There Is Nothing Wrong With You by Cheri Huber is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s very simple but profound in the most down to earth way. And I came across it in the most random way. An internationally known dance instructor was using it in class as a way for dancers to get out of their own way and find the way back into that joy they felt as children when they danced. Here’s a section on Self Hate. Anything seem familiar?
Some of the Forms Self-Hate Takes
SABOTAGE
You try to do something good for yourself or for someone else and somehow manage to turn the whole thing against yourself. You keep doing the very things you didn’t want to do or don’t approve of, and you can’t seem to figure out how you do that. It’s a perfect system for self-hate because:
1. You’re operating out of an ideal.
2. You don’t live up to your ideal.
3. You can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong.
TAKING BLAME BUT NOT CREDIT
If something goes well, it’s a gift from God. If it goes badly, it’s all your fault. And even if you do take a little credit for something, you can always avoid feeling good about it by finding what you could have been done better.
BLAMING OTHERS
Self-hating and “other” hating are the same thing. Whether you are hateful toward others or hating yourself directly, it’s self-hate. You are always the recipient.
BEING SECRETIVE
You don’t let other people know what’s going on inside you so that you can be in there beating yourself with it.
HOLDING GRUDGES
You review old hurts and injustices rather than being present to yourself now.
NOT BEING ABLE TO RECEIVE
Gifts, compliments, help, favors, praise, etc. are things you have difficulty allowing yourself to have.
SEEING WHAT IS WRONG WITH EVERYTHING
Your habit is to find fault, criticize, judge and compare. Remember, what is is all that is. The alternate reality in which everything is exactly as you think it should be exists only in your mind, and it exists primarily to torture you.
TRYING TO BE DIFFERENT
Just being who you are, your “plain old self,” isn’t enough. You feel you have to maintain an image.
ATTEMPTING TO BE PERFECT
This one speaks for itself.
BEING ACCIDENT PRONE
Your attention is so often focused on some other time, person or thing that you injure yourself in the present. You don’t feel you deserve your attention. Others are more important.
CONTINUING TO PUT YOURSELF IN ABUSIVE SITUATIONS
Even if you realize that you have this pattern, your fear and self-hate are too strong to let you break out of it.
MAINTAINING AN UNCOMFORTABLE PHYSICAL POSITION
You hold your shoulders in a way that creates pain. You clench your teeth. You “sit small” on the bus so as not to intrude into anyone else’s space. You continue to sit in an uncomfortable chair at work because you don’t want to make waves.
MAINTAINING AN UNCOMFORTABLE MENTAL POSITION
Clinging to “shoulds”: “It’s not right to be happy when there is so much suffering in the world.” “People should say please and thank you.” “Children deserve to have two parents.”
