“To be
beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You
need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Self-loathing is a terrible thing.
It's the ultimate form of not liking ourselves. It even borders on
self-hatred. Yet many of our clients engage in it all the time.
They'll show up for an appointment and out comes the worn out self-diagnosis of
"no self-esteem."
When I ask them what that's about I
usually know the answer.
And the answer is that their life
is the product of wasted years - maybe a wasted life - of drug use and
sponging off anyone who'll have anything to do with them.
A lot of it comes from playing the
comparison game. We may encounter a friend we haven't see in a few years.
And he's already got his degree. Maybe he’s started a business.
He might have married already and started a family. And because we
haven't done any of these things we're down on ourselves.
The cure is, as Thich Nhat Han says,
"to accept yourself."
The negative thoughts
only exist in our head. They're simply negative opinions that can be
changed with practice.
We can start now.
