Welcome to The Simplify Your Life Podcast, where we talk about how to create a life you won’t need an escape from! I’m Coach Simona, author of the book “111 Ways to Simplify Your Life”, and I’m glad you decided to tune in. In today’s podcast episode, we’re going to talk about how to stop hating yourself, and I’m going to share with you how to deal with self-hate in 3 simple steps.
Before we jump into my practical tips, I want to spend a few seconds and answer one very important question: Why do we hate ourselves? Self-hatred is a maladaptive coping mechanism that helps us take control over how other people treat us. It often develops in our childhood as a form of self-punishment for not being “good enough” in the eyes of our parents or primary caretakers. When we’re little, our parents are our entire world. We rely on them to get attention,
affection, and approval. When they seem happy and content with us, we feel happy as well. And when they seem angry with us, we feel like we’ve done something wrong, and instead of blaming them for treating us poorly, we take full responsibility and internalize it as shame. I will make a separate episode on shame and blame, but for now, let’s say that shame can be described as “I am bad”. This has nothing to do with taking responsibility. Taking full responsibility for something,
would be saying something like, “What I did was bad.” Shame is about feeling bad at your core, like there’s something wrong with you, or you’re a bad person. So what does this have to do with hating yourself? When you hate yourself, you start repeating the same narrative over and over again, until it becomes a part of your identity. You keep hurting yourself as a form of protection, because if you hurt yourself first, no one will hurt you as much as you already did.
In a strange way, you feel a sense of control over how much other people can get to you. When you already hate yourself, you have this sense of relief that no matter how much they hurt you, it wouldn’t hurt as much. This is a toxic belief that is reinforcing self-hate, so we need to break the cycle and find more adaptive coping mechanisms to deal with our negative emotions. Which actually brings me to my first tip on how to deal with self-hate, and that is to: Remember who hurt you
This may not be an easy thing to do, especially if you’ve been through a severe form of abuse. If that’s the case, I would advise you to proceed with caution, or seek the help of a therapist, since this is a very delicate manner, and you don’t want to retraumatize yourself. But let’s say you’ve struggled with emotional neglect growing up or you
were criticized by your parents. I want you to try to remember something that they said to you, such as: “You can’t do anything right,” or “You’re a disappointment to this family”, or “You are nothing without me”. Pause this episode now and write it down somewhere so you can see it clearly. Now, I want you to take a second and think about all the times you’ve heard this voice
in your head. Maybe your partner was disappointed with you this one time, and you immediately heard this voice in your head saying: “You’re such a disappointment”. Pay attention to the feelings, all the unpleasant sensations in your body. Stop trying to escape them. Just observe them, breathe slowly through them. And let them go. The past doesn’t have to define who you are. You define who you are.
Don’t let the people who hurt you have that much power over you. By hating yourself, you’re giving your power away. You’re not gaining anything. Hating yourself gives you an illusion of control. It’s familiar, but that doesn’t mean it’s helping you. In fact, it’s preventing you from realizing that someone else made a mistake a long, long time ago. Someone else mistreated you. Someone else hurt you. It was not your fault. Not at all.
Now, I want to make an important note here: I don’t want you to start blaming someone else for who you turned out to be or how you feel in the present moment. That’s not the point of this exercise. What I want you to realize is that they’re also human. Yes, they made a mistake. Yes, they hurt you. That was not okay. But I need to you to see them with compassion. You don’t have to forgive them if you don’t want to, although forgiveness is not about them,
it’s about you. What I need you to do instead is realize that we’re all doing the best that we can from the current state of consciousness that we’re in. I’ll repeat that again: We’re all doing the best that we can from the current state of consciousness that we’re in. Meaning, your parents, caretakers, teachers, or other authority figures did the best they could at the time. Even if they did something awful, they wouldn’t have done it if they were more emotionally mature and adequate.
Self-hate is hate towards someone else internalized towards yourself, because it was unacceptable at the time to see things objectively. So instead of wondering: “Why don’t they love me?” you started asking yourself the wrong question: “Why am I so unloveable?” Which actually brings me to my second point on how to stop hating yourself, and that is to See yourself with a new set of eyes I want you to find a picture of yourself when you were up to 6 years old. Now, take a look
at this picture, and see this person objectively. What do you see in their eyes? Do they seem happy or sad? What are they going through? Imagine how they feel and try to put yourself in their shoes. Seeing yourself with a new set of eyes means starting to feel self-compassion for all the things you’ve been through. Seeing your little self as a separate being with its own experiences and traumas, as someone who didn’t know how to cope with all that.
Some of you will have resistance to talk to that picture, and that’s okay. You don’t have to do it if it seems gimmicky to you. But it’s a truly healing exercise if you allow your mind to be silent for a second. Don’t try it while driving. If you’re alone at home right now, it would be a great time to try out this exercise by taking a few deep breaths and closing your eyes. What would you like to say to that
little girl or boy? How would you treat them if you could go back in time and be there for them when they were hurting the most? When they were hating themselves and punishing themselves for simply existing? Now, I want you to imagine that you’re embracing them. Showing them love and support. Giving them acknowledgment and encouragement. Tell them whatever you truly needed to hear growing up. Be as kind and gentle as you can.
This little person is you. That part of you that hasn’t healed, that isn’t integrated, that keeps hiding in the shadows because it feels so alone and unlovable. You can heal it by being soft and gentle with yourself, instead of punishing yourself over every little mistake.
When you’re ready, you can open your eyes and move on with step number 3, which is to: Forgive yourself for hating yourself The more you realize the pain you’ve inflicted on yourself, the easier it will be to get into the negative spiral of hating yourself even more. How can you not hate yourself when you’ve hurt yourself so much, right? Well, as I said in the beginning, self-hatred won’t get you anywhere. So let’s turn this page over and start fresh.
Now, the question you’re probably already asking yourself is: “How do I forgive myself?” The first step you can take is to stop seeing yourself as someone worth hating. We often forgive others for their mistakes and shortcomings, but find it difficult to forgive ourselves. Not forgiving yourself for the things you’ve said or done in the past is another form of self-abandonment, and you need to stop doing that to yourself.
You gain nothing by punishing yourself. You won’t be able to change the past, and honestly, it’s so much better to show compassion towards yourself. You can start by admitting to yourself that we all make mistakes, it’s part of our human nature. There’s no need to be perfect, to always be this happy bubbly person who does everything for everyone. You can allow yourself to be sad, angry, or frustrated. All of your feelings are valid. You matter, no matter how you feel.
It’s time to open your heart and let go of the fear and regret. Life is too short to dwell on the past, and there’s no need to drift into the future. Be present with who you are right here, right now. After all, the present moment is the only one we really have. So why not enjoy it while we’re still here?
And if you want a proven step-by-step roadmap that will get you from self-hate to self-love, make sure to check out The Self-Love Toolkit by clicking the first link in the description box below or visiting: www.theselflovetoolkit.com Thanks so much for tuning in! If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please like it, subscribe, and I will see you in the next one.