Contempt for myself

[Max_V]

I have been feeling this abject contempt for myself lately. The way that I look, my submissive and anxious behaviour, the way I can't express myself well and have trouble with social skills. Lately I've been feeling this ever-intensifying, complete opposite of self-love and I don't know how to deal with it. I feel like this is 10+ years of stored pain growing up and not feeling at place in the world coming to the surface. Everyone's opinions once grounded me, now realising they are not absolute, how I should feel about myself is without root.

It seems really simple concerning appearance. Just accept what you have is always the go to advice. But for some reason I have always had this obsession with beauty and elegance and can't let it go. Seeing my face in the mirror stirs disgust. It feels so absurd not to match physically the conception I have of how I feel my soul looks like. 

Making friends and introducing myself to potential romatic partners feels impossible. If I hate myself this deeply, why would someone else love me? The loneliness and seperation I feel is so intense.

Just here to have some conversation about this. Letting it out makes me feel less alone

 

 

[Loving Radiance]

@Max_V Hey Max, I am here

Do you want to be heard with the contempt that's present right now?

Or do you want to create something from the contempt? If you want only to be heard then don't read what I wrote below.

 

1 hour ago, Max_V said:

The way that I look, my submissive and anxious behaviour, the way I can't express myself well and have trouble with social skills.

What's bad about that? Do you imagine how you could look & how you could behave like? Do you compare yourself to an ideal of yours? If so, how come you do that? Is it about expanding or being better than yesterday?

How does it feel to believe self-judgmental thoughts? How does it feel to believe self-rejecting thoughts instead of accepting yourself how you are right now? Can you go live your life having aspiring inspiration for what you want to be when you don't accept and don't feel good with your starting position?

1 hour ago, Max_V said:

I feel like this is 10+ years of stored pain growing up and not feeling at place in the world coming to the surface. Everyone's opinions once grounded me, now realising they are not absolute, how I should feel about myself is without root

How does it feel to believe to not be at place in the world?

You feel without a root, do you want to create that root for yourself or do you want to get a root from others that other salso can take away again?

1 hour ago, Max_V said:

I have always had this obsession with beauty and elegance and can't let it go

Beauty and elegance are good values to have. Why should you let go of what you want to value?

What about looking at beauty and elegance from another angle that offers you a relief from self-judging thoughts?

1 hour ago, Max_V said:

feels so absurd not to match physically the conception I have of how I feel my soul looks like

Does a soul have a face? When you look in the mirror do you think that the body is truly you? I mean, you are more complex than someone could ever imagine just by looking at your appearance. Imagine your're looking at somebody and assuming to know everything about them. No, you are deep. You are complex. No appearance could hold the beauty of your inner world.

It matters how you feel. Can you imagine that you are independent of your appearance?

1 hour ago, Max_V said:

Making friends and introducing myself to potential romatic partners feels impossible. If I hate myself this deeply, why would someone else love me? The loneliness and seperation I feel is so intense.

Yes, you are seeing this right. No one else can realize self-love for you.

Really stay with separation. It feels like tearing you apart. If you feel like expressing emotions, words or actions then go for it. You are here for yourself. You hold yourself in your expression. Trust that in expressing yourself without mask that you are transformed, released and at peace.

If you wanna try it, I copied a love exercise from another post of mine:

1. Self-love practice every day after meditation. Feel love being like a blessing that lays itself into the body & mind.
2. Exercise: Imagine a sun radiating waves of love to you. The creating Goddess loves you. The sun is so hot & loving. It keeps loving. When you'd think the waves of heat radiating on you would stop you get hit again.
3. Allow any processing of the body reacting to that happen.
4. Do step 2 on the peak of shamanic breathing.
5. Observe the reaction of the body when getting hit by the waves of love.

In general, try out shamanic breathing for deepening that feeling state you are in right now. Face, embrace and hold it even when you are repulsed by it.

1 hour ago, Max_V said:

Letting it out makes me feel less alone

I agree, letting it out feels so good.

Letting out felt so good in the past, that's why I started a diary 5 months ago. It feels good just to write about the space I am in without needing to solve it. Just feeling and holding it like a baby in my arms. Ever embracing, ever present.

In the end the practical thing for you is to be present with yourself the same as you would be with your child. Hold yourself in that feeling state. Tell yourself that you are loved no matter what you feel in the present. Tell yourself that you are accepted as you are with every emotion that is present.

[mandyjw]

Do you draw, make music, or have any sort of creative interests or outlets currently? 

