When I just don’t love myself anymore…

Everybody knows the need for basic positive self-regard. Generally this does not need to be a big deal. The people who have it don’t spend a lot of time looking in the mirror at themselves, saying affirmations. They just have a proper sense of who they are in the scheme of things, and that supports a positive experience of the world.

And, of course, many (most?) of us struggle with this at times. We become aware of the ways we almost invisibly make ourselves terribly wrong, function as if we are permanently broken, or carry guilt our sins just can’t explain.

Sometimes, this emerges in a terrible experience of self-loathing. It usually has something to do with a specific incident: an ended relationship, a big conflict, a business failure, a sudden disaster we think we should have seen coming.

I’ve had one of these lately. I just can’t seem to get things right, and it’s been heart-breaking and demoralizing. In that state, I am tempted into resignation, despair, and just plain giving up. I am too flawed. I cannot fix it.

Strangely enough, when one of these states almost clobbers us in the head, as painful as it is, it offers us an amazing opportunity to look at this usually-invisible set of unconscious beliefs that run the show behind the scenes. It may feel like it’s something new, something awful that’s interrupting the more usual experience of basic okay-ness, but actually it’s the operating system showing itself for once, making awareness and revision possible.

Unfortunately, the first task is to feel it, and that’s just awful, truly awful. Time for support, for rest, for all the stuff that we use to helpfully get us through the hard times. But when the worst passes a bit, and we can begin to work with the self-loating a little, something becomes possible that hadn’t been before.

• What good thing comes to someone who pre-determines that s/he is loathsome? What’s the useful pay-off?
• What might I lose that I value if I knew I was, well, okay?
• In my family, if I retain the guilt, who gets to retain the innocence? (Usually a parent.)
• If I give myself a break, does it mean I have to give someone else a break, and I really, really don’t want to?
• Is there any chance that if I weren’t really so guilty, I might not belong to my family so well?
• Is it truly likely that I am actually the spawn of satan that I imagine myself to be? Is it more likely that I am an ordinary human with ordinary limitations?
• If I were to see myself as okay, right now, in this situation, how might it kind of change everything, immediately, in the blink of an eye?
• What kind of universe do I want to believe in? One where someone like me is loathsome, or one where someone like me is mostly just fine?