Like a fool I strode forth, seeking to conquer Self-Love so that I may make a gift of her to myself … but she was nowhere to be found.

Everyone agrees that self-love is one of the main keys to happiness and a good life. We should all be kinder to ourselves, build self-esteem, and do deep listening of our inner hearts. Yet most of us end up doing the opposite. We berate ourselves for small mistakes, set up impossible to achieve goals, and never give ourselves a moment’s rest because nothing is ever good enough.

Why is that? Why are we so hard on ourselves?

Self-Love

All of us are born with a deep desire to love and to be loved. Because love is so precious to us we fear not having it, not possessing it. If we do not tend to this very natural fear and instead let it control us, then we develop a hyper-intention to possess love permanently, to own it for all time. Hyper-intentions, which are desires that are motivated by fears are extreme, outcome based, uncompromising, intolerant, and not in-step with reality. When we seek to own love, we push it farther away from us.

I believe that we are born with an unconditional love of self. Self-love motivates us to seek a good and happy life. We all try to listen to our inner hearts and to those around us, so that we may make ourselves happy. Unfortunately, due to lack of awareness, we spend more of our time listening to our demons of fear rather than our angels of love.

Fear says, “What makes you think you can defeat me, I have vanquished your parents and foes more worthy than you.”
Fear, I say, “My wish is not to vanquish you, but to pursue you and listen to your deepest dreams.”
Then Fear fell silent.

Am I Worthy?

One question we all ask ourselves is – Am I worthy (to be loved)?

This is a natural question for our rational minds. Indeed we are trained to search for reasons for everything, and so we need reasons to love. We need reasons to love others, and we need reasons to love ourselves.

My mind asks this question quite often. In the past I would run around searching for answers, and embark on self-improvement quests so that I may provide her with more and more satisfying answers. I am worthy because I was an A-student, I am creative, I am focused, I am curious, and so on. I will be even more worthy when I lose 30 pounds, get married, have two successful children, have 1 million followers, 2 million in the bank, get promoted to partner, can afford a big house, appear on television, and so on.

True love, however, is unconditional and not in our direct control. We cannot force someone to love us no matter what our internal or external achievements. Similarly, we cannot force ourselves to love someone based on their internal or external achievements. The good news is that we are all born with a gift of unconditional love for ourselves and our lives. Unfortunately, this gift gets covered up by our many hereditary fears and learned fears, leading us to doubt ourselves and to pursue paths that are motivated by fear rather than by love. It is fear or doubt that places conditions on our love of self and of others.

Self-Doubt – Why We Are So Hard on Ourselves

Self-doubt causes us to be uncertain and not believe in ourselves. Self-doubt is frequently an excuse that our mind creates in order to avoid facing our many fears.

I lost all three of my beloved dogs in the past 4 years. Needless to say, so much loss in such a short time was very traumatic. After I lost Shania, I started to really doubt myself. I did not know whether I was strong enough to handle life without her, I blamed myself for not doing more, not knowing more, I was not sure if I could take care of my other dogs properly, I was not sure if I could handle my grief and other emotions. When JJ passed away from cancer, my self-doubt and fear grew to such profound levels that I could hardly manage to live my life.

All this self-doubt comes from a fear of not being able to handle the tremendous grief and pain from the death of loved ones. Rather than facing this fear and this pain, my mind came up with many excuses for avoiding it. I am not capable of handling my emotions so let me binge watch Netflix instead. I cannot tolerate the emptiness of life so let me exercise until I fall into an exhausted sleep. Unfortunately, filling my days with doing this or that only worked in the very short term. Every time I avoided the pain, my fear grew and my self-doubt along with it.

The way to quiet self-doubts and to clear away the mud that covers our gift of unconditional self-love is to face our fears. I had to face my fear of grief, fear of emotional pain, fear of feeling bad, fear of suffering. To do this, I leaned into the fear instead of running away from it, which meant leaning into the pain. Every time I thought of Shania or JJ, I purposefully brought my awareness back again and again to the associated emotional pain. I did this by training myself on mindfulness and various self-soothing techniques including using the observer position (meta moment), CBT, analysis of self, journaling, and more.

