Self Change vs Self Hate
Too often, in the quest for personal development and change, we forget the importance of self-love and compassion. A client of mine recently pointed out how often she says, "I hate that I_____" fill in the blank, and she realized every time she said that she was saying to herself I hate myself, I wish I were a different person. Yikes!
I have certainly had my brush with this phenomenon. One trait of mine that I am overly critical about is my love of quiet alone time. Given a choice between a night on the couch with my nearest and dearest and a party, I will almost always pick the night on the couch. I enjoy a good party from TIME to TIME, but those times are few and far between.
Last year, during our annual trip to the Smoky Mountains, I experienced a rise of self-hatred. After dinner with my parents, my husband and I headed to the bonfire behind our hotel. Upon our arrival, it was only us. We enjoyed the fire and chatted quietly, making s'mores and having fun. Soon a large group of people arrived on the scene: all couples and all our age. We had interacted with a few of them during our stay, but for the most part, they were strangers. My nearest and dearest, who has never met a stranger, immediately started chatting and laughing with the people as I hung back, wishing for the time before they arrived when it was just him and me.
Quickly, my Monger stepped in to tell me how socially awkward I am and how I will die alone because I am such a FREAK about talking to people, and I heard myself say I HATE that I am such an introvert. Before I knew it, I was in an all-out spiral about what a terrible person I was because I wasn't working on changing my social abilities and how I was keeping my husband back from being more social on and on and on. The following day, I recognized that I had spiraled down a dark rabbit hole and caused myself a lot of unnecessary anxiety. Because the bottom line is: I am an introvert. I have come a LONG way in my ability to socialize, and I am an introvert. I will always have a preference for being alone or in small groups. And that is ok. It is equally ok that my nearest and dearest is an extrovert. He prefers chatting with people and gains a lot of energy from having conversations with strangers. We are different.
As my client, I started building awareness around how often I turned on myself for innate qualities. We are all unique. We all bring unique characteristics to the world that make us extraordinary. Self-change and personal development is amazing, but we are off track if we use them as a reason to hate ourselves. When we embrace ourselves with love and compassion, that is when real change can occur. When we can lean into our anxiety and stop railing against it, that's when we can make the most positive change.