00:00:00: Music.
00:00:09: Everybody welcome back to a new episode of bitch breathe I am your host ricardia Bramley.
00:00:17: So today we're going to talk about self-loathing.
00:00:22: Sound like a lot of fun no it is it actually really is I came to this subject not too long ago who am I getting a come to the subject periodically.
00:00:33: But I wanted to talk about it because.
00:00:37: There are so many contextual situations where we are confronted.
00:00:43: With this I know we are also often confronted with loathing other people and I'm sure that's worth an episode or two but today we're going to talk about when this energy is turned inward.
00:00:55: So you probably know this you come away from a confrontation not really having said what you wanted not maybe having defended yourself.
00:01:04: Or maybe you went into the offense too much whatever it is and then afterwards you having all these fantasies of.
00:01:10: What you should have said to that Deli owner who was really rude or what you should have said to your boss so that she or he can appreciate you more and there's all this sort of.
00:01:21: Movie theater stuff going on in our heads of how eloquent and witty and destructive we could have been towards this other person who we might feel handled the whole situation in an unfair way towards us.
00:01:34: Or another situation this is again what happened to me the other day I was doing this six phase meditation its with vision lucky on E you might know the guy from.
00:01:44: Mindvalley and he does this wonderful meditation where he leads you through a few phases.
00:01:50: And some of them are forgiveness imagining your perfect day visualizing the future.
00:01:58: And another one of them is gratitude he divides it into two things something or someone you're grateful for and three things you're grateful for about you.
00:02:10: And it happened to me two times maybe three times where I get to this point.
00:02:16: The other one is forgiveness I sometimes don't manage that one particularly well either but I get to this gratitude part gratitude for me part in the meditation and I'm sitting there trying to come up with a list of things that I think are really.
00:02:29: Really great about me that I really am grateful for and depending on the life phase I'll come up with something real fast and now.
00:02:37: I feel really good because obviously that was the underlying mood was I feel good today ricardia is an okay person today but.
00:02:45: There has been a phase now where that just wasn't happening I'm sitting there like.
00:02:51: Man this is like math class all over I'm supposed to know the answers and for the life of me I cannot come up with any.
00:02:58: So I thought to myself what is that like why am I being so
00:03:03: well self-loathing and there's so many reasons for it you know as women especially but I know that this is also an a thing for men is body issues or maybe like I said a conversation went badly
00:03:16: maybe you relapsed on an addiction you just
00:03:20: it behind you some really bad parenting you yelled at your kid or you're returning to a relationship that you know is not good for you
00:03:28: but you're going to go ahead and do it or maybe you're even having an affair whatever it is it's just the worst feeling this feeling of ah I just.
00:03:37: On such a gigantic scale I don't know what to do with myself and for some reason I can't stop myself.
00:03:46: Now I know that some of these things are a little more serious and others key word being addiction for example I want to make sure that it's not.
00:03:54: That I don't take these things seriously but I would like to look at this from a more humorous perspective also because
00:04:01: I think the self-loathing is an absolutely Universal thing just like we want love is universal we want to feel accomplished we want to feel like we're passionate about our work those are some of the positive things but I think one of the
00:04:14: more negatively connoted things is self-loathing
00:04:17: so when we come up with this let's say we did return to what we consider a bad habit I've found it really helpful.
00:04:26: To understand that as we come back to us after this Behavior are this incident happened that the recovery from this confrontation from the situation whatever it is.
00:04:38: Won't look anything like a linear progression it's not like okay incident a happened so then what follows logically or in a linear fashion is be.
00:04:50: I recognize my bad behavior see I begin to accept it and then D I move on if it were that simple there wouldn't be as much literature out there
00:05:00: we wouldn't be body shaming all over ourselves and trying to also be right in conversations whatever it is the recovery the coming back to ourselves
00:05:10: that often looks like self-loathing is not linear
00:05:14: we're going to fall and then we're going to get back up and then we fall again and get back up so to sort of understand that this is a cyclical thing
00:05:21: that doesn't mean we keep falling backward in terms of one step forward and five steps back you want the
00:05:28: progression to have an upward motion don't get me wrong I mean I'm not advocating downward spirals here but I am advocating a certain kind of spiral.
