The Damage Caused By Being Hard On Yourself

It serves no purpose being hard on yourself. Beating yourself up for the choices you make, whether they are mistakes or not, it’s important to remember you are a Human, always learning, always growing - that’s how you know you're alive . One of the key components when it comes to learning to love yourself, particularly, if you come from a deficit, is that your inner narrative is very important and so if you unconsciously beat yourself up over everything, this is how you quickly make your mind unwell and over time that negative narrative becomes your normal. You Do Not Have To Live Like That. I feel what is also heavily overlooked, is that if you are sensitive and grow up in and travel through, environments that don’t acknowledge your sensitivity in a positive way, then you also begin to doubt yourself, it can become extremely difficult to trust yourself, based off of external experiences. Coming back to yourself, grounding and getting familiar with who you truly are, is how you take your power back. One of the most devastating effects of not properly acknowledging mistreatment, is that you carry it within you as a guide almost, particularly if mistreatment starts early, you unfortunately try and make sense of the external circumstances and easily internalise what is happening outside of you, to be a fault of your own, which is never true. When you’re sensitive, it is easy to fall into the trap of not standing in your power and allowing those around you to act as though they know what is best for you and how you should feel etc but when you continuously practice loving yourself, you become empowered, you establish Self Trust and actively pay attention to your instincts and follow through on your inner knowing. It is not a matter of being right all the time or knowing it all, far from it but it means that you care to hear yourself and feel what you are feeling and by reasserting this Self Assurance you build a beautiful relationship with Self that won’t always be present in others, especially if they do not bother to do the work required to truly love themselves. I’ve been writing about Self Love for years and it really isn’t a gimmick, no matter how, sometimes, it is packaged to look that way. Loving yourself is a rebellious act in a world that intentionally forgets to teach you to love yourself but also when we as individuals, forget along the way the importance of loving ourselves and allow the harmful things that happen to us to become permanent markers on our heart, this can lead to our demise. This to me, feels inevitable, if you are alive and living scars will be made, wounds will be deep and for some of us far greater than others and in my experience the only way to try and bypass this is to remain intoxicated which isn’t necessary or a healthy way to live because, dangerously, we become avoidant of Self and far more likely to fall pray to addition. Loving Yourself Is Liberation. But how do you become conscious of the fact, that you have been carrying around guilt, shame and embarassment from the burden of mistreatment whilst simultaneously refusing to acknowledge the burden of choosing yourself? That you took things so personally they remain an open, heavily infected wound, not visible for the eye to see but ever apparent in your actions, behaviour and mind. That you unconsciously, punish yourself for choosing you because you have been punished for doing so. You take on the role of Villain because that’s what you are being told your role is and so in order for acceptance you violate yourself and ignore the truth because that is more palatable, not for you but for everyone else. Being hard on yourself becomes the norm and you now know how to move accordingly to ensure that whatever happens, you can always make others feel better because you are willing to scold yourself just as hard, if not harder, than those who prefer to despise and ignore what you bring to light. So How Do You Begin To Go About Making Changes? A W A R E N E S S Without awareness you are blind and unfortunately sometimes awareness comes about from repeatedly making the same mistake, repeating the same lesson. It would be lovely for us all to learn things immediately, the first time round but that isn’t real. Our Humanness is so complex and yet so fragile so it takes time and effort, lots of effort to start to catch yourself and reframe, your outdated mindset. It takes time and you really mustn’t rush the time it takes because it truly is the journey that makes you. It can be so difficult to sit with this, particularly, when we find ourselves in desperate situations and I really want to emphasise that it’s so easy to beat ourselves up, it’s like second nature for the highly sensitive individual however I cannot stress enough the importance of showing grace to yourself all the time, as you are growing, year after year, day after day, minute after minute, moment after moment. You are an ever evolving Being. You’re worth the grace, compassion and kindness you offer to others and as you navigate reframing your inner narrative it is of the utmost importance that you become your own friend. Being your own friend and loving yourself, is how you begin to quickly reject things that are not for you. Maintaining standards for yourself isn’t selfish or spoilt, it’s self maintenance at it’s highest level because lets be real, there are not many who pour into others without expecting something in return and usually when we are over pouring into others it can be coming from a place of codependency and fear of abandonment. Always Seek Balance.As energetic Beings we are all capable of giving to one another and yet so many lack the awareness and understanding of the importance of giving to self. And so the long term damage of being hard on yourself means living a life half full, always ready to take the blame and downsize, to please anyone and everyone, especially those who claim to love you but bit by bit tear you down by not giving you the space you need to learn through mistakes or space to grow. It’s pivotal to recognise where you are not safe and move according, always building on Self Respect and nurturing Self Love. It is equally as important to surround yourself with people who, at the very least try to understand you, hear you and operate with compassion when dealing with you. You can’t possible heal around anyone who demands you just “get over it” or are cold and hard hearted, especially if you’re highly sensitive, this will actually cause you great harm and act as a reinforcement of your lack of trust in yourself and further add to a negative inner narrative. Being ignored is evil however it’s an opportunity to acknowledge that you aren’t in the right space or surrounded by the kind