Why ‘Hating Yourself Happy’ is a Broken Model

We live in a world where we label emotions, ‘good’ emotions and ‘bad’ emotions. We praise the good and we shame the bad. We categorize them and, most importantly, we identify with them. When we experience ‘good’ emotions, we attach onto these emotions, hoping they will last forever. When we are on ‘high,’ we feel the need to flood our social media feed and let our networks know we feel good.

When this emotion transcends into a lower vibrating emotion, however, we immediately jump into judgment; we judge the fact we are experiencing a low. We then shy away from not only social media, but the world. We put on a happy face and pretend we are fine; meanwhile, we are fighting and resisting the pain within our bodies.

The issue here? Attachment.

Attached to Suffering

Attachment is the cause of suffering. When we are attached to always feeling joy, bliss, and happiness, we completely disregard the lessons and teachings so beautifully hidden within the so-called ‘bad’ emotions we are experiencing. Humans avoid pain at all costs; it’s our tendency to numb, distract and suppress the emotions we don’t have the courage to face. When these emotions become too potent to suppress with a bag of Doritos, we do our best to shame our way into feeling happy again.

• We wrong the feeling
• We meet it with hate
• We judge it

In this process is denial; we block the opportunity to heal from it. Historically, hate-on-hate has never worked. To validate this last sentence, all we need to do is switch on the evening news or read a newspaper. War and religious battles have been using the hate-on-hate modality for centuries…and it only perpetuates the issue.

The issue here is that we are ‘making it an issue.’ Let’s talk about shame for a moment. When we feel shame in the body, it can be an overwhelming emotion to handle. Take a moment now to feel what it feels like to feel shameful – you might not even have to search very hard. For most of us, denied shame is so potent in the body that, by simply thinking about it, we can feel it. Close your eyes for a moment and feel into it – what does it feel like in your body?

It’s heavy; there is a constriction in your chest and nausea-like sensation in your stomach. It’s not an emotion you want to feel. When it arises without intentionally bringing it up, your brain immediately wants to create meaning around the feeling. Your clever mind will think about and find ‘data’ to explain why you’re experiencing this pain in your body. Our minds have the power to do that – the ego loves to identify the feeling with a particular situation from the past. The body will then use self-hate to reinforce this feeling, which only creates a larger story around it. Subconsciously, we believe that, if we are hard on ourselves, the feeling will dissipate and we will have an opportunity to feel love again. This is not the case; we are socially conditioned to believe this is going to happen.

We live in a world where it’s far easier to put a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, rather than look at the core emotion and heal it at a deeper level.

Marketing Our Insecurities

The weight loss industry knows how to play on our insecurities as a way to market their products. We purchase things we don’t need – things that only perpetuate the problem. The next diet plan or “miracle pill” will not serve you at the level you need to be served at. It will not heal the pain that resides within your soul; it will only keep you stuck in a diet/binge cycle that strips you of self-love and a sense of willpower. When we succumb to these modalities, we are avoiding the real issue. Fundamentally, we don’t believe we have the power and ability to handle the emotions we are feeling within our bodies, therefore, we distract with external so-called-solutions.

It’s time for the world to wake up to the knowledge that love will heal hate. The self-hatred you feel in the body will not be healed with additional hate. It requires intentional self-love to love the painful parts of us. When we can love the parts that need attention, need to be seen or need approval, we can begin to heal them. It’s essential to feel in order to heal. Choosing love will only infuse more love. It doesn’t have to be hard; it doesn’t have to be a struggle. The struggle is a learned behavior; it’s not innate for us to struggle in order to grow and live in alignment – that is a story in which the majority of the world is living. You can choose to change the story. You can choose to use your pain as a catalyst for growth and expand into the highest, best and most authentic version of you.