Now whenever I have any self-doubts, I call them out for what they are, which are excuses for not facing fears. I tell myself that whatever excuses my mind comes up with, I will continue to face my fears. Then I analyze each fear, face it, and repeat until the pattern weakens.

Self-Doubt and Childhood

All of us have self-doubts but some of us have more doubt than others. Self-doubt is a coping mechanism for fear and I believe that this became a deep habit for me during childhood mainly because of my mother.

I grew up in an invalidating and often traumatic environment for the first 17 years of my life. My mother had a very difficult childhood herself and was filled with fears and self-doubts. When I was about 9 years old my parents got divorced and my mother’s condition worsened. She did not know how to deal with her difficult emotions and projected much of her own self-doubt, self-loathing, and fears onto me. She taught me that I could not do most things right, and needed her to do them for me. I cannot remember any positive memory with my mother after the divorce, but there are many painful ones.

Growing up in such an environment made me develop many fears including a deep fear of abandonment as well as the incorrect core beliefs that I cannot manage on my own and that I am not worthy. I also became hypersensitive to my emotions, especially to fear. Very likely I started to develop a fear of fear, which is a fear of the physical symptoms of anxiety (e.g. tiredness, insomnia, digestive issues, food sensitivities, and more).

Childhood is an important part of our lives because many of our habits or brain pathways are formed in our early years. We mimic or mirror the actions of adults around us and may also inherit brain wiring from our parents. This too occurred with our parents, so problem behaviors may accumulate and get passed down across multiple generations.

As a result, using self-doubt as an excuse became a deep habit with me, as it did for my mother. With awareness and understanding, however, I now see self-doubt for what it is, an expression of fear. It can therefore be addressed by facing my fears.

Positive Self-Image

For much of my adult life I was quite angry with my mother for her constant guilt trips, invalidation, and verbal abuse. I was also in deep fear of her, and every time she called I would almost have a panic attack. I later realized that all of this came from a fear of my own emotions. In particular, interacting with and thinking about my mother always brings up a lot of emotional pain, sadness, self-doubt, and fear. I feared those feelings and I feared that my childhood had messed me up so badly that I would not be able to cope with life’s stresses (more self-doubt).

Many self-help gurus and websites suggest that we can build a positive self-image by using happy talk or replacing negative emotions with positive ones. “Just believe that you are awesome”, they proclaim. This never worked for me.

To build a positive self-image, I needed to face my fears and look at myself with total honesty.

I needed to look at my past, my pain, my fears, my incorrect beliefs, my correct beliefs, my weaknesses, my strengths, my mistakes, my failures, my successes, everything, from a non-judgmental perspective. I cannot change my past and I cannot change my parents. My parents are not capable of giving me unconditional love because of their own neuroses, and I have to accept that. They are human. I will likely have a greater hypersensitivity to fear and I have to accept that as well.

Reality is flawed and imperfect, so is being human. By facing myself and accepting my perceived “flaws”, I can start to look past them and develop ways to adapt and perhaps even convert them into strengths. By facing my fears, I can start to dismantle negative ways of thinking and start to respond to my emotions in a more healthy and positive manner. By weakening fear patterns I start to clear away the mud that covers my unconditional self-love, so that it shines through again. This unconditional self-love is the root of a positive self-image.

I was only able to get at that unconditional self-love by clearing away the accumulated fears that plagued me. This requires time, practice, repetition, hard-work, mental discipline, and some necessary suffering, but the rewards are deep and plentiful. Facing my fears and my pain allowed me to uncover my inborn gift of unconditional love, reengage with life more fully, be more authentic with myself and others, as well as be free to explore my entire mental landscape.

I looked into my mind and saw myself for the first time,
I shouted in anger, shook in fear, wept in sorrow, and collapsed in pain,
There is no longer any need for self-blame or self-doubt,
For the first time in forever I am in-love, happy, and free.

“After two months on this program, I am now a lot better. I am almost back to normal!,” they exclaim, with postings of happy, smiley pictures.

