe way that we feel about
ourselves, right, that if I'mfeeling this terrible about
myself, I must be terrible.
And so, subconsciously we startacting out, we start sabotaging
.
We might just say screw it, Iknew I was always a failure.
(33:59):
I knew I was always going to berejected.
And then we spiral down intothose behaviors that continue to
reinforce the way that we feel,that provide more evidence,
more experiences for us, thatthen go all the way back up to
that triggering event.
And every time a trigger showsup, boom, cascade Event that
then hits the next domino ofinternalizing it, associating it
(34:20):
with our self-worth.
Boom, next domino, beatingourselves up, negative self-talk
.
And then boom, next domino.
We begin to manifest behaviorsthat align with the way that
we're feeling about ourselves.
And then guess what Cycle justkeeps repeating.
Now that leads me to the thirdthing about how do we bring
change, how do we move out ofself-hatred, self-loathing?
(34:40):
We disrupt that cycle and apart of it is understanding that
loop that I just shared and Iwant to go into that just a
little bit more deeply.
You see, between every eventand a response is a space or a
gap, and what we do in that gapis everything.
(35:01):
Now I just want to take amoment and break it down in
terms of habit language, becauseit is a habit, and we spent
some time understanding howthat's getting ingrained in us.
So let's dive into how we candisrupt that cycle and a key
part of it is understandinghabit formation.
We have a triggering event,which in habit formation is
(35:23):
called the cue, the thing thatcues up that chain reaction, as
we talked about a thought, amemory, a person, an environment
, et cetera.
Now the second thing, response,as we talked about.
Subconsciously and habitually,we start diving into negative
self-talk, self-loathing.
Now, once again, that is theprogramming and it's also
(35:43):
chemically wired into you.
The chemicals that get releasedin that whole process of
negative self-talk, all thethings that you're doing that
are causing you to feel thatself-hatred, all of that stuff
is further wiring it into oursystems.
Now, the fact that all that'staking place doesn't make it
(36:04):
hopeless, doesn't mean that wecan't change it.
I'm just explaining how thatprocess works so that it can
give you some understanding ofhow you can change that process,
how you can disrupt the cycle.
And then, after we have thatinternal response and all that
wiring, then we have the outcome, that emotional spiral that
leads into those behaviors, etcetera.
(36:25):
So I know I might be soundingrepetitive about everything I'm
sharing here, about how thesethings get wired in us and how
that cycle happens, but I reallywant to make sure that we get a
hold of this.
We have a cue, thought, trigger, memory, environment, person,
etc.
We have a response which can benegative self-talk, feelings of
self-loathing, etc.
Then we have the outcome thatemotional spiral, that behavior,
(36:47):
feelings of self-loathing, etcetera.
Then we have the outcome thatemotional spiral, that behavior,
sabotaging, et cetera.
And what we need to do is weneed to figure out how can we
choose a new response Betweenthe cue and the outcome.
We have the ability to chooseresponse.
Even if you feel like you'repowerless to change that
response right now, I want tolet you know that you're not.
(37:07):
You can choose a new response.
And is that new response goingto feel very uncomfortable at
first?
Absolutely, and I've said thisbefore, used this example before
.
It's like trying to switch fromriding with your left hand to
riding with your right hand Veryuncomfortable, very strange,
feels unfamiliar.
It's like trying to correct abad tennis group or a bad golf
(37:29):
swing.
Right, why are those things souncomfortable?
Why are they so hard to break?
Because they become musclememory.
These belief systems are musclememory.
That response, muscle memory,habit okay, and those habituated
habits and responses feel veryuncomfortable to change.
But it doesn't mean that youcan't, and it doesn't mean that
(37:51):
there's something wrong with youand it doesn't mean that it's
wrong to try to change it and itdoesn't mean that it's true
about us just because it's hardfor us to change it.
You have the ability in thatmoment to step into that little
window that happens between thecue and the outcome, the event
(38:12):
and the outcome, that littlespace.
You have the ability and thepower to step into it.
One of the things that helps usdo that is realizing that
that's the pattern that'shappening.
And then we realize that that'sthe pattern.
And just because we have thathabit doesn't mean that it's
true.
Just because we feel like wehate ourselves doesn't mean that
we do.
We've gotten used to it.
(38:33):
And if we can step into thatmoment with a new response, it
begins to change the game.
So you might be asking well,what can I do?
What can I insert in thatmoment?
What response can I have?
Well, there's several thingsthat you can do.
The first is you can have aself-loving mantra that you have
(38:54):
available, that you've beenpracticing.
When those feelings come up, youcan begin to just tell yourself
over and over I love myself,I'm worthy of love, or whatever
the language is that you feelcomfortable with, because what
it's doing is it's just stoppingthat negative spiral and in
that moment you really don'thave to believe that you love
(39:14):
yourself.
Okay, this is going to taketime, this is going to take work
.
What you're doing is you'rejust inserting a new response in
that moment, and part of it canbe just mindless if you want it
to be.
You just get in there in yourbrain and you start to repeat
the words I love myself, I lovemyself, I love myself.
You look in a mirror, I lovemyself, I love myself.
(39:35):
And if you can't look in amirror and do it, write it down
I love myself, I love myself,okay.
And what you're doing simply inthat moment is you're disrupting
the cycle by inserting a newresponse, extremely powerful.
I know it may not feel like itin the beginning, but you keep
that up and your brain starts tolet go of that highway that
(39:57):
it's always gone down ofself-hatred and we started to
put up a road close sign andwe're diverting it towards the
language of I love myself, Ilove myself, I love myself.
Your brain's going to be lesslikely over time to go down the
pathway of.
I hate myself.
It's just absolutely going tohappen.
(40:17):
All of the neuroscience aroundthis confirms it.
It's rewiring your brain, andwe rewire by disrupting and then
starting to carve a new path.
And this is key, right?
We don't just try to stopthinking that old thought.
We have to insert a new thought.
We have to give our brain a newpath to go towards, because if
it only knows that one path andit doesn't have another option
(40:39):
to go down to, it's just goingto keep going back to the old
path.
Another thing you can do ispractice self-compassion.
Acknowledge that part of youthat feels the hatred.
Ask it why it feels that way.
Offer it self-compassion, treatthat part of yourself as you
would a good friend in thatmoment.
(41:00):
And this is why that wholeconversation around parts
therapy and internal familysystems is so important because
you want to acknowledge it.
Why are you here?
How are you trying to serve me?
How are you trying to keep mesafe?
Thank it for trying to do thatfor you and then treat it as you
would a good friend in thatmoment.
And what this is going to do isit's going to activate that
(41:22):
curiosity that I talked about,and the research behind
curiosity is that it is a bigdisruptor in our mental patterns
.
It switches the energy from Ishould, or I need to be, or I
wish I wasn't, to I wonder whyI'm doing this.
