My Path Towards Freedom

[zionzion]

ive only read the first 2 pages so far. great stuff!

[Archaeopteryx]

(34)

This is a somewhat philosophical entry.

I'd like to talk about my emotions towards myself. And how it has evolved over time.

First: Conditional Self-Love/Hatred.

Well, that's where I started. And that's where most people start. It's how most of us is raised to think. It sounds logical. We love good people who do good things and we hate bad people who do bad things. So, we have no reason to consider our own selves an exception. We just swing from one emotion to the other without ever considering if this is really the best way to think.

For some people this mental attitude will motivate them to do the things they want to do. Because self-hatred is an awfully irritating feeling. But this is not always the case. Sometimes our standards are just to high and our expectations are incredibly overwhelming.

We beat ourselves up for not meeting up with our own standards, but then, we might end up with what psychologists call 'learned helplessness'. We give up trying altogether and sink in deep depression. Well, at least that's were I ended up years ago ..

Second: Unconditional Self-Hatred

So, when your standards become impossibly high, well guess what? Practically, you hate your self unconditionally. This is the point where people define themselves as 'losers' or 'idiots' or whatever bad thing they can call themselves. I've spent a long time at this point. And it's the worst point anyone can stay if you ask me, because it both unpleasant and meaningless.

And you end up in a vicious circle; you feel depressed, you hate yourself, you may act to change your life, but only half-heartedly, because deep inside you you just think you don't deserve a better life.

Third: Lowering the Standards

The easiest way to get out of this vicious circle is to lower your standards. Or in other words, to focus on something you can be proud of yourself for doing but also is relatively easy to achieve.

I read this idea for the first time in a book called Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression, which is available for free on the Internet. But I think the basic idea clicked in my head before that. The idea isn't to just tell yourself 'well, these goals are too big for me. I'll just aim for something small'. This may make you feel worse. Don't think of yourself as abandoning your goals, but rather, as if you are putting them on hold. Think about doing something practical, something you can actually do, relatively easy.

Fourth: Unconditional Self-Love

Well, although I admit that lowering your standards can get you out of your depression. You will discover at some point that the 'conditional self-love/hatred' may not be a good idea after all!

The problem with trying to focus on the 'good things about you' and trying to love yourself because you do or have these things is not good for your goals and/or for your self respect.

The problem is that if you want to feel good about yourself, you might try to lie to yourself about what you do, about your abilities or your dreams.

As long as you are ready to hate yourself for the things you do, you may not be likely to be honest to yourself. Self-hatred is a horrible feeling, and your subconscious mind will try to twist the facts just to protect you from it.

And that is why you will find numerous articles talking about unconditional self-acceptance (some call it self-love). I don't think unconditional self-acceptance is a bad idea, but I do think that unconditional self-love is bad, as far as your goals in life are concerned.

I didn't have the opportunity to read Albert Ellis's book The Myth of Self-Esteem. I think he was the first one to introduce the idea of unconditional self-acceptance, but I did read some articles I found online. Some of which were somewhat misleading.

Do you want to feel happy? That's easy, just never feel bad about yourself. Just 'love' your self.

Well that may work for some, but not for me. I mean I do admit that happiness is a wonderful thing, but it isn't my ultimate goal in life.

Feeling bad about your self might motivate you to change. It's not always a good idea to 'force' yourself to just try to love yourself.

Fifth:

Well, the final state I ended up is fairly complicated. But I'll try to give you an idea:

I don't try to force any sort of conditional or unconditional emotion towards myself. I understand that emotions are helpful for motivation. I consider myself more like a window through which I see the world. It's hard to have emotions for a window, right? I acknowledge that other people might be smarter or better than me in any sense, but that's just a fact, it shouldn't put forward any emotion with it. Because the fact that I'm special in my own eyes is not because of my abilities or my achievements but for the simple fact that I am myself.



To put it in another way, My body is the only human body, my mind can act on. But why act anyway? Because I love the good things I do. Yes, I don't think it's really helpful to label myself good or bad, but I think labeling my actions and unconditionally accepting (but not loving) myself is really .. really helpful.

I'm having a hard time turning the ideas into words, anyway ...

Can anyone relate to anything that I've mentioned here?