Unlearning Self-Hatred

Unlearning self-hatred is the most freeing and life giving act.  

It's a radical process that simultaneously allows room for all the pain,

and all your light.

- MacPherson Worobec, It Begins To Move

I was angry that I had to do this process of unlearning in the first place.

Self hatred is learned. It originates from outside of us. It comes from the people around us.

But then it becomes acquired, internalized and embodied, and starts to become perpetuated from within our own selves.

I had to feel immense grief and anger that this had happened to me, that I had to do the hard work of unlearning something that was bestowed upon me in the first place.

For a long time, I approached this process with force. It had been forced upon me and I would destroy it - beat it - with equal force and dominance.

"You will not win," I thought. "I will win."

But it wasn't until I began to meet this part of myself - the part that felt unworthy, ashamed, disgusting, ugly, abominable - with kindness and friendliness, that the whole thing began to shift.

I will never forget the day - the exact moment - that I realized I didn't hate myself anymore.

There was sweetness there, and understanding. There was gentle space to feel the sadness for having spent so much time feeling that way about myself. And for realizing the pain it had caused me, and the pain it had caused other people I cared about deeply.

There was compassion for the anger that I felt towards the people who were supposed to have planted the seeds of self love and build up my emotional resilience and my well of strength. The anger about how instead they planted the garden in which my self-hatred grew.

That anger was appropriate anger. That anger and sadness deserved to be fully felt, so I could be seen and fully felt. So that my self hatred could be fully seen, and understood.

And once I could gently... compassionately...see and feel all those feelings, that entire part, it could begin the process of unwinding.

As the process of unwinding my self hatred continues to unfold, I have been able to know my inherent goodness. Inherent - it was there all along! I had no idea. I have been able to know my own gentleness, my own capacity for presence, compassion, and space for all the feelings. I have been able to know - and grow - the space to accompany others fully feeling all their true feelings.

Gently. Slowly. Unlearning.