Being both okay and not okay at the same time

I’ve been thinking about this idea that we have to learn to love ourselves lately. And I want to make some sense of it. Because in one sense we need to be friends with ourselves. We need to face where we are with as much acceptance as possible. If we just keep castigating ourselves over past mistakes the commentator inside our heads will become an enemy and a tyrant. And we don’t need more of those.

But it’s not good to ignore our flaws either. We in all likelihood need to be a bit harsh with ourselves. Because we have in all likelihood become too comfortable. The modern world does that to most of us. Unless we make conscious choices to not allow it. And the situation in the world today demands that we are everything that we can be. 

I believe that the love that we have for ourselves is the only one that, rightly, cannot be unconditional. This may sound a bit harsh, but I think that it’s only logical. At least if we talk about self-love in the true sense, and not the kind of narcissistic self-love that is often promoted in society today. This is because even though we have an endless capacity for self-deception, we still have potential access to everything inside of us. Everything that motivates our actions. And somewhere we know, even if that knowing never reaches the surface of our consciousness. We know when we are lazy. We know when we avoid confronting our problems. We know when we are selfish. We know when we are trying to manipulate others and the world, so that we get what we want without having to work for it. We know when we are making excuses and rationalization. And we know damned well that we, eventually, are the ones that are going to have to pay for it.

Most of us are not victims of circumstances. For the vast majority of us, the situations that we are in are direct consequences of our choices and actions. And our choices and actions are consequences of how we have take care of our inner lives. And our inner lives are greatly affected by our experiences, even though we have quite a lot of room when it comes to how we respond to our experiences. And our experiences are to a large degree determined by our choices and actions and the situations that they put us in. And so it goes. Around and around. And the wheel either takes us up or down. But it will always keep spinning. Less so if we’re in a stabile situation and don’t feel the need for much change. But even then it spins slowly. Because time always makes it spin no matter what. And even then something may happen that changes its direction and/or causes it to spin faster.

Then we have the situation in the world. It is causing many wheels to spin faster. And will do so even more in the future. 

This doesn’t necessarily have to move us downhill. Because when we’re pushed into a corner we have a choice of either lay down and let whatever is pushing us into the corner eat us. Or we can use every ounce of muscle and intelligence that we’ve got to fight. Thus we either perish or become stronger.

Here is where I am right now. I know where my choices have gotten me. I know that a storm is coming, even if I don’t know exactly when or what it will look like.

I also know that God will love me all the way through the storm. That he will love me when I am unable to. And I know that whatever pain comes in my way, it’s nothing compared to eternity with God. But that is not something that I’m likely to remember when tragedy strikes. 

This is actually quite interesting when you think about it. On the one hand, we have God, that loves us unconditionally and whose love we can never earn. And on the other we have ourselves, whose love we must earn. Both are closer to us than any other person or creature. And in between, we have all kinds of relationships with all kinds of conditionality attached to them. God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. And knows us better than we know ourselves. The second closest person in our lives is ourselves. And this is the person that never can love us unconditionally. Not in a true, healthy sense.

So here is what I’ve figured. As with most things in life, we need to take a step back and bring some consciousness into our self-perception. Most of us are not all that we could be. And we have to be cautious when it comes to the impulse to earn salvation. I mean this both in a literal and metaphorical sense. Our self-worth should never be contingent upon our accomplishments and failures. But we must also never sweep our shortcomings under the rug. If we don’t like everything about ourselves there’s probably a reason for it. If this is the case, it’s healthy to remind ourselves that we are worthy just by being part of the crown of God’s creation. But we also need to take a look at the parts that we don’t like about ourselves. 

Two very important questions to ask ourselves in this context, is: Is it my own standards that I don’t live up to? Or is it other people’s, the world’s or God’s?

We need to be as honest about this as possible and realize that these are huge and deep questions. The answers are, for the most part, far from obvious. We need to think deeply about why the standards matter to us.

Ultimately it’s God’s standards that we need to aim for. In other words, our standards should, as far as possible, be the same as God’s. But these are impossible standards and we are not expected to live up to them.

If, on the other hand, our standards are the world’s or other people’s, we can be more or less certain that they will lead us astray. It’s always a good thing to listen to the perspectives of people that have something valuable to teach us. But we should always do this with God’s will and not theirs in mind. 