And that shift alone, with justthat question, will switch your
(41:43):
brain activation from thatright side, which is avoidance,
which is fear-based, that hasall of the negative impact, and
then it'll begin to shift youtowards that left brain
activation, which is theapproach mechanism that invites
you to come in, to understand.
And when we seek understandingfrom ourselves, it's naturally
(42:05):
going to begin to relax the partof us that might feel so much
hatred towards ourselves.
It allows it to relax, itallows it to feel seen,
understood and actuallyactivates a different part of
your brain.
Now, another thing that you cando in that moment to disrupt it
and to give a new response ispractice self-forgiveness.
When you're regretting somethingabout the past, beating
(42:27):
yourself up about something inthe past, start repeating in
your mind I forgive myself, Iforgive myself, I forgive myself
.
Might even want to practicethat right now I forgive myself,
I forgive myself, and you sayit over and over Now.
I've done a previous episode onself-forgiveness and so if you
(42:49):
need some help on how to do that.
You can go back and listen tothat episode, but right now, I
just want to acknowledge thatyour past mistakes do not define
who you are, and I'm not sayingthat we don't recognize that
we've made mistakes in the past,but we have to separate them
from our identity.
We have to give ourselves thepermission to forgive ourselves.
(43:11):
So if the cue is a thought or amemory about something in the
past and you start beatingyourself up and shaming yourself
for it, the new responseinstead of all of that
self-loathing that you begin toactivate can then begin I
forgive myself, I forgive myself, I forgive myself.
Now, another thing that you cando to change the response is to
(43:33):
actively practice a self-lovingaction.
Do something in that momentthat's self-loving.
The self-loving thing could be,as what we talked about earlier
, the self-love mantra.
It could be getting up andtaking a walk, moving your body,
as a sign to yourself thatyou're going to be active,
you're going to take care ofyourself, that you're going to
(43:54):
show yourself that you loveyourself, and the fact that
you're taking action can helpdisrupt that cycle, instead of
sitting on the couch and goingdown that rabbit hole of all the
reasons that you're terrible,as uncomfortable as it might
feel.
Taking an action that'sself-loving towards yourself can
help disrupt that cycle becauseyou're giving yourself a new
(44:16):
response in that moment to thetrigger.
I want to remind you, as you'redoing all this, realize you're
rewiring yourself.
You're rewiring an ingrainedhabit of self-hatred and, just
like with any habit, you'regoing to need to keep at it and
guess what?
You're also going to begin todefault to the old way of doing
(44:38):
it.
That's a natural part of habitchange.
And just because it keepscoming back up and you might
continue to default back to theold way, it doesn't mean that
you're not making progress.
I want you to think about itlike any habit you're trying to
break or that you're trying tochange, going to be a part of
muscle memory that defaults backand you could be going for
(45:00):
months feeling good aboutyourself, loving yourself, and
all of a sudden something throwsyou off and you default back to
the old way of thinking.
That's a normal part of change.
I often tell people we don'tchange like up and to the right.
The path is not always astraight line.
A lot of times we spiral upward, we're continuing to kind of go
around some of the same issues,but we're making progress.
(45:21):
We're not the same as we werebefore.
So any progress in this spaceis good progress, and don't let
the fact that you go back tothat old golf swing or that old
tennis grip as an example keepyou from trying to learn how to
practice self-love, how to letgo of those old beliefs and
(45:43):
those old feelings.
Okay, now you know me.
I always like to try to closeout with something practical
that you can do or some kind ofexercise, and we've already
talked about several practicalthings.
But I just want to give you onetactical thing that you can do
and it's something that was verypowerful for me and I've
watched it be very powerful inthe clients that I work with and
(46:04):
it's this it's telling yourselfthat you love yourself for 30
days in a row.
And here's some ways that youcan do it.
You can do it by looking in themirror.
We call it the mirror exercise,right?
You get in front of the mirrorand you tell yourself I love you
, and you try to do it with someemotion, you try to connect
(46:26):
with it emotionally and youstick at it for 30 days, because
the research on the 21 daysthey've kind of updated that to
30 days.
That can really help ingrain ahabit.
And the other thing that theresearch shows around habit
formation is that it's an actionthat's repeated in the same way
and then doing it in the sameenvironment can really help
(46:50):
create that cue response outcomethat we're looking for in habit
change and habit formation.
So in this example of the mirrorexercise, what can start to
happen is that when you see themirror, instead of seeing it as
a cue that starts self-loathing,you'll begin to shift that to a
cue that begins to activateself-love, a loving response
(47:15):
towards yourself.
So for 30 days, while you'regetting ready and you're in
front of that mirror, tellyourself I love you and I'd
encourage you.
Try doing it for 10 times eachday for 30 days Now, even though
it might feel uncomfortable.
Neuroscientific studies showthat repeated affirmations can
(47:36):
rewire your brain over time,especially if you're doing them
in a way that involves manyparts of your system.
So when you're saying it infront of the mirror, you're
seeing yourself, you're sayingit verbally, you're thinking it
mentally and if you can connectemotion to it, you're
supercharging the process.
I do just want to make a note,if you don't feel like you're
(47:58):
there right now, that you canlook in the mirror and tell
yourself that you love yourself.
It's just too hard right now.
You've been avoiding mirrorsand it's really difficult for
you to do that.
You can take another verypowerful approach, which is
writing it out 10 times eachmorning for 30 days, and here's
a few tips on how to do that.
(48:19):
I encourage you to physicallywrite it out pen and paper.
The research shows as weactivate our brain's motor
systems and motor pathways andwe're writing it out pen and
paper.
Research shows as we activateour brain's motor systems and
motor pathways and we're writingit out, we're activating it
more deeply than if we were totype it out.
So, taking that time to reallysit with it, think the thought I
love you, write it out withyour hand, see those words and
(48:45):
then try to connect with itemotionally.
And so, once again, I encourageyou write it out 10 times a day
for 30 days and allow yourselfto feel it, see it, and as
you're doing it, you'reinvolving multiple parts of your
nervous system.
I want to acknowledge that Ican't cover everything in a
podcast about how to let go ofself-hatred and move towards
(49:06):
self-love, but I want toencourage you to start there.
Try that exercise of tellingyourself that I love you 10
times a day for 30 days and seewhat happens.
And one thing that I think youmight find that does happen is
that that practice of tellingyourself that you love yourself
is getting you ready for thosemoments when you do get
(49:27):
triggered and you want to spiralinto self-hatred.
You're actually building amuscle that allows you to have a
new pathway to go to, and soyou're building resilience
towards the triggers or the cuesthat you're going to face that
are going to allow you to movemore naturally towards self-love
.
Now, if you need help on yourjourney of learning how to let
(49:48):
go of self-hatred and learninghow to love yourself, I want to
encourage you to sign up for myfree webinar on learning how to
love yourself and then alsocheck out my coaching program.
