This message was inspired by a question someone asked in a recent satsang about what to do about self-hatred. If you have questions you’d like me to address in a K108 message, please write to me at shambhavi@kindred108.love.
Clear vs. mean
Self-hatred is a painful experience. The Dalai Lama cried when he first learned that self-hatred is a common experience in the West.
Self-hatred is not just self-criticism. We can have a clear and at times critical view of ourselves while still feeling self-love and self-respect.
But if we deliberately try to hurt other people or meanly and compulsively criticize and hurt ourselves, we are operating out of self-hatred.
Better you than me
Humans express feelings of self-hatred in different ways. Generally, though, self-hatred often drives us to project bad feelings onto others. We demand that other people bear responsibility for our situation because we feel so uncomfortable with ourselves.
It just feels better to feel that other people suck.
We may switch between lashing out at ourselves and others. Both self-depreciating and angry monologues can go on in our heads much of the time. This is an exhausting game.
If you are tormented by self-hatred and its sidekick shame, you probably have a running dialog in your head, or coming out of your mouth, about how other people screw up, don’t care, let you down, are stupid, arrogant, lazy, disappointing, or unfair.
You might also ascribe your bad feelings about yourself to other people: They don’t like me, are angry with me, or don’t value or appreciate me. Suspicion and paranoia about other people’s motives are common secondary effects of self-hatred.
Self-exiled
A young man I knew in a spiritual community was liked by all. He was quirky, but appreciated. However, he had adopted a self-concept that everyone rejected him. Even though no one was rejecting him, or perhaps because no one was rejecting him, he built a wall around himself and basically confirmed his self-concept by not speaking to others or joining in group activities.
The more he did this, the more isolated he felt, and the more strongly he was convinced that his situation was due to being unfairly rejected by the group.
Some of us tried to intervene, but he had little capacity to self-reflect or receive nourishment. Eventually he left—a victim of his own karmic drama.
When we are stuck in this “hell,” we start off lonely and feeling lack of self worth, and we end up pushing everyone away. We find fault and are certain people are finding fault with us. Then the situation self-destructs.
Clear seeing run amok
When we are strongly projecting this kind of karmic fixation, it is difficult to break away. We are convinced that we have a right to our bad feelings. Alongside this, hopelessness can set in. We feel condemned internally and externally.
The most difficult aspect of self-hatred is its relationship to clear-seeing and fire element. Self-hatred is like a blazing fire. Everything is illuminated. But when we are gazing into the flames, our vision is distorted by waves of heat.
People experiencing self-hatred are experts at picking out (and inventing) minute details and piecing them together like a collage to create self-damning or other-damning narratives. It all seems very clear, but it is a distortion.
Fortunately, most of us have at least some capacity to honestly self-reflect. With at least some capacity to receive the reflection of a teacher or a friend, and even laugh at our situation, we can slowly loosen the grip of karmic vision and discover more natural clarity.
Community is medicine
Being a part of a supportive spiritual or self-help community can be medicine if we are experiencing a lot of habitual, critical anger. We can try out new ways of relating within our communities and become less limited in our modes of self-expression.
Most importantly, people who live with self-hatred often have difficulty recognizing and accepting nourishment. You offer them a kind word, or a helping hand, and it is viewed with suspicion. As Namkhai Norbu, my Dzogchen teacher taught: They turn water into fire: something that burns rather than nourishes.
Over time, practicing in the crucible of a patient, honest and supportive community might help to open the prison gates of self-hatred.
In our communities, we get to see everyone openly working with their own patterns of suffering. We start to glimpse a new possibility. We can take things a little more lightly. What a relief!
Coming to recognize that we are in this together is a crucial first step toward experiencing less separation and recognizing our continuity with all of life.
Some other medicines
Self-hatred is a powerful emotion and can take a long time to unwind. But here are some ways you can start to heal from self-hatred.
Try to notice when your projections about reality are proved incorrect. It’s probably happening all the time, but you just don’t stop to notice!
Do ancestor puja and ask for help.
Practice periods of mauna (silence) to reduce the level of projection outward and relax.
Meditate by gazing on a beautiful flower in full bloom in order to experience more spaciousness.
Spend time in nature and reconnect with the pleasure of simple existence.
Practice moon bathing under a full moon, and drink water that has sat under a full moon.
Use sweet, cooling essential oils such as jasmine, rose, neroli and sandalwood.
with infinite love,
Shambhavi
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As someone healing from this, I loved this post
Thanks for the medicine, Shambhavi!