So, we need to cultivate a healthy, mature and honest relationship with ourselves. If this is something that we find worthwhile, there are two crucial questions that we need to ask ourselves: Are we doing our best to live up to God’s standards? Can we accept and forgive ourselves when we inevitably fail to do so?

Vulnerability requires real toughness

In my past I used to put up walls around me. Me and my friends had a pretty rough way of speaking to each other and I definitely was one of the most active driving forces behind this jargon. I felt proud of not caring what anyone said to me. The positive side of this is that I can still take a joke and I don’t have to take everything that others say to me seriously. But the negative side is that this goes both ways. Just like I didn’t take in things that could hurt me, I didn’t talk about things that made me vulnerable either. 

When I started going through my real spiritual awakening, I suddenly found myself sensitive towards things that I previously would have brushed off as nothing. I had an initial awakening many years ago, but lost sight of it after a while. It became undeniable that something strange was going on first when I med my wife a little more four years ago and we started to have one strange experience after the other together.

But back to the main topic: vulnerability. I could suddenly not deny that others could say things that hurt anymore. Understanding this, I coul also understand that words can have real power. What I say can hurt. What we say to each other matter.

Now, I’m not talking about some politically correct nonsense, where we have to walk on eggshells around each other so that we don’t accidentally say something that can be interpreted as racist or sexist. I still believe that offence is taken and not given. And I believe that in this context we need to turn things around anyway. Turn things around in the sense that we stop demanding things from others and turn towards ourselves instead. We can complain forever about what others are doing to us and whether or not they are doing it on purpose. Or we can look at our own wounds, why certain things trigger them and how they cause us to say and do hurtful things. 

This is how we get out if this cycle of victims and perpetrators: we stop making others responsible for how we feel and open up to each other. Vulnerability is not the same as being whiny and weak. I was that for a while as well (and can still be sometimes), but this is not to be vulnerable in a positive, responsible way. But it’t easy to be vulnerable in this way when walls that one has built up around oneself during one’s whole life suddenly starts to crumble.

Vulnerability is about courageous trust. About knowing that others can use our vulnerability against us, but choosing to trust that they won’t. To accept the fact that some may and live with the consequences. Ultimately, as with so many things right now, it comes down to whether we want to live in survival mode or not. And in the times that we are living in, survival mode is inevitably going to turn our lives into nightmares. 

Trust and openness takes time to build and in the beginning many of us will get hurt. In a sense, this is a new type of battle. One that is the opposite of taking up arms together and going to war. Instead it’s about our individual, inner struggles and laying down our weapons and shields, both the literal and metaphorical ones. About giving others the chance of choosing not hurting us even if they can. 

Photo by Adrian Swancar on Unsplash

The journey to self-love

Self-love isn’t easy. Neither is it the narcissistic monstrosity that is promoter by our culture. That is the opposite of self-love. Our culture’s idea of “self-love” is about projecting an image based on pride and taking what we can from the external world.

Real self-love is about our insides. And let me right now confess that this is one of my greatest struggles. Why? Because I’ve done lots of things in my past that I’m ashamed of. Lots of things that I, at the time, thought that I could just bury afterwards. But the cliché, that we can never escape from ourselves, is true. We can pretend that our actions don’t mean anything to us till the day we die and not grow one millimeter. But the day that we truly start caring about ourselves and our lives, they will come back to haunt us. 

Therefore, self-love is about bringing all of our darkness to the surface so that we can forgive ourselves and let it go. Real self-love is not a happy-pill that we can take and instantly feel good about ourselves and our lives. It’s a bitter medicine that needs to be taken many times before it has any effect. Because in order to love ourselves, we first need to take responsibility for ourselves and our lives. We need to dare looking at ourselves and not shy away from what we find. 

What I’ve found going through this process, is that this is much like peeling an onion. And the more layers I peel off, the more hurt I find. I’ve thought that I’ve brought my most shameful aspects to the surface many times, just to discover that there is even more there.

But I think that I’m finally starting to get to the core of the issue. And it’s strange to see how all of this struggling and complexity was in some way necessary. But that it at the same time led to a simple end. Namely that at the core I just ensnared myself in a bunch of thoughts. Thoughts that have nothing to do with who I really am and that I’m free to either believe or dismiss. 