If it's at all possible, I'd try to make a self portrait of some kind. Even if you're bad at drawing, do it. Or even in music, if you're a musician. Once you try to consciously create your face, it sort of has this weird way of showing you how you consciously create everything else... everyone else's faces. Finding appreciation, no matter where you can see it helps you see it everywhere else. If you have an obsession with beauty and elegance, it very well may be some sort of buried artistic desire. The suffering comes from misunderstanding the nature of beauty, the deep inherency, (a given inheritance) of it . Beauty is nothing that we can judge, or own, it is only recognized in the moment. That's all it ever is. We aren't granted beauty, we can't lose beauty, or be born without it, we create it in the very act of recognizing it. It is deeply, inherently, our recognition of Self. 

Edited September 26, 2021 by mandyjw

[Loving Radiance]

2 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

If you have an obsession with beauty and elegance, it very well may be some sort of buried artistic desire. The suffering comes from misunderstanding of the nature of it. We aren't granted beauty, we can't lose beauty, or be born without it, we create it in the very act of recognizing it. It is deeply, inherently, our recognition of Self.

Quote

Then for the first time you look around

And the beauty nature is revealed

Then you listen to the harmony of the universe

The symphony of the stars

Then everything starts to become more and more beautiful

Layers and layers of beauty are revealed

Your eyes have a penetrating force

Wherever you look

You go deep

Even in rocks

You feel flowers blossoming

~ Osho

 

[Cathal]

here's a great 3 minute video

 

you need to first understand why you can't accept yourself through reflection and contemplation, you are trying way to hard to accept yourself because the lack of understanding.

until you get to the point of just realizing the truth behind it you just start accepting. regardless of how you feel, the negative feelings are the resistance from your identity that was conditioned to be something that you're not that you're trying to break free from right now that's locking you up in the loneliness and seperation, so if you go on identifying with the feelings you are just doing this to yourself for an eternity until you accept yourself for what you.

you literally cannot be anything other than what you are, see the futility in struggling with this

its just developing awareness around what you are and what you are not. despite your emotional state, you have to try your best given your energy. 

in despair unable to feel for anyone? write and journal for example.

feeling okay, kind of decent? walking outside, just saying hi to a few people walking by. listenting to people without judgment, practicing forgiving yourself. 

feeling hopeful/willing to change? finding a therapist, finding a way to make money to get a therapist etc etc

 

you should go into what happened to you that caused you to close yourself off from everyone with someone like a therapist/healer if you want to actually process some of the emotional turmoil you're going through but the reason it feels impossible is the same as previous text,

you experienced pain being yourself > you create an identity that is not you to avoid future pain > you realize this isn't you > now you're trying to let go

so the anxiety, the submissive behaviours, the loneliness, seperation - there are all actual logical reasons behind them that you need to understand because it takes a long time to truly understand why you closed yourself off from others and see yourself being compassionate for them, seeing we all suffer and project to the external all the time. 

but of course if you'd like to share here, feel free to and we can try to go into figuring it out and helping you through this

 

and also when it comes to loving yourself, this can be really hit or miss at least from what i read. self-love is about taking action with what is aligned with your intuition, your heart, your knowing, your true understanding of right and wrong to allow yourself to let go of all the emotional trash trauma you're clinging onto to protect yourself. there is usually working through much  fear, anxiety, depression and the heaviness of resistance to which you can always get caught up in avoiding and returning to your prison of comfort which you will always hate. 

[vizual]

I have the exact same problem... I have contempt for you too.

 

 

[Preety_India]

You have a problem with self acceptance. 

A part of you is judging you harshly. That's why all the negativity and contempt. 

Let it go. Surrender to nothingness. 

Realize that all judgement is only for survival. In the absolute sense everything. 

What you consider as weakness can be strength if you recontextualize it 

Love yourself more everyday. 

What you need is not contempt but compassion. Give yourself some. 

 

[silene]

If you see someone else with similar problems would you also feel contempt or compassion? We can be our own harshest judges can't we? But you're a regular person like anyone else, why be so hard on yourself when kindness gets much better results. 

"my submissive and anxious behaviour, the way I can't express myself well and have trouble with social skills."

When I'm digging into your post, this stands out as maybe the underlying root cause. But if this is difficult to deal with and suppressed, the feelings may re-emerge as: 

"But for some reason I have always had this obsession with beauty and elegance and can't let it go. Seeing my face in the mirror stirs disgust. It feels so absurd not to match physically the conception I have of how I feel my soul looks like. "  

And my hunch is this is a projection of the deeper feelings about social inadequacy. Sure, physical beauty is touted as a major form of social capital, but we know this is only skin-deep and not a reliable basis for a lasting relationship. If I'm right (and I'm no expert), your anxiety about your appearance is just a smokescreen, a diversion, let it go. Have you heard the saying, 'love is blind'? 