Finally, I stopped reading this depression support page because it was making me feel a lot more depressed. So what was I really feeling and why?

I was envious of their progress because this particular program was not very effective for me. I was irritated and angry with them (blame) for making me feel even worse about myself. I was very disappointed and depressed with myself for doing so poorly compared to others. Finally, I was very afraid that I would never get better because all these other people were making progress and I was only standing still or regressing.

Your Puny-Pathetic Depression is Not as Good as My Awesome Manly Depression

Depression and Envy

Comparing my own performance with that of others is something that I learned early in life and that got reinforced in my many years of schooling, as well as at work. When I was young, I competed with my brother for my father’s attention. At school, my parents told me that I wasn’t good enough unless I got perfect A’s on every subject. That was what I strived to do.

In college we were graded on a curve, so we were literally in competition with everybody else. At work, we were also graded on a curve. Only so many people got the higher percentage bonuses and salary raises. Only the best got promoted. The bottom performers got the boot, with the well-understood company motto of “move up or move out.”

In short, comparison of self to others is a commonly reinforced practice. Unfortunately for me, it led to a lot of unnecessary angst and suffering, while I quested for a perfect life. Now, I was comparing my depression with the same results. Such comparison thoughts often result in harmful self-esteem attacks such as why am I such a mess, not good enough, not strong enough, not courageous enough, and much more.

Initially, I tried to make myself feel better by talking down the person who was claiming fast success –

• She is taking antidepressants, so of course she is feeling better.
• My depression is so much more serious than hers.
• I had childhood trauma so I already started off at a disadvantage.
• She is super rich and beautiful, what does she have to get depressed about?!

However, none of these things are truly helpful, nor even true. People would also tell me to stop comparing, but that is on par with people telling me not to feel depressed, not to feel angry, or not to feel envy – it simply does not work.

So what does work? For me, the solution lies in doing more emotion-work. Here are some of my feelings –

1. Fear that I will never get better from my anxiety and depression.
2. Envy that someone else has gotten better. Shame that I haven’t gotten better.
3. Envy that someone else gets to do fun things. Shame that I cannot do those same things.
4. Anger that this group, which is supposed to make me feel better, has made me feel worse.

Fear, Envy, and Anger

Here are some thoughts and responses that were more helpful –

1. Fear and depression are just emotions, they are perfectly ok. I just need to feel them, tend to them, understand their message, and go from there.
2. I hold these problematic thoughts within me with loving compassion and analyze them. Yes, there are likely many people who have “recovered” from depression in a shorter amount of time, and that is ok. Am I happy with my own progress? Yes I am, and that is good enough!
3. In my prouder moments, I can extend my loving compassion and be happy for others. After all, I do not really want others to suffer. The suffering of others does not lighten my own suffering. On the other hand, extending loving compassion rewards me with feelings of pride and happiness.
4. What someone else says or believes has absolutely no impact on me unless I let it be so. As with the other emotions, I want to get more comfortable with envy and shame. The more ideas or belief frameworks I can tolerate, the more free I will be and the more wisdom I will gain.

Note that my feelings had very little to do with the other person or with the depression group. It had more to do with my own thoughts, beliefs, perspective, and how I deal with my emotions. In dealing with my internal landscape now, I reduce the intensity of the difficult emotions and change my perspective on the same set of facts.

Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.
~~ [Bertrand Russell]

Depression and Envy

Depression and Shame

Depression comparison also goes the other way. A common piece of advice I received from friends, colleagues, and family about depression is to “not feel so bad because my life is very good compared to many others.”

• “Don’t feel so bad, many people have it much worse than you do.”
• “Think about all the people who have lost parents, siblings, spouses, or children.”
• “He was in a concentration camp, but look at what he is doing now.”

I feel badly for people who have suffered, especially for those who have suffered greatly. However, this does not make me feel less depressed, nor does it remove the source of my own suffering or depression. Perhaps these statements or self-thoughts may help some people, but it does little to help me. Upon closer inspection, it actually encourages feelings of shame. This type of depression-shaming only makes me feel worse. I feel like I do not have the right to feel depressed after having lost the two loves of my life, because they are not human.