I’ve done lots of destructive things. But in my confused state I actually believed that I was doing something totally justifiable. And every moment is a new moment. I’m free to choose something better. And every time that I become aware of an unwanted thought, I can just let it pass. I know that my relationship with God, myself and other people, plus what I believe that I came into this world to do, are what’s important. And anything that is not in line with this needs to go. 

I don’t need to believe thoughts that run contrary to who I really want to be. Who I know that I already am behind all of the layers of ego that I am not. I already love this person. That which I cannot love about myself is an illusion.

Photo by: Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

What is "self-talk"? Part 4

The thing is that when it comes to self-talk, it can take the shape of a dialogue rather than a monologue. It doesn’t have to. But it can. I believe it should. Because the negative voice inside ourselves does not have to have the only say. It can be challenged. And what I am beginning to realize, is that often we have a choice. A choice between bringing ourselves down or up. Between talking to ourselves in a condemning or forgiving way. Between showing compassion or hardness towards ourselves. Between trusting and distrusting ourselves and our abilities. 

And how we talk to ourselves may determine how we feel inside and whether we succeed or fail.

What is "self-talk"? Part 3

In relation to a certain situation recently, I caught myself saying to myself that I was basically a selfish, immoral idiot, with a behavior that was utterly transparent to anyone but myself. But then I realized that I knew nothing of what other people saw in my behavior, that if I wasn’t transparent to myself, it’s not certain that I am to other, that I didn’t take the issue at hand lightly and that I, admittedly hesitating, had actually chosen something good. 

If you look carefully at the former paragraph, you will see that not only are there two completely different perspectives in it. But they are also equally true, apart from the part of what others perceive and think. And what others perceive and think I can know nothing about unless I ask them. But if I stick with only the first perspective, while ignoring the second, it is very likely that it will make me like myself less. 

What is "self-talk"? Part 2

I believe all people are more or less conscious of their self-talk all of their lives. But it was not until I got the aha-moment that lead to this blog post, that I started thinking of what it actually is, and how to separate it from the other thoughts that go on inside my head. 

Basically, the thoughts that place a value judgment on what I do and who I am can be labelled “self-talk”. At its most basic form, self-talk is about judging what I do, say and who I am as good or bad. It entails whether I show compassion or condemnation when I make mistakes. And whether I let successes boost my authentic confidence or whether I let them blow up my ego. 

What is "self-talk"? Part 1

This is a post about that little monologue that goes on constantly in our heads and how there are different aspect of it. One of these aspects is the way we talk to ourselves.

I’ve been familiar with the term “self-talk” for quite some time. I can’t really remember if I first heard it two or twenty years ago though. As with so many other terms, it does mean something that is worth reflecting on, because it can enrich our lives. But until now, I haven’t done so.

Hang in there

I’m saying this as much to myself as anyone else that might need to hear this.

I know that all this brokenness that we find inside, when we choose to really look, may feel overwhelming sometimes. We want to be over there, but we’re over here. And the distance from over here to over there seems infinite. And time just keeps passing by. 

But God’s love is alway there. Surrender can happen in an instant. Yes, we have to keep working and struggling. And yet, it’s not about what we do and what we accomplish. God doesn’t love us less because we’re not as virtuous or disciplined as someone else. God’s love is unconditional. When we feel it, I believe that it should make us want to do our best. But my best might not be the same as your best.

My best might be to work every day on being more present and aware. But it might also mean to accept that I sometimes have days when I’m not there at all and where I’m just angry with everything. It might mean to work out and take care of my body. But it might also mean to say f**** it, I can’t take this health crap right now, and spend a weekend eating junk food and watch mindless entertainment. It might even mean to sometimes make excuses for my bad behavior. But it also means being honest with myself once I become aware of my behavior, or the fact that I’m making excuses. It means not staying down longer that I have to when I fall. But only I know how long that is. Sometimes the voice inside that tells me to just drop everything a little while longer is just too strong. Maybe I even need to deceive myself today, so that I can bear my problems.

God loves me no matter what though.

I should probably stop beating myself up though

Because even though I see how I fall when it comes to being humble and trusting God, I have become more courageous. More genuine and more loving. I still often let my thoughts get the best of me. But I am better at holding my tongue and think of how my speech affects other people. Not all the time. But I’m definitely seeing improvement. I'm a slow learner when it comes to all of this being-a-good-person stuff. But I'm definitely getting better.