You'll find a link to both ofthose in the show notes of this
episode or you can go to mywebsite at jerryhendersonorg.
I also want to remind you ifyou've not yet had a chance to
(50:10):
subscribe to this podcast, takea moment to do that.
That's going to mean a lot tome and it's also going to keep
you updated on when new episodescome out.
Now, if you know somebody whocould benefit from this episode
or other episodes that are partof the Permission to Love
podcast, share it with them,because if it's making a
difference in your life, it'sgoing to make a difference in
their life as well.
(50:30):
Now, finally, I just want tosay once again, thank you for
being here today and, in casenobody has told you, I'm
grateful for you and I'm so gladthat you're here and remember
you are worthy of your own love.
Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of
the Permission to Love podcast.
I'm your host, jerry Henderson,and I am so happy to be here
with you today and I want to saythank you.
Thank you for sharing this timewith me.
I just want to encourage youfor a moment, before we get
started in this episode, to bekind to yourself, to be gentle
with yourself, to practiceself-compassion, self-acceptance
(00:23):
, practicing self-care Each oneof those are so important in
order for us to have a healthy,thriving relationship with
ourselves and with others.
So take a moment, be kind toyourself and direct some
compassion towards yourself inthis moment.
Now, today, we're diving into atopic that's deeply personal for
(00:46):
many of us and, honestly,deeply personal for me, and this
subject, this topic, is one ofthe reasons that I started this
podcast on giving ourselves thepermission to love ourselves,
and the topic today how to stophating yourself.
I know that might sound intense, but the truth is self-hatred
(01:07):
and self-loathing are morecommon than we often realize.
According to the NationalInstitute of Mental Health,
nearly 85% of people strugglewith low self-esteem at some
point in their lives, andchronic self-loathing or
self-hatred affects 20% ofadults, or one in five people.
(01:28):
So one in five people that youencounter are going to be
struggling with this, and youmight be one of them, and if you
are, that's okay.
And if you are, I'm glad you'rehere today listening to this
episode.
Now, even though so many peopleare struggling with this, there
is good news, fantastic news,and it's that you were not born
(01:53):
with self-hatred.
It's something that's beenlearned, it's something that got
programmed in us over time, andthe way it might have gotten
programmed is by our family oforigin, toxic relationships or
the way that we speak toourselves.
That's embedding it into ournervous system.
And why is it such great newsthat it's something that you
(02:15):
learned, something that gotprogrammed?
Because if it's something thatwe've learned and it's something
that got programmed in us, wecan reprogram it, we can unlearn
it.
You know I talk often about howa lot of healing is not about
what we learn, but a lot of itis about what we unlearn letting
go of patterns and beliefsystems that don't serve us
(02:36):
anymore, unlearning toxicthinking patterns, unlearning
what feels familiar to ournervous system, making that
which feels familiar feelunfamiliar, and that which feels
unfamiliar self-love becomingfamiliar to us.
So now, before we move on, Ijust want to take a moment with
you and I want to ask you areyou struggling with self-hatred?
(03:01):
And if you are, how long haveyou been struggling with it?
How has it been impacting yourlife, your relationships, how
has it been holding you back?
Has it caused you to play small?
Has it caused you toself-sabotage?
What has this belief, what hasthis feeling, been doing in your
life?
(03:21):
Now I want you to take a momentand imagine how would you feel
if you didn't carry that senseof self-hatred.
What would life look likewithout it?
Now you might say I can't evenimagine, I can't even put my
head around that, because itfeels so true to me that
self-hatred feels like a part ofwho I am, and so the idea of
(03:45):
not hating myself or notloathing myself and who I am, I
can't even wrap my brain aroundthat and I want to say that's
okay.
It's okay if you can't seeyourself doing it, if you can't
imagine it.
That's where we all start, okay.
I just want to encourage you totake a moment right now and
(04:06):
just try.
Give it a shot.
And if it feels veryuncomfortable to you, awkward to
you, you feel a lot ofresistance around it, that's
okay as well, and that's normalas well, because if you've been
practicing self-hatred,self-loathing and having a sense
of low self-esteem, it takessome time to begin to reprogram
(04:27):
that and get comfortable withfinding your way out of it.
So if you can't imagine nothating yourself, then take a
moment and ask this question howwould it feel to not have that
burden in your life right now?
Just take a moment and imaginewhat would it look like, or what
(04:49):
would it feel like if thatburden was relieved from you for
just a moment.
Because if right now you can'twrap your mind around what that
would look like long term, youcan just pause in this moment
and begin to think about whatwould it feel like to pull that
burden off of your back oroutside of you, or you carry it,
(05:12):
maybe you carry it in yourchest, maybe you carry it in
your gut.
If you were just to giveyourself permission to lay that
aside for just a second, whatwould that feel like?
Are you able to do that rightnow?
And if you are, what does itfeel like?
How much lighter would you feelif you weren't always telling
yourself how much you hateyourself, always feeling like a
(05:35):
loser, always feeling likeyou're not enough, that you
can't do enough, that you'llnever learn how to love yourself
.
How much lighter would you beif you didn't have to carry that
burden anymore.
Well, I want to tell yousomething it is possible to let
go of it.
Even if you can't see it rightnow, it is possible.
(05:55):
I absolutely know it.
I know it.
I know it to the core of mybeing.
I've seen it happen in my life,I've seen it happen in the
lives of others, and that thingthat keeps you from having hope
that it can change, that it willchange for you, is that
self-hate talking expressingitself, trying to pull you back
(06:17):
to what feels comfortable.
And that's one of the bigparadoxes or challenges with
self-hatred is that we hate thatpart, we hate the self-hatred,
but we also keep findingourselves going back to it
because in so many ways it feelscomfortable, it feels like home
(06:37):
and, as we'll talk about later,it feels safe to us.
But I want to let you know thatjust because it feels safe, just
because it feels normal to you,just because it feels like such
a part of your life doesn'tmean that you have to stay stuck
in it.
You can heal that part of you.
You can heal the part of youthat you feel like hates
(06:59):
yourself.
You truly can.
You can learn to love all theparts of yourself, accept all
the parts of yourself and let goof that self-hatred.
And today I'm going to besharing some personal insights,
some research and some practicaltools to help you start to let
(07:20):
go of that self-hatred and tostart moving towards
self-acceptance and self-love.
Now, on that note of self-love,before we go any further, I want
to extend an invitation to youto be a part of a free webinar
that I'm hosting this Wednesday,february the 5th, at 10 am
Pacific Time, which is 1 pmEastern time.
(07:42):
The topic learning how to loveyourself, discovering the
transformational power ofself-love.
It's only one hour and it'scompletely free.
So if you'd like to learn moreabout what self-love is, what
might be blocking you frompracticing self-love and then
how to actually start practicingit, then join me for this free
(08:04):
webinar.
Once again, it's Wednesday,february the 5th, at 10 am
Pacific time, which is 1 pmEastern time.
