Hello,

I think all of us struggle with self love. I would suggest going to a therapist or counselor. If that is not an option, I will give you some tips that a counselor gave to me.

First, you need to look in the mirror every morning and say all these good things about yourself. Say things that are true, might be true, or you want them to be true. For example, you can look at yourself and say “I am intelligent. I have a master’s degree.” You can say “I am happy, beautiful, friendly” or anything else you think of. You must do this EVERY day (better in the morning) for at least 30 days. YOU CAN’T MISS ONE DAY. Every day for 30 days. Add new things each day, so you say more and more good things.

Second, you need to buy presents and treats for yourself. YOU ARE WORTH IT! Buy yourself anything you like, for example you can buy yourself a cake. Or flowers. Or a book. Buy little presents for yourself frequently.

These are some tips that I can give for you. Remember, not everyday is going to be a happy day, but you need to be optimistic and get through this. You’ll start to feel a difference on the inside and then you’ll know what love is. You cannot truly love someone, until you love yourself.

Hello Rahel,

I’m sorry you’ve had to go through such abuse. It really is no wonder that a lot of your problems, in my opinion, look like the problems of a child who’s lost and scared. This is the first thing I’d like you to really think about: it’s not you who’s somehow inherited certain behaviour from a father and would be difficult or rebellious or too talkative by nature. The behaviour is just a response to a prolonged state of fear and stress. If you would feel safe, loved and seen, you would behave more like who you really are, a precious woman who’s like no other.

Because you don’t have much trust in yourself, you’re kind of like blowing in the wind, at the mercy of others, desperately wanting to be seen and heard. So of course you’re going to cling onto anyone who shows interest and you’ll take things personally that other people say or do. The reason you rebel against advice is that you take the advice as criticism towards who you are at your core.

Everyone needs to feel like they are loved and seen and heard. That is absolutely a very normal need. You’re also not the first person, nor the last, who would then slightly overreact when trying to fulfil that need. You, like many other people, are unfortunately working against yourself in this quest. Your fundamental belief is that you are not worthy of love and care, so regardless of what happens in reality, it doesn’t really connect with you, unless it is other people treating your poorly, which is when you get the validation to your belief that you aren’t beautiful enough or good enough in what ever ways that you’ve rationalised this lack of love. This is important: the fact that you feel unloved has nothing to do with your characteristics as a human being. Love is for everyone, and everyone is worthy of it.

One thing that I really think you should do is to find a place where you can meditate, a place of silence. Find ways to silence that chatter in your mind that is constantly narrating what you are feeling, and making things worse. As an example, you feel lonely, which is a perfectly normal and valid feeling. But instead of seeking it as a feeling that comes and goes, you’ll grab onto it and start to create a story around why you’re lonely. So this verbal narration has to be separated from the actual feeling that you are feeling. It will only make things more complex when you start making assumptions on why other people behave towards you in certain ways. People behave the way they feel, just like you are behaving according to how you feel.

Another thing is to understand that you are not your mind. You are not all of your actions and thoughts either. There is more to you and this becomes more apparent in a meditative state. You have more strength and abilities that you are right now seeing, and you can’t see them because of the constant chatter in your head, telling you that you’re this and that. When you get a moment of peace from the chatter, things are starting to look much more simpler and a lot less complex. You’ll also hopefully experience being seen.

Please google “the outer child”. Read about it. It might make things more clear for you. It certainly did for myself. I used to be completely impulsive, self-destructive and a complete mess in relationships. Or rather, my behaviour was like that, because I felt so unloved and unsafe. After some self-care, my behaviour has changed. Actually, I was really talkative as well before, and would be way too direct about everything. Now I don’t feel that need anymore. So, I really can understand your behaviour and I can understand how you’d think that it is you who is somehow bad and not good enough. But that’s not the real truth behind it all, and the behaviour will change by itself, after you change your fundamental beliefs about yourself. Changing that required for me to cut through all the mind chatter and to really get deep at my core and to see myself for the person that I actually am. I don’t need others to see me or validate me anymore because I see myself and I accept myself.

Please feel free to ask if this came across in an unclear way. The concept is all clear to me, and actually, your behaviour is completely clear to me as well, but it’s not as easy to communicate it all clearly 🙂

You’ll find yourself and love. Don’t worry 🙂

For a moment, don’t worry about what other people think of you. Just focus on yourself and only yourself. In order to find self-acceptance and understanding, you need to allow yourself to be who you are, without trying to be something so that others would react to you. Does that make sense?

You are kind of like stuck in this mindset where you want something, but you sabotage yourself before you even get started. Then you can blame yourself for it and feel even worse, and react to it yet again, and the cycle continues. Like two sides of yourself, your heart and your mind, constantly arguing with each other: the mind blaming the heart and the heart crying and getting emotional. Unfortunately you are the only one who can solve that. Others can only try to offer help and support, but ultimately it is you who has to intervene. Summon that inner strength, that inner higher power, that will allow you to see compassionately what is going on within you. Give yourself the peace and care that you need.

Rahel,

I’m sorry for your suffering, and can understand how tasteless and dull things can appear, inside and outside. Sometimes when we’ve been through trauma, we turn inward, do a lot of self examination. This can help examine, uproot, and heal old wounds, but it can also lead us to excessive self focus. Instead of gently finding our heart, our tender space, and growing it outward, we start on a quest to vanquish or destroy the piece of us that is holding us back. A few things same to heart as I read your words.

