The Dark Side of Selfishness (And What It Hides) ⋆ LonerWolf

“Be the love you never got.” “Fall in love with yourself first.” “Treat yourself like someone you love.”

Hmm, good. thanks But how the hell do you do that?

Leaving aside my desire to swear a lot (it’s an Australian tendency, so don’t blame me), I want to express something that I don’t see talked about enough in the treatment field:

how self-love can be used as a covert shaming tactic.

Self-love is something I really struggle with at the moment. A combination of stress from different areas of life (family, business, society and just life’s crap in general) has led to this inner work is the path to healing to the test.

Like vultures circling above me irritability, stress and the threat of burnout have been my companions for many months. Call it the existential threat of AI to a livelihood like mine, mixed with caring for an emotionally unstable toddler and ongoing family drama – either way it was it is difficult.

Fortunately, I have a strong inner workings the practice of restoring the soul to return to such times – one that was forged years of trial and error and breakthrough. A path that can sustain me in a difficult time, even when there aren’t many others I can turn to.

But I understand that not everyone has a mature practice of self-love. Not everyone knows how show self-compassion in times of stress and overwhelm. Perhaps you are one of those people.

if you here’s what I’ve learned about how not to drown in the “dark side” of self-love. Because, yes, it is it is possible be used as a way to hurt yourself even more if you’re not careful.

When “Love Yourself” becomes just another way to fail

First, let me say that self-love, true self-love centered in the heart, deeply healing. This indigenous breeds internal work. There’s a reason why everyone from self-help gurus to spiritual teachers to clinical psychologists recommends it.

Self-love provides a solid foundation for everything else in your life. Want better relationships with others? Learn to love yourself. Want to live a meaningful, purposeful life? Learn to love yourself. You will get a picture.

But there is a difference between heart-centric self-love and mind oriented self-love. One comes from a place of compassion. The other comes from a place of ego – dualistic thinking. One heals. The other destroys.

Self-love becomes a weapon when we use it as a yardstick to measure how “evolved” or “healed” we are.

What part of us does that? As a rule, it is the inner critic – that part of our psyche that negatively evaluates how we look, what we think and feel, and how we behave.

Some signs that your inner critic has weaponized self-love include thoughts like these:

• “I shouldn’t have judged myself so harshly; I always do. What’s wrong with me?”
• “I should have loved myself more. I failed, again.”
• “I have to be 100% selfish all the time.”
• “I have so many negative thoughts about myself. I can’t seem to love myself. I must be broken.”
• “Well, ____ knows how to love herself. But i just can’t do it.”
• “This old pattern came up again. I had a negative view of myself 1000th time. I’m a loser.”
• “I haven’t healed enough to love myself yet.”

You may notice a pattern here: judging our courts. Rejecting our acts of rejection. Feeling angry at our feeling angry.

This is getting very “meta” and reminds me of the movie Inception: dreams in dreams in dreams.

The Hidden Cruelty of Just Love Yourself

Moving from a a state of self-loathing to self-love it doesn’t just happen that way. This is something I learned the hard way and a truth that almost no one talks about.

This is done through a series of slow steps. And it’s normal to take two steps forward and one step back. There is no linear process. There is no “just loving yourself”. That’s a harsh thing to say to someone mired in a morass of self-hatred.

The journey of self-love looks more like this:

• Stage 1: Self-hatred
• 2 stage: Self-dislike
• 3 stage: Self-tolerance
• 4 stage: Self-similar
• 5 stage: Self-understanding
• Stage 6: Self acceptance
• Stage 7: Kindness to yourself
• Stage 8: Self love
• Stage 9: Self-compassion

This way of inner working takes place in the degrees. And this can only happen through the slow learning of our hearts and minds (this is one of the reasons why I created in Journal of self-love as a gentle step-by-step guided tour).

The hidden shame in modern self-love advice

My main wound is shame, and so whenever I hear shameful language, the red-eyed wild wolf inside me rears up and howls hysterically into the wind. But no, really, there is a lot shaming advice on self-love.

Take this as a prime example from the author Harry Zukov. I’m not necessarily a huge fan of his work, but I appreciate his contribution to the world. This is not an attack on him as a person, as I think he is a great guy, but simply a criticism of this passage in his famous book The abode of the soul

“If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love others and you can’t see others being loved.”

It’s a popular quote on social media, and heck, I even reposted it once. But if you stop and really study this quote, you will see it reeks of hidden shame.

I got the gist: this self-love problem means you’ll have a hard time loving others fully because you’ll be looking for that love in them and not in himself. This can lead to codependency and all that jazz.

But honestly everything is not so black and white. Can he who does not love himself love another? Is this even possible? yes. I think so. A mother or father struggling with low self-esteem may love their child very much. A person who is critical of himself can certainly love his partner, friends or family members.

Is this love free from attachment, codependency and other internal problems? No, probably not. But this doesn’t do means that they it is not possible to love them, as Zukow seems to suggest in this passage.

I won’t even touch on the second part of that quote (“…and can’t see others being loved”) because it follows the same logic.

Then there are self-help gurus and spiritual gurus who teach us self-love by associating it with buying a Macerati, getting a job with boobs, and being treated in retail… which… don’t even get me started what and the hidden shame it can cause in those without the means to do the same.

What True Self-Love Looks Like (Without Shame)

I’ve had to be very careful when it comes to topics like self-love in my own practice because my inner critic huge. It will grab onto anything – a look, a word, a concept – and use it to feed my deep wound of shame.

This is the hidden trap of words like “self-love.” They appear warm, fuzzy, and gentle on the surface, but these same qualities make them prime targets for the ego. to arm.

This corruption of the idea of ​​self-love reminds me of that sneaky weed you see in the garden, disguised so well that you don’t notice it without squinting. They disguise themselves as host plants, and if you don’t root them out, they end up becoming hideous usurpers of your garden.

So let’s not let it go with the shaming, shaming self-love.

“How do we do that?” You may wonder. I have two techniques. I call the first Practice Fractal Self-Love (because I like making up terms).

Fractals are infinitely repeating patterns. They look the same at any zoom level.

Here’s how the Fractal Self-Love practice works:

• Love your inability to love.
• Accept your rejection.
• Embrace your tendency not to hug.

In fact, to apply love even to the most unloved statesemotions and inclinations. Apply love as self-healing balm to all internal crisis situations. This technique requires a connection to the heart, and I know not everyone has access to that. But if he calls you, try.

For example, the next time you judge a lack of self-love, see if you can connect with your heart and love someone who is struggling to show self-love.

The second technique Practice of the Divine Inner Father.

Basically, notice that all the angry, judgmental, and self-critical parts of you are actually scared inner children or lost teenagers who just want to be sure everything is okay. what they are in order. The voices of self-hatred and shame within you are coming from those young inner parts, and the last thing they need is rejection. What they really need is to be enveloped in the energy of love, or what I call the Divine Father Within. Although I am not Catholic, I have a statue of the Virgin Mary in my house as a symbol of this energy.

***

Self-love is a profoundly transformative and life-changing practice. But it can be appropriated by the ego to reinforce feelings of shame and isolation.

If something stinks of selfishness, please trust yourself. You don’t have to accept what the world teaches you about self-love if it doesn’t align with your soul’s deepest wisdom. Only you can follow your own path, and only you know what is truly beneficial and what is not.

That’s all for now.

Tell me, what does spoiled self-love look like? What signs should you pay attention to? I’d love to hear in the comments.

If this post helped you in any way, it would mean the world if you could buy me coffee.