You can register for the eventby seeing the show notes in this
episode or you can go to mywebsite at jerryhendersonorg
forward slash selflovewebinar.
That's all one wordselflovewelove webinar.
(08:25):
I hope to see you there as wegather together to explore how
we can learn to love ourselves.
So let's jump back into today'stopic on how to start letting go
of self-hatred.
Now let's start off byunderstanding what self-hatred
really is.
It's defined as a pervasivepattern of negative
(08:46):
self-evaluation involvingchronic self-criticism, feelings
of worthlessness, shame, guiltand contempt towards oneself.
It's often rooted in pastexperiences of trauma, rejection
or failure.
Now, self-hatred orself-loathing has also been
described or defined as anintense dislike or negative
(09:09):
perception of oneself.
Now, it is important todistinguish between the
occasional self-criticism thatmany of us might experience from
time to time and deep-rootedself-hatred.
Those are two different things.
Right, we all struggle withbeing critical and learning how
to love ourselves and speak toourselves kindly, but that's
(09:29):
different than this sense of adeep rooted self-hatred that's
gotten wired in our nervoussystem.
It's become a part of ourpersonality, our thought
patterns, the way we allowourselves to be treated by
others, etc.
Because everyone has momentswhen they feel down about
themselves, right.
But when that feeling becomespersistent and pervasive, that's
(09:51):
when it crosses intoself-hatred territory.
Now let's talk about how doesself-hatred manifest.
What does it look like?
How does it show up?
Well, it might look like verypersistent negative self-talk.
That little voice in your headain't so little anymore.
It's always pointing out whatyou did wrong, never allows you
(10:13):
to celebrate any of your wins.
Now, for many people whostruggle with self-hatred, they
might avoid looking atthemselves in the mirror or in
photos.
I remember working with aclient who had most of the
mirrors removed in their houseand they would never look at
themselves in the mirror andthey didn't like looking at
pictures of themselves.
Why?
Because it triggered all ofthese self-hatred feelings.
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It caused them to start beatingthemselves up.
They began to get flooded withshame and we really had to work
on how could they begin to letgo of all of those feelings of
self-hatred, how could they movetowards self-love?
We went through a process, atransformational process of
helping them let go of all thosestories, all the stuff that was
(10:57):
stored in their nervous systemevery time they saw themselves
in the mirror.
That triggered this cascade ofshame, self-judgment, everything
that began to unfold as webegan to understand the sources
of that self-hatred, thatself-loathing, and allowed that
to heal and then begin to movetowards practices of self-love.
(11:17):
They eventually got to thepoint where they could look in
the mirror and tell themselvesthat they loved themselves.
So if that's you and youstruggle with even seeing your
image or looking at yourself inphotos, I want to encourage you.
You can heal, you can transformand you can get to the place
where you look at that image ofyourself and your response
begins to become one ofself-compassion, self-acceptance
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and self-love.
Now, another way thatself-hatred will manifest itself
is engaging in self-destructivebehaviors, like engaging in
substance abuse, self-sabotagingbehaviors, self-harming
behaviors, or choosingrelationships that reinforce
those negative beliefs aboutyourself, that you're choosing
people who will treat you theway that you feel like you
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should be treated, the way thatyou feel like you should be
treated, or, to more accuratelysay it, choosing people who will
treat you the way that feelsfamiliar, which is the way that
you've been treating yourself.
A few other ways that it mightshow up is overly
perfectionistic behavior, sothat you can try to prove to
yourself and others that you'renot what you feel about yourself
.
We might be struggling with theimposter syndrome.
(12:24):
You might be having chronicfeelings of inadequacy.
You see, all of these can beexpressions or manifestations of
self-hatred, because we feellike there's something wrong
with us, that we're broken andthat we need to try to figure
out how to prove ourselves, fixourselves, and no matter what we
do, we still feel like animposter, we still feel
(12:44):
inadequate, which then createsanother loop of self-loathing
because we think, hey, no matterwhat I do, it doesn't work.
So yeah, I must befundamentally broken, there must
be fundamentally somethingwrong with me.
But I want to encourage you,it's not that, it's wiring.
So let's go on to start talkingabout understanding self-hatred.
Here's something crucial,critical to understand about
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self-hatred.
As I alluded to earlier, you'vebeen programmed to hate
yourself.
That's right.
Self-hatred often comes fromexternal sources, in the
beginning, your upbringing, theculture, societal pressures.
And then we take all of thoseexternal things and we begin to
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internalize them, and then webegin to program ourselves
around self-hatred and over time, these external influences, and
our own internal narrativeadded to it, create a narrative
in your mind that tells youyou're not good enough, there's
something wrong with you, you'renot worthy of love and you're
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not worthy of your own love.
And what happens is we get stuckin a loop and a pattern of that
, and then our behaviors beginto reinforce our belief system,
which we then think is evidenceto confirm the way that we feel
about ourselves.
But what's actually happeningis that the way that we feel
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about ourselves is producing theevidence.
It's backwards.
The evidence isn't confirmingor proving to you that you're
unworthy of love or proving toyou that you're unworthy of love
.
Your belief system is drivingthe actions.
That's producing what you callevidence of your unlovability.
And so, if we can reverse thatand realize that my behavior and
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my choices are the outcome ofmy beliefs, where did the
beliefs come from?
They got wired in me.
They feel natural and normal tome.
Even though I hate them, Idon't like doing them, they
still are serving me in some way.
And what we have to realize isthat self-hatred is a habit, not
(14:57):
a fact.
And if you can recognize it asa habit, it is the first step
towards breaking free from it.
Because what that does is itcreates some distance from us
and the self-hatred, the loop,the pattern of self-hatred, the
programming that got wired intous, that's been following us
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around for so many years that wefeel like a prisoner of.
But the truth is it's a habit,it's a pattern, it's programming
.
I mean, think about the storiesyou've been telling yourself.
Maybe it's I'm a terriblepartner, I'm a horrible parent,
or I'm always screwing things up, or I'm just not good enough,
or I'm a piece of crap, I'm sostupid, I hate myself, I'm
(15:43):
worthless.
All of those messages, all ofthose thoughts, all of those
emotions, all of those things,when you say it, you are
programming self-hatred intoyour system and it's become a
habit, it's become a core belief.
And once again, here's thegreat news Programming habits
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and core beliefs are allchangeable.
We can change every single oneof them.
Now you might be saying but youdon't know what I've done.
You're right, I don't know.
And I don't need to know toknow that your mistakes don't
define your worth.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Let me say it again Everyonemakes mistakes.
(16:27):
But you might be saying not asmany mistakes as I've made or
not the type of mistakes thatI've made.
Everybody makes mistakes andthat doesn't mean that you are
unworthy of love.
And that doesn't mean that youare unworthy of love and it
doesn't mean you have to keep onhating yourself and punishing
yourself.