00:05:39: Meaning the relapse has their return to self-loathing the bad self talk
00:05:46: whatever it is is going to come over and over again why not because loving the doubling up here because we are so bad and so we hate ourselves even more and get into that whole cycle.
00:05:57: Yes that is also part of it but also we have been raised in ways that.
00:06:02: Condone self-loathing to understand that we are going against a conditioning that might have been going on for decades it need not go on
00:06:11: for decades for it to be effectively present in our lives but it could have and so sort of breaking a habit in a year or five that really has been going on
00:06:23: 4:30
00:06:24: 40 or just 10 that's not so easy so keep returning to this idea of a cyclical progression it's going to get better the periods that you spend self-loathing will hopefully get shorter and we'll get to some of those tactics later.
00:06:40: So just understanding also that to change to be able to handle a confrontation in a way that looks like it has Grace
00:06:50: that it has a dignity that you walked away not being totally cake faced that takes a moment changing as Uncharted Territory you're now going into a territory that you don't know because you're changing something about yourself
00:07:03: so instead of.
00:07:05: Killing ourselves of a not having stuck to that diet that we really wanted to do because apparently it's really effective for JLo is to understand that this is New Territory and we need to
00:07:18: understand that we can't do this in an instant and why should you find the right way right away.
00:07:26: Where how who's going to help you with that the only way.
00:07:31: To not go into the self-loathing because something went wrong are you feel like you fundamentally messed up a situation is to understand that you cannot know the right way.
00:07:41: Immediately and So speaking of trying to find the right way.
00:07:46: It's important to have and if you've listened to any of my previous episodes you'll know my saying this all the time.
00:07:55: Have you checked if you have a good support group because again in some ways like attracts like.
00:08:03: Sometimes so if we're constantly in a context or with people who also have a whole lot of self-loathing and a little bit of scarcity in the self-love Department chances are
00:08:14: that's not going to be helpful.
00:08:16: Because we won't necessarily be able to see something that we want to be now keep in mind it's great when people understand us when they're also has been an experience of self-loathing
00:08:28: but we need to be able to have role models and I'm not saying aspiring to
00:08:33: whoever's at the top of the charts or top movie star whatever if that inspires you great me personally I'm like that seems so far away that I don't even.
00:08:43: Right plus they got all these personal trainers and everything it's like yeah it's easy for them someone's cooking three healthy meals for them for a day but you get my meaning to sort of find an immediate support group around you find people who really
00:08:57: inspire you to take care of yourself to love yourself and that when that doesn't go well
00:09:03: to do it anyway to be rebellious enough to love yourself even when you're not happy with your behavior or yourself right now
00:09:12: another situation where.
00:09:14: Used to find a lot of self-loathing in myself it's not very strong now anymore but I wanted to bring it up because I do still think it does a number on our on our mental health is.
00:09:26: Whose life are we comparing ours with if
00:09:30: we are looking at our Instagram feeds our Facebook feeds a lot you know hashtag squat challenge here hashtag vacation in I don't know Hawaii there after a while it can feel like my God I have not accomplished anything
00:09:45: I should have done this that or the other and before we know it we're in a Time Loop of should have done this in the past or
00:09:53: comparative Loop where it's like how come I'm not there right now you know whatever it is careers Partners vacations whatever showing up
00:10:02: in this comparative situation of looking at Instagram feeds or listening to that one friend who just seems to do everything right and you're just like oh my God how is it that I always look like a total loser next to this person that doesn't make them a bad person but it surely makes us want to
00:10:17: inspect our own perspective of ourselves so just
00:10:22: staying away from this absolutely toxic situation of comparison now I know we've heard this a million times before which is why the question begs to be asked well how am I supposed to do that because I do keep catching myself comparing.
00:10:37: Well the most obvious one first
00:10:39: stay away from all these social media feeds they're just not helpful if you get your news from Instagram I tend to sometimes then get it from somewhere else right maybe sign up for some positive
00:10:51: newsletters body positive groups I mean there's so much out there now that if we don't seek help then it's partially our.
00:11:01: Responsibility that we're not doing better because there is a lot of stuff going on out there that wants to support us people who are able to support us and there is no need to keep comparing to what isn't working.
00:11:14: When we come into this mode of self-loathing and we just feel fundamentally.
