Dear Matic:

Examine this: the fact that you “tend to identify with peoples negative opinions or negative behaviour when directed at me, while I tend to brush aside positive attitude” does not indicate that you do not love yourself and that if you work on yourself more, this tendency will no longer be there. Such thinking creates an unrealistic expectation that will stand in your way of personal growth:

In nature, animals (and we are animals!) are supersensitive to danger, to the … negative. Animals evolved that way so to survive. the goal of animal surivival is not that the animal will be happy, but that the animal will be, will physically survive. We did not evolve to be happy, to love ourselves, but to physically survive. This is the origin of the tendency to notice and be affected MORE by negative signals in our environment than by the positive.

So it is going to be something that is here to stay, this tendency, strengthened by millions of years of evolution. don’t try to change nature- just be aware of it. Accepting it will weaken it over time, not make it disappear.

anita