of people who can explore your growth with you and create a safe space for you. Surrounding yourself with people who are hard on you, reinforces your need to be hard on yourself however being hard on yourself is counter productive.Why Choose To Hate Yourself, When You Can Choose To Love Yourself? You need kindness, compassion, empathy and an understanding ear to hear you and you need to be able to explore yourself, your mind, your thoughts, your innerstanding on matters pertaining to you. No one outside of you is better equipped to navigate you.And of course, sometimes in the moment we aren’t thinking, we aren’t thinking about what happens next or others expectation, we maybe in fight or flight mode so no clear comprehension of the matter at hand is available - we in all of our humanness, just act. We don’t always have an explanation and when one is demanded of us immediately that we have not contemplated yet we are forced to think on our toes which may or may not suffice because for one, it may not be entirely true, as we feel pressured to succumb to expectation, two it is completely true and not the digestible answer or three we haven’t been granted the time to actually processes the present moment. So often people ask of you and expect of you to think of them, put them first, consider their feelings, make them a priority and not only are they incapable of doing the same in return, they have no intention to. Some people thrive off belittling you and so you do yourself a grave in justice by not only tolerating this kind of abuse but by becoming an active participant, condoning your self without proper Self Reflection. I’m not sure, at what stage on this planet things began to operate in this way but if anyone requires you to not think for yourself or not put yourself before them in order for them to get ahead or feel good about themselves then we’ve failed because you should matter to yourself, no one else is more important than you and if you fail to love you, then being hard on yourself will your downfall. You will one day get to a point in your life, where you look up and realise you carried others mistreatment as if it were your own instead of doing the work to recognise it isn’t yours to carry, it isn’t your burden, it doesn’t stem from an inability to be loved or poor character and this, this is so important because lets be honest you can be a magnificent person and your magnificence makes others feel threatened, instead of seizing the opportunity to walk beside you, they would prefer to tear you down and make you doubt yourself. Instead of learning to love themselves and do their own shadow work, they begin to feel threatened by you and so it’s vital to recognise this behaviour serves no purpose in your life, other than to help you to learn to practice discernment and uphold boundaries. These behaviours can present, unconsciously, in a person who lacks both Self Love and Self Awareness.It is not a call to love yourself less however that is very easily done when you don’t control or oversee your inner narrative. The damage caused by being hard on yourself is life long imprisonment in a mind that is clouded, a heart that is sad and an inner child that is hurting, from a lack of Self Awareness and actively choosing to go against your own nature which is to be love.You nurture a highly developed narrative that continuously shows up as your own inner voice, belittling you and shrinking you in order to please others. And what is scary about this is, that it brings you some kind of relief to punish yourself, it’s bizzare yet comforting and doesn’t allow you the opportunity to navigate your truth. You create within yourself, an external, internal narrative criticising and scrutinising your own actions, automatically, based on the lack approval or heightened scrutiny from the world outside of you.So Do You Approve Of You? You must learn to trust yourself and by love yourself I mean, learning to drown out the outside noise because you know your intentions and if you go around constantly having to prove yourself to others or live up to standards you don’t even agree with, you are merely chipping away at your own character and are easily susceptible to abuse because you refuse to stand up for yourself and this is no fault of your own, this is how you’ve been groomed but it is up to you to reclaim your power. It is up to you to stand up for yourself and advocate for your rights and it is up to you, to refuse to carry burdens put onto. Self Empowerment comes from ownership and that isn’t always favourable if you fail to fall in line with invisible expectations. Devout loyalty to anything or anyone outside of yourself is dangerous because you shrink and become happy to play as though you do not matter and this, quite simply, is not the case. The damage caused by being hard on yourself means repeatedly failing to be who you are, failing to love who you are flaws and all and failing to take ownership of yourself and stand in your power. It’s one thing to allow others to mistreat you but when you allow yourself to mistreat you based on how others feel, behave etc and then allow that to dictate who you are, it’s internal suicide. Quite literally killing yourself from the inside out because now you have allowed a narrative that isn’t true or that you aren’t in agreement with to dictate your behaviour, all the while, repeatedly forgetting that you are your own compass.If only you could see yourself and believe in yourself. Your voice is your superpower and the quicker you learn to speak up for yourself and get comfortable acknowledging your truth, with yourself in particular because in order to be accountable you have to be able to be excruciatingly honest with yourself, before you will ever be able to be honest with anyone else, in turn, allows hearing yourself, sharing your truth and speaking your truth to become a form of liberation and a form of Self love. The damage caused by being hard on yourself is an in ability to see yourself, you can acknowledged, address and critique all your flaws yet fail miserably at being able to praise, love and celebrate yourself which is no way to live at all. I hope today and every day you think long and hard about being kinder to yourself, be your own friend when life has something to teach you and remain kind to yourself should backs be turned and ignorance, be the external play. Remember, that above all you matter to you and you can and will overcome, if you chose to uplift yourself instead of becoming and nurturing your own worst enemy, internally. LOVE Yourself ALWAYS, In All Ways x“And Remember: To Love Thyself Would Be An Awfully BIG Adventure.” Lahayla Dahlia Lore Get full access to S e l f l o v e l o v e s e l f 3 6 5 at selfloveloveself365.substack.com/subscribe