You can let go of self-hatred.
(16:52):
I'm going to keep saying thatover and over in this episode
because I want to drive home thepoint and I want your ears to
hear it and I want it to sparksome hope in you to go.
I don't have to stay in thisplace anymore.
It might be a long journey outof it, it might be a short
journey out of it, but whateverit is, there is a journey and a
path out of it.
(17:13):
Now let's talk a little bitabout some of the research
behind what are some of thecauses of self-hatred?
Number one childhood trauma.
Research from the Journal ofPsychological Trauma links
adverse childhood experiences,or ACEs, to lifelong self-esteem
issues.
Let me just say that againChildhood trauma is linked to
(17:39):
lifelong self-esteem issues.
Now, that does not mean thatyou have to carry it for the
rest of your life.
It means that it can have alifelong impact on us if we
don't deal with it.
And I want to tell yousomething the trauma that you
(18:00):
experienced as a child was notyour fault, and the outcome of
experiencing low self-esteemfrom having childhood trauma is
not your fault.
We're going to talk about thatsome more here in just a minute.
In an environment where you areconstantly criticized, neglected
or abused, it can leave deepscars that begin to manifest as
(18:27):
self-hatred later in life.
Now the second thing iscultural and societal influences
.
We're constantly bombarded withunrealistic beauty standards
societal pressures to achieve.
We're also hit by all of thesethings in the media television,
movies, etc.
Social media that make us feellike we're not enough.
(18:49):
So it's no wonder we begin tointernalize those messages and
we compare ourselves to others.
And what's wrong with me that?
I'm not like that.
But once again I want toencourage you try to stay out of
the comparison trap.
I know it can be hard, but whenwe get into a comparison trap,
the natural result of that isgoing to be a lot of
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self-criticism, and a lot ofself-criticism can lead us down
a path of self-loathing andself-hatred.
Now the third thing which I justmentioned is that internalized
criticism is a big factor forself-hatred.
We talked about this a littlebit that if you grew up with
critical caregivers, you mighthave internalized their voices.
(19:31):
Research shows that thisinternalized criticism which
means that you're in thererepeating what somebody else
said about you and you'veadopted the voice of your abuser
, of your criticizer that thatwhole story that you're
replaying can become the storythat you believe about yourself.
And when you begin to adoptthat as the story, as the belief
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of yourself, no wonder whyyou're going to feel that
self-loathing and thatself-hatred.
Now, research also shows thatissues such as depression,
anxiety and other mental andemotional challenges can
exacerbate self-hatred.
It can make it feel like it'sinescapable.
You can feel so enmeshed withit and it can begin to feel like
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it's not just a part of you,but it is you.
It's who you are.
Self-hatred is who you are, notsomething that you're doing
towards yourself, and that canfeel very painful.
But it also leads me into ournext point, which is that you
don't actually hate yourself.
Can I say it one more time?
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You don't actually hateyourself.
Now this might be surprising toyou.
You might feel like, well, I dohate myself.
I know I hate myself.
I know how I feel about myself.
Take a moment, take a breathand just receive these words you
don't actually hate yourself.
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I know you feel like you do.
I know you've been carrying itfor years.
I know it feels like you'llnever be able to escape it.
Maybe you feel like you'vetried everything.
Let me just invite you to beopen to the concept for just a
moment that you don't hateyourself and give me a chance to
explain why I don't believethat you really do hate yourself
(21:23):
.
Now, many of you know I love thework of Internal Family Systems
, which was started by DrRichard Schwartz, also known as
IFS for short, and I use itoften with many of my clients
because I have found it to besuch an effective way to help
people, to create a gap, tocreate distance from beliefs,
(21:45):
from thoughts, from behaviors,from emotions and from their
authentic self.
And when it comes toself-hatred, here's what I want
you to know from an IFS or PARTSapproach that there's a part of
you that feels self-hatredtowards yourself, but it is not
the whole you or the authenticself of who you are.
(22:10):
Let me just dig into that alittle bit more.
There is a part of you that istrying to protect you, to serve
you, to keep you safe, and itthinks that hating yourself is
going to keep you safe.
Are you confused?
I was too, when I started doingthe work of IFS.
So let me just walk you througha quick example of how
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self-hatred can be a protectivemechanism, how it can be trying
to serve us.
For example, it might be yourattempt or a part of you that's
trying to keep you safe fromfurther pain or rejection.
You might be saying to yourselfconsciously, subconsciously if
I criticize myself first, no oneelse will be able to hurt me.
(22:55):
If I can beat myself up, hatemyself and be as cruel to myself
as possible, then when otherpeople do it to me, I've got a
shield, I've got tough skin,I've grown some calluses around
those spots, and so it's not aspainful, it's not as damaging as
if I didn't practice my ownself-loathing, my own
(23:16):
self-hatred.
Now that part of you might alsobe thinking well, if I think
that I'm stupid and I tellmyself that I'm stupid, then it
won't matter so much if othersthink I'm stupid, if I hate me,
then the rejection of otherswon't sting as much because I'm
already expecting it.
I already knew I was a terribleperson.
I already knew that I didn'tdeserve a loving, healthy
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relationship.
So it allows me to stay onguard.
It allows me to stay protected.
If I hate myself and believeI've always been a screw-up and
I'll always will be a screw-up,it'll keep me safe from trying
something new and it'll keep mesafe by keeping me in the
comfort zone of feeling small,limited and not exploring my
(24:01):
highest capacity.
And when we've experiencedtrauma and we've been shut down
and we've not been seen orwhatever the story is, and we
felt like we've had to hideourself.
Well, hating ourselves, shamingourselves, will keep us from
trying to shine, to keep us fromtrying to be seen, because we
don't want anybody to see how wefeel about ourselves.
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We don't want anybody to seethe person that we believe that
we are, and so it keeps us awayfrom people, and so it's a
protective mechanism.
That part of you that feelslike you hate yourself is
actually trying to help you andit is actually, in a very
strange, brain-breaking way, aloving act towards yourself.
(24:45):
And think about it.
Listen, for many of us who'veexperienced trauma or had
painful life experiences and wewent down the path of feeling
like there's something wrongwith us and we started to hate
ourselves.
Hating ourselves feels familiarto the decisions that we made
as children or the decisionsthat we made as a result of the
(25:08):
pain that we've experienced.
So, having experienced thatabuse and then the message that
we chose to believe aboutourselves and the self-hatred
that was developed as a way tocope with what was happening
because I must have been bad tohave those things happen to me,
right, that's a coping mechanismto try to keep us safe because,
(25:29):
as I've shared before, that ifwe believe that we're the
problem.
We can then try to figure outhow to fix ourselves, how to
solve us as the problem, and ifwe can do that, then we'll stay
safe.
