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

If the voice is not loving,

what you are is goodness. This is why we have a meditation practice: to learn to sit still with whatever is happening.

We call people selfish when they WILL NOT give. But they CANNOT give what they DO NOT have. It’s like asking a starving child to share her food, and then making her feel guilty for not wanting to. When we have enough we are eager to share.* *What we have and what we are able to receive are two very different things.

BEING SECRETIVE You don’t let other people know what’s going on inside you so that you can be in there being beaten.

everything put back together. When we sit still in meditation, we don’t scratch if we have an itch. Now, this drives people crazy. I’ve had people say, “This is demented. How could not scratching when you itch have anything to do with spiritual practice?” It has everything to do with spiritual practice because it’s that “It itches, I must scratch”

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

People 40, 50, 60 years old are waiting for their parents to parent them. “I don’t want to have to love myself. I want my mother to love me. I want my father to give me what I need.”

You can listen to the voices that say there is something wrong with you. It’s actually very helpful to be aware of them. Just don’t believe them!

GUIDE: Yes. Self-hate is terrified that you will make being kind to yourself a habit. It comes down to this for me: None of my heroes (and all my heroes are religious types) ever says, “The important thing in the universe is to be at one with fear and inadequacy.”