Now when I start feeling depressed, I tell myself this –

Yes, I miss Shania and Lara greatly because I love them greatly. Yes, I am in pain and want to grieve, and that is ok. I can go ahead and grieve and take as much time as I want.

I cry, sing our special songs, look at photographs, recall bitter-sweet memories, and more. I no longer try to avoid my deep sorrow. I simply let myself fully experience my depression.

Often, when someone is grieving or in emotional pain, the best thing we can do is to acknowledge their sorrow, let them grieve and join them in that pain. Happy talk, social-comparisons, and depression shaming does not work well, especially in the long-term.

When someone is grieving or in emotional pain, the best thing we can do is to acknowledge their sorrow, let them grieve and join them in that pain.

Sometimes, social-comparisons may give us some pleasure in the short-term. This emotion is called schadenfreude, which is “the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another”. However, that usually only happens with smaller misfortunes and the feeling is fleeting.

A 2011 study in the journal Emotion found that people with low self-esteem were more likely to experience schadenfreude when confronted with a high achiever’s setback
~~[US News]

A Closed Heart

My mother was a very unhappy person. She spent much of her time comparing herself to others, comparing me to others, and comparing everybody to everybody else. These social-comparisons powered her inner and outer critics and they were both very strong.

I have always lived in fear of my mother. I used to avoid thinking of her and would almost have a panic attack whenever I anticipated a phone call from her. This is because she always made me feel lousy. I was never good enough, never smart enough, never good enough at playing the piano, etc. In fact, she spread her unhappiness to everyone around her. Nobody ever loved her well enough, gave her a good enough present, appreciated her enough, and I have no memories of her laughing or even smiling. She was full of negative judgements, she made the people around her suffer, and she made herself suffer most of all. This type of social-comparison led her to reject others and to reject parts of herself. One of my core fears has always been that I would turn out like her.

I have since realized that all of us have this tendency or seed within us. The question is how we choose to tend to it. Do we simply react and keep repeating this tendency until it becomes habit, or do we respond wisely and weaken its grip on us. This is in our control.

Black and white judgements lead to a closed heart. Our strong outer critic causes us to withdraw, see inadequacies in everyone, blame everyone for our unhappiness, and reject everyone around us. Our strong inner critic causes us to stop trying, see inadequacies in ourselves, blame ourselves for our condition/unhappiness, and reject parts of our body, thoughts, memories, and emotions. Our life narrows and we end up alone, feeling abandoned, hopeless, betrayed, and more depressed than ever.

Black and white judgements lead to a closed heart and we end up alone, abandoned, and betrayed.

Cultivating an open heart is not easy, but here are some things that I try to do –

1. Every time I feel the urge to criticize others, I try to catch myself, do some mindful breathing, do some self-soothing, let my irritation pass, and do something constructive. I leave the event for later analysis.
2. Every time I start to criticize myself, I try to catch it, do some mindful breathing, and analyze my thoughts and feelings. If those thoughts are inaccurate, I do some thought-correction or adjustment. If those thoughts are accurate, I work on accepting them, getting comfortable with them, and doing some self-soothing.
3. When I make mistakes, I apologize when I can, forgive myself (because breaking life-long habits is hard to do), and continue trying.

Some people wonder why I am spending so much time inside my own head. Doesn’t it make me more depressed? Doesn’t it take up a lot of my time? Isn’t it taking over my life?

Analyzing my emotions, thoughts, and memories, is very different from rejecting and suppressing them. Previously, I was putting all my effort into stopping difficult thoughts, memories, and emotions, whereas now I accept, analyze, adjust, and soothe. The more I do this, the more comfortable I am with my own mind.

In the book Be Angry: The Dalai Lama on What Matters Most, they talk about how analyzing thoughts and emotions within a healthy framework can “transform deep pain into limitless freedom.” Such a journey is worth all the time in the world.

Only to the extent that a person exposes themselves over and over again to annihilation and loss can that which is indestructible be found within them. In this daring lie dignity and the spirit of true awakening.
~~[Jack Kornfield]

The journey to transform pain into limitless freedom is worth all the time in the world.