There Is Nothing Wrong with You: Going Beyond Self-Hate

Get comfortable saying, “I love you” to yourself and say it many times each day. Make and listen to an I love you recording.

The only way out of this life of suffering is through the doorway of compassion. “But how do I find the doorway?” You can’t find it because you are it. The moment there is nothing left of you but compassion, you are the doorway. The door is wide open and you are free.

Ask yourself what are the things you’ve always wanted someone to say to you, but no one ever has. Ask the child inside you what it needs to hear you say. Make a recording. Tell yourself the things you’ve always wanted someone else to say. Include everything the child needs to hear to feel loved and appreciated. Listen to the recording every day. Ad

Write love letters to yourself. Record and listen to them every day.

STUDENT: Ego says, “This is so stupid. This is a waste of time.” And yet my experience is not that at all. GUIDE: Exactly. If ego were to say, “I don’t want to meditate anymore, I’m terrified, I’m afraid I’m going to die,” it would be clear to us. But instead it says, “This is stupid. How long have I been doing this? Sitting here counting 1, 2, 3,

GUIDE: Counting from 1 to 10 is not going to make me enlightened, but not counting from 1 to 10 is not going to make me enlightened either.

It doesn’t matter what happened THEN. All that matters is what happens

The best reason to look at self-hate is that self-hate gets in the way of being able to do spiritual practice. It gets in the way of finding that place of deep compassion within ourselves that is the largest part of spiritual practice.

We can live our lives trying to conform to some nebulous standard, or we can live our lives seeing how everything works. When we step back and look at it that way, it is obvious that the attitude of fascination is the only intelligent one to bring to anything.