00:11:22: Dysfunctional we feel isolated in this self-hatred almost sometimes that then the subsequent emotion that often will
00:11:31: come up and come up violently at least for me is shame I feel ashamed that I haven't
00:11:38: made it if you will I feel a shame that I didn't succeed in the way that I thought I would or that I didn't handle that conversation I remember specifically it's not long ago at all just a few weeks there was.
00:11:51: Rather heated confrontation at my workplace at one of my projects and this person came at me
00:11:59: very unexpectedly and in a very very rude and vulgar mode that quite frankly I didn't see coming there had been warning signs this person was not a particularly eloquent communicator and
00:12:12: just had a lot of her own self-loathing issues I'm going I'm going to guess so after I had been yelled at.
00:12:18: I didn't manage to not yell back in fact I'm now fully turned up the heat I yelled back I think the f word was used at an inflationary rate and I don't regret
00:12:29: by the way that I came back because I think that was the necessary language in that context because I wasn't being understood in any other way
00:12:38: but what happened later that I felt ashamed not that I had used these words not that I had gotten angry but because I thought I knew better.
00:12:48: I should have stood up for myself a whole lot sooner and I felt ashamed that I hadn't done that.
00:12:54: That I had given the impression that I do not defend myself that it's perfectly fine to treat me this way because that whole time.
00:13:04: When I thought I was being
00:13:05: restrictive in my emotions really handing them well I wasn't at all I was just not defending myself I was probably even being passively aggressive which to me is like the most annoying kind of aggression other than physical of course so
00:13:20: in that shame I felt a smallness coming like I just felt so small and at this age
00:13:26: and stage of my life I don't want to feel small anymore I don't feel like I have a whole lot more opportunities to let that just go by.
00:13:36: And so of course I got really pissed off with myself and it was so hard to forgive my own behavior.
00:13:44: And so that is the contrast that is now being painted the shame is creating a smallness like I want to shrink away from life I want to shrink away from how I handle things whereas forgiveness and I want to even say self-forgiveness has a large desk.
00:13:59: Right so smallness versus largeness and so in terms of navigating coming from the smallness then to the largest is really about the forgiveness.
00:14:08: About forgiving ourselves for not being perfect
00:14:12: which for some reason it's so annoying that we all buy into it but meanwhile we've all gotten into this mode that we have to be perfect somehow.
00:14:22: We're being told by all the kinds of Instagram feeds and memes
00:14:27: that you don't need to be perfect but the truth is were also into self optimization into being in this what I call the happiness imperative this toxic positivity sometimes you know making the best of life
00:14:39: and you know going out there getting those jobs getting those partners and it's like for fuck's sake already like can we just like back off for a minute
00:14:49: and be okay that would just leading a normal life that may be making it whatever making it means isn't necessarily going to lead me to be happy
00:15:00: and begin my life I can be big in a life that isn't famous I can be huge.
00:15:06: In a life that nobody else knows about because maybe I live on the outskirts of some City or whatever it is there can be bigness in.
00:15:15: Anonymity in just leading a decent life.
00:15:19: Now I also am victim often to this think bigger Ricardo you got a dream bigger come on this is the time especially now after the pandemic I really feel there's so many opportunities to just think and dream bigger and I'm not going to let go of those.
00:15:33: But on days when I don't feel like shange in the whole world around I've decided over and over again I'm going to let those days happen.
00:15:43: So that I don't feel shame around the smallness of what I've achieved today and that I forgive myself
00:15:50: for not being perfect over achieving great whatever the attributes are.
00:15:57: And since we're on the topic of forgiveness because this is so important to me.
00:16:02: It's talked about in so many levels on so many ways especially in the yoga scene but even not some mystical these days that I often wondered especially after you know some trauma or bad incident had occurred
00:16:16: I often wonder like what am I supposed to do that how am I supposed to forgive myself for wasting my life with this person for so many years that's it.
00:16:25: Topic that came up over and over and if you want to know more about it check out my last episode which is called infidelity and that'll tell you a whole lot about that particular chapter.
00:16:36: I thought there must be a way to forgive myself when things get really.
00:16:41: Really unbearably shameful to me or like I said when I'm getting into this self-loathing mode and so what I've been looking at is.