Now, unfortunately, thatfeeling has become our home and
if I feel that way as a resultof programming and as a default
(25:52):
mechanism about the way I seemyself, that's tried to keep me
safe, it then feels veryuncomfortable to not feel that
way, and so we're going tocontinue to gravitate towards
that self-loathing, thatself-hatred, that shame, as long
as we think that it's us, aslong as we think it's something
(26:13):
that's broken about us that wefeel that way towards ourselves.
You're not broken because youfeel self-hatred towards
yourself.
You're not.
It's a way that you've learnedto cope.
It's a way that you've learnedto stay safe.
It's a way that you've used toavoid some of the deeper
emotional pain.
(26:34):
Right, if I can put all theenergy and the self-hatred and
feeling that, then I don't haveto look at some of the pain
that's underneath there, thatthat self-hatred is coming from,
or that, actually, moreaccurately, that that
self-hatred is coming from, orthat, actually, more accurately,
that that self-hatred is tryingto protect.
It's trying to protect the partof you that needed to develop
(26:55):
self-hatred as a copingmechanism.
And when we go in and we do thework to heal the part of us
that's needing protection, thenthe self-hatred will begin to
relax because it doesn't feellike it needs to use that as a
protection mechanism.
It begins to let go, it beginsto create some space and then it
(27:16):
begins to find a new job.
It then begins to go well, if Idon't hate myself, could I be
more accepting of myself?
Could I be more loving towardsmyself?
Could I be more loving towardsmyself?
Can I be more compassionatetowards myself?
And it can absolutely happen.
You can make that shift and oneof the first places to start is
(27:37):
realizing that you're not theself-hatred.
There's a part of you that'susing that as a coping mechanism
to keep you safe and creatingthat distance.
So you can observe it, so youcan see it is an absolute game
changer.
Listen, I've worked with peoplewhere it felt so uncomfortable
for them to think about nothating themselves, for them to
(28:01):
believe that they were worthy oflove, felt mentally,
emotionally and even physicallyuncomfortable, where it almost
made them feel sick.
They were repulsed by the ideaof loving themselves, that they
felt so horrible aboutthemselves that the very idea of
loving themselves, of saying tothemselves I love you, felt
(28:23):
disgusting to them.
Those are words that I've heardover and over from people and
when we're having those kind ofresponses emotionally, mentally,
physically it tells us thatthat self-hatred is embedded in
our nervous system.
And if it's something that'sembedded in our nervous system
as a belief, as a reaction, as ahabit, as programming, training
(28:46):
, etc.
We can go in there and we canbegin to get it out of our
nervous system.
One of the most beautiful waysthat it happens is through the
practice of self-love, and youcan get there.
You can begin to love yourself.
Now I want to take a moment andI want to invite you to realize
that all the things yes, eventhe most destructive things you
(29:11):
do have positive intention.
There are ways to try to keepyou safe.
Now, the outcomes are notalways positive, right, the
outcomes can be really painful,but the intention is always
positive.
We are trying to get needs metwith our behaviors, with our
(29:33):
beliefs, with our innerself-talk or whatever it is.
It's trying to help you and,once again, often the outcomes
are challenging and difficult todeal with.
But I share all of that becauseit's a very important energy
shift to make to see thatthere's that part of you, as
we've discussed, that you feellike really hates you, that you
(29:55):
feel like you hate yourself.
It does have positiveintentions.
As I said, it's trying to keepyou safe.
Yes, the outcomes aren't helpful.
Yes, the outcomes can bedestructive and they can be
painful, but here's the truth.
The authentic you, yourauthentic self, is the you who
(30:16):
already loves yourself.
It's just gotten layered overby a lot of pain and part of the
healing work is unlayering themessages, the stories and the
belief to see the part of usthat still deeply and genuinely
loves us, wants our best and isthe part of us that can heal us.
(30:38):
So how does that healing beginto take place?
How do we begin to break freefrom self-hatred?
Let me just review a few thingsthat we've already talked about.
Number one, and maybe mostimportantly, realizing that you
don't hate yourself is key, thatyou've been trying to keep
yourself safe by carrying aroundthat belief system Absolutely
(30:59):
key and can be tremendouslyfreeing.
Number two recognize that it isprogramming, that we got
programmed to hate ourselves andif we got programmed and it
became a habit, we can unlearnit.
Yes, you.
You can reprogram your mind.
And so how do we go aboutreprogramming ourselves?
(31:22):
Well, the same way that we gotprogrammed to hate ourselves, we
can get programmed to loveourselves, and I've shared about
this before, but I want to talkabout it again because it
really applies to this work ofhow we begin to let go of
self-hatred.
Well, number one we've hadexperiences, right, and from
those experiences we gavemeaning to them and we made
(31:43):
decisions from them.
And so if we had an experienceof childhood trauma or painful
relationships, we may have madethe meaning that there's
something wrong with us.
And then we've made the decisionto begin to hate ourselves.
And then that begins to becomea loop, a narrative, right, and
then from that later, anytime,we have a triggering event, like
(32:04):
a mistake, a failure orrejection from somebody.
When that happens, we thenbegin to interpret that event as
a reflection of our ownpersonal worth.
Okay, so we have a triggeringevent.
Then we begin to internalize it.
We're interpreting that becausethat happened, it means this
about me.
And then we begin to reinforcethat belief.
(32:28):
We repeat the negative self-talkand that becomes a habit, a
self-criticism, it becomes ourdefault, because that neural
pathway has gotten so grooved inyour brain and it's become a
habit.
Right?
There's a lot of research inhabits where that first
triggering event cascades a setof dominoes, basically, that
(32:48):
almost are unconscious to us,that we have a trigger.
We then create a meaning fromthat trigger.
We might see it as a reflectionof our self-worth, and that
hits the next domino, which iswe start to repeat the negative
self-talk, we begin to ingrainthat and that's become a default
pathway for us and it's a habit.
And we don't even realize thatit's a habit.
(33:09):
We just think it's the way thatwe talk to ourself.
No, the way that you talk toyourself is a habit.
You learned to talk to yourselfthe same way that you learned
to do anything else in life.
You practice it over and over,you say it over and over, and
then it's a habit in your life.
And then, from there, the nextdomino that hits is the behavior
(33:33):
, the expression of what we do.
We then engage inself-sabotaging behaviors
because we're trying to confirmthe way that we feel about
ourselves, right, that if I'mfeeling this terrible about
myself, I must be terrible.
And so, subconsciously we startacting out, we start sabotaging
.
We might just say screw it, Iknew I was always a failure.
(33:59):
I knew I was always going to berejected.
And then we spiral down intothose behaviors that continue to
reinforce the way that we feel,that provide more evidence,
more experiences for us, thatthen go all the way back up to
that triggering event.
And every time a trigger showsup, boom, cascade Event that
then hits the next domino ofinternalizing it, associating it
(34:20):
with our self-worth.
Boom, next domino, beatingourselves up, negative self-talk
.
And then boom, next domino.