"Making friends and introducing myself to potential romatic partners feels impossible. If I hate myself this deeply, why would someone else love me? The loneliness and seperation I feel is so intense." 

So the answer I'd suggest is to drop the belief this is impossible and replace it with open mindedness. Explore any and all methods to develop social skills.  Why shouldn't anyone want to be your friend or lover if you learn how to express yourself? Give them the benefit of the doubt too, after all there's loads of people out there also looking for new friends and partners. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by silene

[Max_V]

On 26-9-2021 at 9:43 PM, Loving Radiance said:

What's bad about that? Do you imagine how you could look & how you could behave like? Do you compare yourself to an ideal of yours? If so, how come you do that? Is it about expanding or being better than yesterday?

How does it feel to believe self-judgmental thoughts? How does it feel to believe self-rejecting thoughts instead of accepting yourself how you are right now? Can you go live your life having aspiring inspiration for what you want to be when you don't accept and don't feel good with your starting position?

I always have had this ideal version of who I should be in my mind that I constantly compare myself to. If I feel like I don't live up to those expectations I feel immense hatred for myself. I know it's a pathological and neurotic, but being as I am now feels unacceptable. 

 

On 26-9-2021 at 9:43 PM, Loving Radiance said:

How does it feel to believe to not be at place in the world?

You feel without a root, do you want to create that root for yourself or do you want to get a root from others that other salso can take away again?

It feels awful, like I am worthless and shouldn't exist. 

I want to start feeling grounded in myself without being victim to the whims of the opinions of others. 

On 26-9-2021 at 9:43 PM, Loving Radiance said:

Does a soul have a face? When you look in the mirror do you think that the body is truly you? I mean, you are more complex than someone could ever imagine just by looking at your appearance. Imagine your're looking at somebody and assuming to know everything about them. No, you are deep. You are complex. No appearance could hold the beauty of your inner world.

It matters how you feel. Can you imagine that you are independent of your appearance?

It feels like my body should be an accurate representation of how my soul is like, a signature if you will, having that not align feels absurd. 

----

And finally, why should I love myself if I feel there is ample reason for me not to? 

[Max_V]

On 26-9-2021 at 9:45 PM, mandyjw said:

Do you draw, make music, or have any sort of creative interests or outlets currently? 

If it's at all possible, I'd try to make a self portrait of some kind. Even if you're bad at drawing, do it. Or even in music, if you're a musician. Once you try to consciously create your face, it sort of has this weird way of showing you how you consciously create everything else... everyone else's faces. Finding appreciation, no matter where you can see it helps you see it everywhere else. If you have an obsession with beauty and elegance, it very well may be some sort of buried artistic desire.

I write, although not enough. Trying to decide at the moment if I want to make it my life's work. Thank you for that suggestion, it clicked for me, will write about my face.

On 26-9-2021 at 9:45 PM, mandyjw said:

The suffering comes from misunderstanding the nature of beauty, the deep inherency, (a given inheritance) of it . Beauty is nothing that we can judge, or own, it is only recognized in the moment. That's all it ever is. We aren't granted beauty, we can't lose beauty, or be born without it, we create it in the very act of recognizing it. It is deeply, inherently, our recognition of Self.

You might be right. Perhaps while growing up culture sabotaged my sense of Beauty. The rules I now judge it by indeed cause suffering. I don't know how to rid myself of them though, they feel really important to my survival. 

[Max_V]

On 26-9-2021 at 11:27 PM, catcat69123 said:

you need to first understand why you can't accept yourself through reflection and contemplation, you are trying way to hard to accept yourself because the lack of understanding

Yes, been doing this every day for a while now. It's hard to unravel that though, feels like i'm a surgeon poking at my own brain.

On 26-9-2021 at 11:27 PM, catcat69123 said:

you literally cannot be anything other than what you are, see the futility in struggling with this

I know it is futile, yet my rules of who I should be are in place. I hate myself, but I can't change that, because I recognize the reasons why to be truthful and right. 

On 26-9-2021 at 11:27 PM, catcat69123 said:

Feeling hopeful/willing to change? finding a therapist, finding a way to make money to get a therapist etc etc

Have been going to therapy since I was about 15, am 21 now. That system hasn't worked for me very well

On 26-9-2021 at 11:27 PM, catcat69123 said:

journal

I should do more of this, good suggestion. 