Aside from TRs already loving advice, consider that your mind and body may be at odds with each other, mistrusting each other. Being abused so young, your body perhaps feels as though your mind is faulty, doesn’t guide your body well. Your mind perhaps feels betrayed by your body, for various reasons, including being so vulnerable, so needy. This is normal, causes much spinning, and does settle as you approach yourself with more gentle care.

To get there, though, there is a part of yourself that needs to be reclaimed, that is missing. Its as if an angel came down and grabbed a portion of your spirit, bringing it away from your body, so you would be able to experience the abuse without breaking, without your heart dying. Reclaiming that part of yourself is about accepting that back then, you were helpless. You were a baby, so young, and incapable of protecting yourself. You had little defense against your abuse, either understanding it, stopping it, knowing to stop it, what to do next. Of course you’d be disoriented. Of course you would have lasting effects that would take a long time to understand and heal.

From a different direction, imagine a young tree, a sapling, that had her roots attacked. Not enough to kill the dear sapling, but enough that the tree fell. As she grew, her roots did find soil, but the trunk never righted itself, never stood back up. How could it? Its just a tree. As she begins to talk with other trees, she notices that others are different, others stand up, while she lays down. A standing tree perhaps says “find self care”, “be kind to yourself”, or any number of things, but the advice, the tenderness offered doesn’t seem to help, meant for standing trees. “You don’t understand”, the sapling responds, “I’m sideways, this is who I am.”

And its true, the sapling is sideways, but just as a result. There is nothing wrong with her, nothing amiss. A very natural place, normal, usual. Laying on her side, her roots still found the soil, still found enough nourishment to keep her watered, alive. But her tender leaves haven’t found the sky.

Bringing this back to your specific situation, standing up will be a two part process. Some of the roots have to be trimmed, because they’re holding you flat. Then, as you stand, you have to take time and effort to grow new tender shoots, new roots, while working against gravity. Said differently, you have some ruts of thinking, habits of thinking, and you’ll have to put in some sweat, grit, and elbow grease to grow upward. Form new, healthy habits of thinking.

To clip the old roots that keep you sideways, consider accepting that you are not defined by your past. You aren’t just “some way”, “stuck being this type of person.” Hogwash, garbage. You have habits, sure, much like a woman that breaks her toe has a limp. That doesn’t make her a “limper in a world of normal people.” Rather, she has a limp, no biggie. You have ruts, patterns, that cause you to act predictably, but its not “you”, just a limp. Because it happened so young, the limp seems like your normal walk… but its still a limp. Now just fear of placing weight on that foot. Just fear of trusting your body and mind. To clip these roots, “these appearing ruts will fade” or “the limping is just limping, normal, and I wish to learn to walk.”

The way gravity is going to pull at you is “yes, but I am…” or “yes, but I’ve tried…” or “yes, but I’m different…” and so forth. Basically, you’ll feel a pull to reject and deny outside help. “But I’m used to laying sideways, I don’t know how to stand” and so forth. All just habit, habitual mental processes… you not only know how to stand, but your body is aching for it, calling you to solve it. Your leaves want the freedom of the sky, its part of us, sings to us. This is what puts the pressure to blurt your life story or grab at any open heart.

When we feel an imbalance in ourselves, its very normal to dump/blert/share with on an available person. Dump and dump, telling the sorrows of your story, issues, hopes, dreams. Then, as you finish, you realize what you’ve done, and expect the other person to dislike you, judge you. So you shut out their hug, close off from their heartfelt response. Which is normal, usual, and leftover from the past, when you received some painful deep touches. Part of the limp.

All this being said, the path to healing from this pattern is opening to the world around you in a safe space. When we have a split like this, a body and mind in conflict with each other, we overcome it by slowly, tenderly opening to the reality around us. Set aside the whole “need to heal Rahel” or “figure out the maze of who i am” for a time, and just bring your concentration to the present moment, resting in your perceptions, intentionally moving away from the past and future, into the trunk, into the body.

Consider watching “Ajahn Jayasaro counting breaths” on YouTube. You say you have a still mind, but that’s false. Your mind is very bouncy, low on concentration, flitting here and there and everywhere, blurting, erupting, running away. This is the portion that was hidden, kept safe by an angel. But now, older, wiser, and safer, its OK to bring that back. To bring your attention to where you are, to concentrate again on what is happening around you, within you. Jayasaro describes a method that helps grow concentration, gives the mind something to do that hones, sharpens our attention. Before moving onto other things, this is needed, especially here, for you, in my opinion. Your mind needs to quiet enough that you’re feeling your body, feeling the breath, feeling the emotions that are present. That’s where all the keys are, that’s where you’ll find your answers.

Finally, consider finding a local abuse survivor support group. More than words on the internet, it can help a lot if we find others that have gone through similar things, and struggle with similar results. That’s when you’ll know that hugs given to you are authentic, from a place of knowing you. There are plenty of hands that would be willing to hold yours, but you have to let them pull you along, instead of playing tug-of-war. Growing concentration first will help this, because you’ll be able to choose what to do instead of feeling a victim of your own habits. We can choose to step aside from our past, when we have the space to go somewhere else.

With warmth,
Matt