We begin to manifest behaviorsthat align with the way that
we're feeling about ourselves.
And then guess what Cycle justkeeps repeating.
Now that leads me to the thirdthing about how do we bring
change, how do we move out ofself-hatred, self-loathing?
(34:40):
We disrupt that cycle and apart of it is understanding that
loop that I just shared and Iwant to go into that just a
little bit more deeply.
You see, between every eventand a response is a space or a
gap, and what we do in that gapis everything.
(35:01):
Now I just want to take amoment and break it down in
terms of habit language, becauseit is a habit, and we spent
some time understanding howthat's getting ingrained in us.
So let's dive into how we candisrupt that cycle and a key
part of it is understandinghabit formation.
We have a triggering event,which in habit formation is
(35:23):
called the cue, the thing thatcues up that chain reaction, as
we talked about a thought, amemory, a person, an environment
, et cetera.
Now the second thing, response,as we talked about.
Subconsciously and habitually,we start diving into negative
self-talk, self-loathing.
Now, once again, that is theprogramming and it's also
(35:43):
chemically wired into you.
The chemicals that get releasedin that whole process of
negative self-talk, all thethings that you're doing that
are causing you to feel thatself-hatred, all of that stuff
is further wiring it into oursystems.
Now, the fact that all that'staking place doesn't make it
(36:04):
hopeless, doesn't mean that wecan't change it.
I'm just explaining how thatprocess works so that it can
give you some understanding ofhow you can change that process,
how you can disrupt the cycle.
And then, after we have thatinternal response and all that
wiring, then we have the outcome, that emotional spiral that
leads into those behaviors, etcetera.
(36:25):
So I know I might be soundingrepetitive about everything I'm
sharing here, about how thesethings get wired in us and how
that cycle happens, but I reallywant to make sure that we get a
hold of this.
We have a cue, thought, trigger, memory, environment, person,
etc.
We have a response which can benegative self-talk, feelings of
self-loathing, etc.
Then we have the outcome thatemotional spiral, that behavior,
(36:47):
feelings of self-loathing, etcetera.
Then we have the outcome thatemotional spiral, that behavior,
sabotaging, et cetera.
And what we need to do is weneed to figure out how can we
choose a new response Betweenthe cue and the outcome.
We have the ability to chooseresponse.
Even if you feel like you'repowerless to change that
response right now, I want tolet you know that you're not.
(37:07):
You can choose a new response.
And is that new response goingto feel very uncomfortable at
first?
Absolutely, and I've said thisbefore, used this example before
.
It's like trying to switch fromriding with your left hand to
riding with your right hand Veryuncomfortable, very strange,
feels unfamiliar.
It's like trying to correct abad tennis group or a bad golf
(37:29):
swing.
Right, why are those things souncomfortable?
Why are they so hard to break?
Because they become musclememory.
These belief systems are musclememory.
That response, muscle memory,habit okay, and those habituated
habits and responses feel veryuncomfortable to change.
But it doesn't mean that youcan't, and it doesn't mean that
(37:51):
there's something wrong with youand it doesn't mean that it's
wrong to try to change it and itdoesn't mean that it's true
about us just because it's hardfor us to change it.
You have the ability in thatmoment to step into that little
window that happens between thecue and the outcome, the event
(38:12):
and the outcome, that littlespace.
You have the ability and thepower to step into it.
One of the things that helps usdo that is realizing that
that's the pattern that'shappening.
And then we realize that that'sthe pattern.
And just because we have thathabit doesn't mean that it's
true.
Just because we feel like wehate ourselves doesn't mean that
we do.
We've gotten used to it.
(38:33):
And if we can step into thatmoment with a new response, it
begins to change the game.
So you might be asking well,what can I do?
What can I insert in thatmoment?
What response can I have?
Well, there's several thingsthat you can do.
The first is you can have aself-loving mantra that you have
(38:54):
available, that you've beenpracticing.
When those feelings come up, youcan begin to just tell yourself
over and over I love myself,I'm worthy of love, or whatever
the language is that you feelcomfortable with, because what
it's doing is it's just stoppingthat negative spiral and in
that moment you really don'thave to believe that you love
(39:14):
yourself.
Okay, this is going to taketime, this is going to take work
.
What you're doing is you'rejust inserting a new response in
that moment, and part of it canbe just mindless if you want it
to be.
You just get in there in yourbrain and you start to repeat
the words I love myself, I lovemyself, I love myself.
You look in a mirror, I lovemyself, I love myself.
(39:35):
And if you can't look in amirror and do it, write it down
I love myself, I love myself,okay.
And what you're doing simply inthat moment is you're disrupting
the cycle by inserting a newresponse, extremely powerful.
I know it may not feel like itin the beginning, but you keep
that up and your brain starts tolet go of that highway that
(39:57):
it's always gone down ofself-hatred and we started to
put up a road close sign andwe're diverting it towards the
language of I love myself, Ilove myself, I love myself.
Your brain's going to be lesslikely over time to go down the
pathway of.
I hate myself.
It's just absolutely going tohappen.
(40:17):
All of the neuroscience aroundthis confirms it.
It's rewiring your brain, andwe rewire by disrupting and then
starting to carve a new path.
And this is key, right?
We don't just try to stopthinking that old thought.
We have to insert a new thought.
We have to give our brain a newpath to go towards, because if
it only knows that one path andit doesn't have another option
(40:39):
to go down to, it's just goingto keep going back to the old
path.
Another thing you can do ispractice self-compassion.
Acknowledge that part of youthat feels the hatred.
Ask it why it feels that way.
Offer it self-compassion, treatthat part of yourself as you
would a good friend in thatmoment.
(41:00):
And this is why that wholeconversation around parts
therapy and internal familysystems is so important because
you want to acknowledge it.
Why are you here?
How are you trying to serve me?
How are you trying to keep mesafe?
Thank it for trying to do thatfor you and then treat it as you
would a good friend in thatmoment.
And what this is going to do isit's going to activate that
(41:22):
curiosity that I talked about,and the research behind
curiosity is that it is a bigdisruptor in our mental patterns
.
It switches the energy from Ishould, or I need to be, or I
wish I wasn't, to I wonder whyI'm doing this.
And that shift alone, with justthat question, will switch your
(41:43):
brain activation from thatright side, which is avoidance,
which is fear-based, that hasall of the negative impact, and
then it'll begin to shift youtowards that left brain
activation, which is theapproach mechanism that invites
you to come in, to understand.
And when we seek understandingfrom ourselves, it's naturally
(42:05):
going to begin to relax the partof us that might feel so much
hatred towards ourselves.
It allows it to relax, itallows it to feel seen,
understood and actuallyactivates a different part of
your brain.
Now, another thing that you cando in that moment to disrupt it
and to give a new response ispractice self-forgiveness.
When you're regretting somethingabout the past, beating
(42:27):
yourself up about something inthe past, start repeating in
your mind I forgive myself, Iforgive myself, I forgive myself
.