00:16:50: How do other people forgive what kind of big big things other people forgive I mean I've heard interviews of women who have been raped or whose children weren't treated badly and they forgive now that seems like a tall order
00:17:04: and I didn't necessarily replicate that but it's just interesting to look at
00:17:09: and the other aspect of forgiveness in a practical way is do you forgive people when they make mistakes when they trespass when they do something that you didn't think was quite right I'm not talking the huge huge huge stuff because again different
00:17:23: league but do you forgive them and if you answer this with a yes why would you think that you don't deserve that same treatment by you.
00:17:32: I'm not asking you to have other people forgive you that's a whole nother episode but if you tend to be a person who forgives and then hopefully also forgets then at
00:17:42: the very least you should also be at the receiving end of that forgiving treatment.
00:17:48: Especially after I yelled at my son sometimes I would go into this hole.
00:17:54: Self-loathing I absolutely hated who I was I felt so guilty I would cry it was so hard
00:18:03: I had been driven to my personal limit by whatever was going on in my life and I had taken it out on my son and sometimes
00:18:11: he was a very small when that happened and that's really really painful I think any mother any father who's fucking lost it with their kid knows what I'm talking about how do you come back from that.
00:18:23: But the truth is a part from a course apologizing to your child and giving them a context why maybe you acted in this way.
00:18:31: It's also really important to say in my case ricardia I'm sorry for what happened it wasn't great but I forgive you.
00:18:40: Like literally I stepped into this dialogue of I forgive me.
00:18:46: And it's so hard to do sometimes I don't know if you've tried any of these exercises of saying I love you in front of the mirror of Jesus I struggled with that for years I was like nah I don't feel it so then fake it till you make it whatever it takes but
00:18:59: to come out of this self-loathing Loop the only way I know how is to create a short fuse.
00:19:06: And Too Short Fuse the loop you do something that seems entirely counterintuitive for me personally it was to say I forgive me.
00:19:16: I'm a very lovable person I messed up there for a moment but I forgive me it's radical people is not easy but try it anyway.
00:19:25: When I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life
00:19:29: I came across this researcher actually I think she's a Harvard researcher and and scientists her name is Christine Neff
00:19:37: she did a lot of research on compassion and has been quoted by all the big names brene brown I think they've all sort of worked or talked to her at some point.
00:19:48: And she said a very key thing for me and she asked the question how would you speak to your best friend when they are going through something whether self-loathing where they feel badly about something in their lives that went wrong.
00:20:02: And the truth is I talked very kindly to my friends I love my friends I love my family why on Earth on top of their berating themselves would I come in and say Jesus I Told You So or.
00:20:17: Well didn't you know that this and that was going on or what made you make that decision that seems really dumb.
00:20:24: And a whole lot of other words that I can say to myself but I would never talk to another person that way.
00:20:31: Not only would I not talk to my best friend that way I wouldn't even talk to a person that way who had treated me maybe not so fairly in the past I wouldn't use those words I would try to somehow find a way.
00:20:43: Yes maybe be direct.
00:20:46: And give advice if it were sought out but to not berate and so if we wouldn't be radar best friend why would we berate ourselves
00:20:55: and I really recommend reading some of her research by the way I think it was really excellent and in that context brene Brown and since I'm already on the recommendations let me send this last point to you.
00:21:07: This book is probably one of my top five all-time favorite books because it's so important it is written in such a loving and I have to say almost unprecedented eloquent.
00:21:19: Way about all these subjects that I just it can't be ignored and it's by Alain de botton.
00:21:25: I think he's British he sounds British and it's called the school of life.
00:21:29: An emotional education now pop that in the show notes for you what I love about this book apart from everything is.
00:21:39: There's no mystical thing here
00:21:41: he doesn't talk about God and I have nothing against mystical or God I'm a yoga teacher for crying out loud that's not what it is but he has such a practical and yet loving and compassionate way of
00:21:51: helping us understand why we do what we do that it's okay that we do what we do
00:21:58: and that everybody no matter where they come from has a certain set of universal things about themselves that make us who we are.
00:22:08: Which is the human species.
00:22:10: So I hope this serves you I hope it's maybe softens some of the blows that you deal yourself that we deal.
00:22:19: Ourselves and that you can take one or another point and hopefully apply it today I hope you're doing well.
00:22:26: Music.
