Hi Debbie:

Your question—“What if my authentic self is someone I don’t like?”—is brave and honest, and I want to honor that.

What parts feel hard to like?

Whose voice taught you that those parts were unworthy?

What would it mean to offer those parts compassion instead of critique?

I will answer these questions as they apply to me, past and present:

(1) “What parts feel hard to like?”- Past: all the parts. Present: The part of me that still tries to get my mother/ others to like me by minimizing myself, disregarding myself, compromising my truth so to please others.

(2) “Whose voice taught you that those parts were unworthy?”- primarily my mother. To a lesser extent: peers in school.

I remember my mother telling me (as she was hitting and shaming me): “The only thing I like about you is that you look down at the floor and you don’t talk back”- She liked my submission, me giving in to her.

Other than liking my submissiveness, she mentioned 2 other things she liked about me: she said I look European and that I was very intelligent and an excellent student in school.

This is it, just these 3 things.

Now, thing is, I really wasn’t very intelligent. I suffered from learning disabilities and it took me many hours to do homework and prepare for tests, only to get on average, C+ grades, and I would forget almost all the material I memorized for tests soon after each test. Also, I do not look European. I look North African.. like my mother.

So 2 of the 3 things she liked about me weren’t true. The submissiveness part she liked- that liking led to a lot of devastation in my life for decades and decades.

In school, I was never part of the “cool kids”. I was the outsider and I believed it was so because I was inferior, defected, unacceptable. Having Tourette’s (motor and vocal tics) didn’t help, to put it mildly.

3) “What would it mean to offer those parts compassion instead of critique?”- I didn’t expect to ask myself this question. My first instinct was to say that I will never, ever like the part of me that still tries to get my mother/ others to like me by minimizing myself, etc., submitting to others, that is. I hate that part!

But then, the question above remains.. It makes sense that I’d need to like all parts of me, including parts I want changed. So, let me try this here (continuing to type as-I-think).. I’ll write a letter to my Submitting Part. I’ll call it SP-

Dear SP:

Thank you for trying so hard to protect me all those years. You knew that her aggression could be deadly. You saw how volatile she got, how rageful.. You heard her threats.. Yes, of course you felt I was in physical danger. So, you did your best for my sake: submit, go belly up.. this way she’d feel she won, she’s on top of me and she’d calm down and let me live.

We’re not there anymore, SP, subject to her aggression, at her mercy. So, you can rest now.. until and if we’re in that position again. I would need you if a situation like that happens again (one where I am completely powerless against an aggressor). Again, thank you so much and rest well. You deserve the rest.

(Letter completed).

I hope something in what I shared above resonates or supports you in your own reflection.

With care, Anita

Hi Debbie,

I’ve been thinking more about a question that stayed with me after reading your post.

I hope it’s okay that I’m taking a second attempt, not to answer your question, but to relate to the moment when someone asks, “What if my authentic self is someone I don’t like?”

In my first reply, I was honest but suspect not helpful. I told you I’ve asked that question myself, which is true. But before I asked the question came, I remember saying the words “I hate who I am.”, Words I still hear myself sometimes still saying,

So, when I read your post, something in it stirred a memory of hurt in me, the kind that once made me ask the question. I don’t want to assume it’s the same, but perhaps close enough that I wanted to respond.

And because I’m me, I offered the path and practices that have helped me. But I knew even as I wrote them that words can’t reach the place that question comes from. Hear again if I’m honest, I don’t always like the guy that responses in this way, but he means well.

So last night, I found myself looked again to the wisdom traditions, not at the practices, but at the teachers and wondered how they respond to the hurt behind such questions. This is what I saw:

The Buddha sits beside you in silence, and maybe your breathing begins to match his.
The Sufi reaches out and holds your hand, and maybe your heart breaks a little, but not in a bad way.
Jesus also sits beside you and weeps, sharing your tears if they fall.
The hurt not resolved but… but maybe not the same…
This to I would offer.

And eventually, the Zen master that is Life comes along and claps his hands loudly and gives you a nudge. You get up, go to work or school, take a dance class maybe or head to the gym. Where maybe someone makes you laugh, or better yet, you make someone laugh. And you find you don’t not, not like yourself.

In another thread, I mentioned how sometimes I imagine my ego, or maybe my id, as a dog responding to energies I’m unconsciously projecting. When I’m anxious, it barks. When I’m avoidant, it hides. When I’m reactive, it lunges… when I’m hurt, I wonder if I can like myself…

But I didn’t mention that sometimes I imagine the dog running through a field of wildflowers, chasing a squirrel it has no real intention of catching. Then, because I’m me, I can’t help wondering if the squirrel knows it’s a game and realizes that I’m the squirrel too.

The scene shifts: the squirrel safe in a tree, calling out the dog the way squirrels do and the dog barking back, the way dogs do. A part of both, I imagine laughing.

And in that moment, Life is.

Hi Debbie

Congratulations on your weight loss! ❤️

I can understand having negative thoughts. Life is hard sometimes and we all have our way to cope sometimes.

There is a difference between thinking and action. You understand this. We are not in control of our thoughts 24/7. You are in control of your actions. Clearly, you understand the importance of treating people kindly.

It is okay to struggle with difficult feelings internally. There is nothing wrong with that. ❤️

I do find that self-compassion and compassion are linked. The kinder you are to yourself, the kinder you will find that voice being to others. You are a very aware and thoughtful person. It seems like you might have been through a lot in your life. Sometimes difficult experiences stick with us in our thoughts. ❤️

Buddhism teaches us a person is all of what one has thought. One is not those thoughts but it is what one believes one to be. And so, the thoughts create a persona that one believes one to be. In essence, one is more than that. Each person is like the splash of water. A drop arising from the ocean. Flying off in its direction. Rise rise high above the waves. Eventually falling back down and returning into the ocean.

Yes, turning off the constant thinking is the way to accept oneself. Meditation starts with watching the breath come in and go out. With letting go of thoughts. Not to chase the thoughts. Not to follow the thoughts. Not to suppress the thoughts. Let them come and let them go. Soon, quiet will arise between the thoughts. That quiet is the essence of self and will last longer and longer. Mindfulness. Dropping off of the thinking mind.

Would you not like your authentic self? I believe that you would need to experience your authentic self and then you would know. As we are now, we create this world with those thoughts. Our senses feed into this idea of who we are. Of course this all seems real.

Hi Everyone

I just wanted to share my experience with meditation and depression, because I do think that Thomas suggested a really good idea and you seem interested in it Debbie.

I feel like meditation made me feel happier in the same circumstances. It helped me to develop space between the negative thoughts and in that space I was able to notice more good things about life. ❤️