Might even want to practicethat right now I forgive myself,
I forgive myself, and you sayit over and over Now.
I've done a previous episode onself-forgiveness and so if you
(42:49):
need some help on how to do that.
You can go back and listen tothat episode, but right now, I
just want to acknowledge thatyour past mistakes do not define
who you are, and I'm not sayingthat we don't recognize that
we've made mistakes in the past,but we have to separate them
from our identity.
We have to give ourselves thepermission to forgive ourselves.
(43:11):
So if the cue is a thought or amemory about something in the
past and you start beatingyourself up and shaming yourself
for it, the new responseinstead of all of that
self-loathing that you begin toactivate can then begin I
forgive myself, I forgive myself, I forgive myself.
Now, another thing that you cando to change the response is to
(43:33):
actively practice a self-lovingaction.
Do something in that momentthat's self-loving.
The self-loving thing could be,as what we talked about earlier
, the self-love mantra.
It could be getting up andtaking a walk, moving your body,
as a sign to yourself thatyou're going to be active,
you're going to take care ofyourself, that you're going to
(43:54):
show yourself that you loveyourself, and the fact that
you're taking action can helpdisrupt that cycle, instead of
sitting on the couch and goingdown that rabbit hole of all the
reasons that you're terrible,as uncomfortable as it might
feel.
Taking an action that'sself-loving towards yourself can
help disrupt that cycle becauseyou're giving yourself a new
(44:16):
response in that moment to thetrigger.
I want to remind you, as you'redoing all this, realize you're
rewiring yourself.
You're rewiring an ingrainedhabit of self-hatred and, just
like with any habit, you'regoing to need to keep at it and
guess what?
You're also going to begin todefault to the old way of doing
(44:38):
it.
That's a natural part of habitchange.
And just because it keepscoming back up and you might
continue to default back to theold way, it doesn't mean that
you're not making progress.
I want you to think about itlike any habit you're trying to
break or that you're trying tochange, going to be a part of
muscle memory that defaults backand you could be going for
(45:00):
months feeling good aboutyourself, loving yourself, and
all of a sudden something throwsyou off and you default back to
the old way of thinking.
That's a normal part of change.
I often tell people we don'tchange like up and to the right.
The path is not always astraight line.
A lot of times we spiral upward, we're continuing to kind of go
around some of the same issues,but we're making progress.
(45:21):
We're not the same as we werebefore.
So any progress in this spaceis good progress, and don't let
the fact that you go back tothat old golf swing or that old
tennis grip as an example keepyou from trying to learn how to
practice self-love, how to letgo of those old beliefs and
(45:43):
those old feelings.
Okay, now you know me.
I always like to try to closeout with something practical
that you can do or some kind ofexercise, and we've already
talked about several practicalthings.
But I just want to give you onetactical thing that you can do
and it's something that was verypowerful for me and I've
watched it be very powerful inthe clients that I work with and
(46:04):
it's this it's telling yourselfthat you love yourself for 30
days in a row.
And here's some ways that youcan do it.
You can do it by looking in themirror.
We call it the mirror exercise,right?
You get in front of the mirrorand you tell yourself I love you
, and you try to do it with someemotion, you try to connect
(46:26):
with it emotionally and youstick at it for 30 days, because
the research on the 21 daysthey've kind of updated that to
30 days.
That can really help ingrain ahabit.
And the other thing that theresearch shows around habit
formation is that it's an actionthat's repeated in the same way
and then doing it in the sameenvironment can really help
(46:50):
create that cue response outcomethat we're looking for in habit
change and habit formation.
So in this example of the mirrorexercise, what can start to
happen is that when you see themirror, instead of seeing it as
a cue that starts self-loathing,you'll begin to shift that to a
cue that begins to activateself-love, a loving response
(47:15):
towards yourself.
So for 30 days, while you'regetting ready and you're in
front of that mirror, tellyourself I love you and I'd
encourage you.
Try doing it for 10 times eachday for 30 days Now, even though
it might feel uncomfortable.
Neuroscientific studies showthat repeated affirmations can
(47:36):
rewire your brain over time,especially if you're doing them
in a way that involves manyparts of your system.
So when you're saying it infront of the mirror, you're
seeing yourself, you're sayingit verbally, you're thinking it
mentally and if you can connectemotion to it, you're
supercharging the process.
I do just want to make a note,if you don't feel like you're
(47:58):
there right now, that you canlook in the mirror and tell
yourself that you love yourself.
It's just too hard right now.
You've been avoiding mirrorsand it's really difficult for
you to do that.
You can take another verypowerful approach, which is
writing it out 10 times eachmorning for 30 days, and here's
a few tips on how to do that.
(48:19):
I encourage you to physicallywrite it out pen and paper.
The research shows as weactivate our brain's motor
systems and motor pathways andwe're writing it out pen and
paper.
Research shows as we activateour brain's motor systems and
motor pathways and we're writingit out, we're activating it
more deeply than if we were totype it out.
So, taking that time to reallysit with it, think the thought I
love you, write it out withyour hand, see those words and
(48:45):
then try to connect with itemotionally.
And so, once again, I encourageyou write it out 10 times a day
for 30 days and allow yourselfto feel it, see it, and as
you're doing it, you'reinvolving multiple parts of your
nervous system.
I want to acknowledge that Ican't cover everything in a
podcast about how to let go ofself-hatred and move towards
(49:06):
self-love, but I want toencourage you to start there.
Try that exercise of tellingyourself that I love you 10
times a day for 30 days and seewhat happens.
And one thing that I think youmight find that does happen is
that that practice of tellingyourself that you love yourself
is getting you ready for thosemoments when you do get
(49:27):
triggered and you want to spiralinto self-hatred.
You're actually building amuscle that allows you to have a
new pathway to go to, and soyou're building resilience
towards the triggers or the cuesthat you're going to face that
are going to allow you to movemore naturally towards self-love
.
Now, if you need help on yourjourney of learning how to let
(49:48):
go of self-hatred and learninghow to love yourself, I want to
encourage you to sign up for myfree webinar on learning how to
love yourself and then alsocheck out my coaching program.
You'll find a link to both ofthose in the show notes of this
episode or you can go to mywebsite at jerryhendersonorg.
I also want to remind you ifyou've not yet had a chance to
(50:10):
subscribe to this podcast, takea moment to do that.
That's going to mean a lot tome and it's also going to keep
you updated on when new episodescome out.
Now, if you know somebody whocould benefit from this episode
or other episodes that are partof the Permission to Love
podcast, share it with them,because if it's making a
difference in your life, it'sgoing to make a difference in
their life as well.
(50:30):
Now, finally, I just want tosay once again, thank you for
being here today and, in casenobody has told you, I'm
grateful for you and I'm so gladthat you're here and remember
you are worthy of your own love.
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