 

[Max_V]

@vizual Ayyy, at least I'm not alone in that regard  

[Max_V]

10 hours ago, silene said:

When I'm digging into your post, this stands out as maybe the underlying root cause.

That could be it yeah. But I do feel like my social inadequacy caused by my social anxiety and feeling so different together with my imperfect appearance make for me feeling worthless. 

But you're right, I don't know how I would feel if I were to have a girlfriend and friends around me who validate me as a person, perhaps then my doubts about my appearance would vanish. But then again, I would be held hostage by their love. If they leave I feel ugly and worthless again.

10 hours ago, silene said:

So the answer I'd suggest is to drop the belief this is impossible and replace it with open mindedness. Explore any and all methods to develop social skills.  Why shouldn't anyone want to be your friend or lover if you learn how to express yourself? Give them the benefit of the doubt too, after all there's loads of people out there also looking for new friends and partners. 

Perhaps there are ways for me to make new connections. But why I can't practice socializing very well is because of this strong irrational (my reason knows it to be fallacious) feeling gripping me that I'm the most worthless and awful thing in existence and to even have people see me would be insulting to them. That's how deep it goes. 

[mandyjw]

2 hours ago, Max_V said:

I write, although not enough. Trying to decide at the moment if I want to make it my life's work. Thank you for that suggestion, it clicked for me, will write about my face.

You might be right. Perhaps while growing up culture sabotaged my sense of Beauty. The rules I now judge it by indeed cause suffering. I don't know how to rid myself of them though, they feel really important to my survival. 

Survival is the character's perspective in a novel, but the character's perspective is an illusion, a created one. The character does not develop themselves, only the author develops the character. When you create, you become the author. Beauty standards don't exist to an artist, yet no one enjoys and appreciates beauty more. If the artist does what they do well, this transcendent beauty is translated to the viewer and in the viewer's appreciation, he too becomes the artist. 

 

[Loving Radiance]

On 29.9.2021 at 10:08 AM, Max_V said:

I always have had this ideal version of who I should be in my mind that I constantly compare myself to. If I feel like I don't live up to those expectations I feel immense hatred for myself. I know it's a pathological and neurotic, but being as I am now feels unacceptable.

Feeling unacceptable is ok. You are doing fine. You can accept to be at that stage in life. It takes time.

I was impatient with myself. I too couldn't accept myself. https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/55767-introspection-exploring-the-feeling-dimension/?do=findComment&comment=890259

Quote

LR: There is so much spiritual bypassing in this thread.

I collect insights and don't embody them. Instead of creating my expanded identity with the insights I download I continue to be this character moving on autopilot.

Love tells me to die, to be reborn anew. I am afraid of dying. Being ice is tangible, supposedly stable. Water is not. Water is potentiality, not yet crystallized.

Just let go.

Quote

RendHeaven: We've spent decades imagining ice.

Of course it'll take a decade un/re-imagining it!

Quote

LR: It's suffering through feeling your fluidity and holding on to ice rather than an aspect of time & conditioning.

Oh wait, we mean the same thing. Ok then

I see how I was more unaccepting of myself back then, and I still don't fully accept myself. That's ok. I am where I am at my stage in life.

On 29.9.2021 at 10:08 AM, Max_V said:

I want to start feeling grounded in myself without being victim to the whims of the opinions of others.

You want to be grounded in yourself. That's good. Write that want on your dreamboard and it's already the case. Setting the course of the ship is already being at the destination. The inspiration you feel from that want is already the case, otherwise there would be no pull towards that want.

On 29.9.2021 at 10:08 AM, Max_V said:

It feels like my body should be an accurate representation of how my soul is like, a signature if you will, having that not align feels absurd.

You believe that changing a meaning of a painting means changing how it's drawn. Let me tell you, there are multiple ways of looking at a painting without it needing to be redrawn.

You believe you got to change your body to change how you feel towards it. Let me tell you, you can also change your feel towards the body without changing it.

On 29.9.2021 at 10:08 AM, Max_V said:

why should I love myself if I feel there is ample reason for me not to?

You shouln't love yourself. Let that sink in.

I invite you to softly let go of all your should's and should not's. Then you are truly free to choose what you want.

Loving yourself needs no reason.

It isn't a choice, it is the only choice.

Almost on a daily basis I catch myself that I don't love myself. I get angry, "How come I cannot love myself?" Arrrr.

Then I recognize how I'm acting out on conditioning, on autopilot, like in hypnosis.

Quote

Life you can live, as if you are in a hypnosis

That is how 99% people live

Or you can live with intensity, awareness

If you live life with awareness

You mature

A Mature ones, never dies

Because he will learn even through death

Even death is going to be an experience

To be intensively lived

Watched

Allowed

~ Osho

Edited October 1, 2021 by Loving Radiance

[silene]

12 hours ago, Max_V said:

But you're right, I don't know how I would feel if I were to have a girlfriend and friends around me who validate me as a person, perhaps then my doubts about my appearance would vanish. But then again, I would be held hostage by their love. If they leave I feel ugly and worthless again.

That's very true, getting our validation from other people can lead to an unhealthy dependency or co-dependency. For adults anyway. Which leads me to wonder if you've got some buried childhood trauma, because kids are highly trusting and dependent on their parents and carers for developing self worth, esteem and confidence. Many of us get that drilled out of us by over critical parenting, bullying etc. 

12 hours ago, Max_V said:

Perhaps there are ways for me to make new connections. But why I can't practice socializing very well is because of this strong irrational (my reason knows it to be fallacious) feeling gripping me that I'm the most worthless and awful thing in existence and to even have people see me would be insulting to them. That's how deep it goes. 

This could be consistent with an early childhood cause; some trauma which you don't consciously remember but which is stored in a subconscious emotional (and therefore 'irrational') level. 

I don't have expertise to recommend a good therapy for this, but just to say that bringing up buried feelings may be uncomfortable at first, before it gets better.  If there's any truth in this theory, it's worth considering that the voice of criticism and judgement inside isn't really 'you', but is a script you learned from someone else, burned into your psyche by the emotional charge carried with it. 

[Loving Radiance]

22 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Survival is the character's perspective in a novel, but the character's perspective is an illusion, a created one. The character does not develop themselves, only the author develops the character. When you create, you become the author. Beauty standards don't exist to an artist, yet no one enjoys and appreciates beauty more. If the artist does what they do well, this transcendent beauty is translated to the viewer and in the viewer's appreciation, he too becomes the artist.

?

[Mu_]

On 9/26/2021 at 1:04 PM, Max_V said:

I have been feeling this abject contempt for myself lately. The way that I look, my submissive and anxious behaviour, the way I can't express myself well and have trouble with social skills. Lately I've been feeling this ever-intensifying, complete opposite of self-love and I don't know how to deal with it. I feel like this is 10+ years of stored pain growing up and not feeling at place in the world coming to the surface. Everyone's opinions once grounded me, now realising they are not absolute, how I should feel about myself is without root.

It seems really simple concerning appearance. Just accept what you have is always the go to advice. But for some reason I have always had this obsession with beauty and elegance and can't let it go. Seeing my face in the mirror stirs disgust. It feels so absurd not to match physically the conception I have of how I feel my soul looks like. 

Making friends and introducing myself to potential romatic partners feels impossible. If I hate myself this deeply, why would someone else love me? The loneliness and seperation I feel is so intense.

Just here to have some conversation about this. Letting it out makes me feel less alone

 

 

I don't know if any of us are going to match exactly want with our bodies or lifes, exactly, its just the way it is, we won't get everything we want.  And understanding this, can help.  Oh well, my face will always look this, my dick will always be this size, discomfort of some sort will always be somewhere in experience, or eventually.

Even the voice in your head that hears this and goes, oh man that sucks, will probably always be there as well..... but hopefully you can let go into something just a little deeper that is there while and when all this is happening, that is unconcerned about such matters and at peace or atleast closer to it then a complaint  

And like a muscle, the more you can drop into that and come back to that, it becomes rewired or just natural, or grows (all useful metaphors).

[Jacob Morres]

no advice but i can relate. society can often impose on us in certain ways 

[Nahm]

@Max_V

There is nothing wrong with that body, that face, that mind. You’re perfect however you are, as you are, right now. There is a trap of establishing what isn’t good enough, what needs to change, etc, etc… and there is a ‘going into’ the thinking to resolve this. But there is no resolve. More thoughts can never resolve beliefs (thoughts) held. The resolve is recognizing thought/label  attachment, and letting that attachment go. When this willfully occurs it is clear, and astoundingly funny. Like, oh, that is not my face in the mirror… the mirror, the room, the water, the nature, the sky - this is my face.  And it’s fucking beautiful dude. Stop kiddin yourself you beautiful sob. 

I wonder, do you notice, there is no shortage of some of us “providing the solution” to these things. Selling it, essentially. And then there are some of us who are not buying that.