OF COURSE We Hate Ourselves // No. 7 //

Of course we hate ourselves. That statement is a little bold. But my intention is to break it. To dissolve it. To deactivate it. Let's take a look at the big reason we (of course) hate ourselves. For once we identify the cause, we can neutralize the weapon.

If you’re someone who has really struggled with self hate (like me) you know that self hate stems from guilt. And FEELING this guilt only perpetuates the cycle of negative thinking, which leads to even more self loathing. GUILT whether obvious or hidden, is the root of self hate. We blame ourselves for not being the right weight, for not being as successful as the next girl, for not BEING everything we feel like we SHOULD be.  

If only we worked out harder, we’d look the way we WANT. If only we put in more hours, we’d make more money. If only we had studied more, we’d be better at our craft, and therefore further up the latter. It's OUR FAULT we are not succeeding.

WAY false, Babe.

You work very hard, you put in the time studying and you go to the gym just as many times as you should to be a healthy human. 

So WHY do you feel this way? WHY do you feel so guilty? WHY do you have so much disappointment in yourself instead of love? 

It’s them. 

Who? 

THEM.  

Society. The cyber world. Them. 

Just look around, for a sec. 

The cyber world of perfection: Picture a movie where there's only happy love scenes with beautiful people where nothing bad happens to them and everyone is so madly in love and they never fight and they all drink 1,000 calorie frappicinos and eat gourmet pizza yet they have perfect bodies and they are all very successful by the time they are 24. Sounds super unrealistic right? 

Well, welcome to Instagram. You’ve heard Instagram is just a “highlight reel,” but do you believe it? Even though we are aware of that, our brains have a way of convincing ourselves that those highlight reels are actually someone's REALITY.  

So, HOW COULD WE NOT hate ourselves??? Look what we’re up against. A cyber world of perfection, often heavily edited. People buying fake followers. People flexing with sports cars that aren’t even theirs. People editing the cellulite off of their butts and using photo shop to give them a six pack. I’m not hating on these things, I’m just aknowleding the fact that our brains are comparing our non edited - naked in the bathroom bloated selves who can’t make rent this month - to these “make believe” images. OF COURSE WE ARE MAD AT OURSELVES. Of course we feel guilt for not having abs. Of course we have eating disorders. Of course we feel inadequate. THAT'S ALL WE SEE. We are living our ordinary indie film lives and subconsciously comparing them to major motion pictures

So take a second right now, and forgive yourself (out loud) because all you did was just look around. And you shouldn’t be punished for that. 

NOW that we've acknowledged what we're up against, we must fight.

If you're going into battle, first you're going to check what kind of weapons the opposing side will be using, so you can be prepared to demolish them right? And most importantly, to WIN. The same goes for our minds. When we clearly see the weapons that are being used against us, we are able to COMBAT the negativity that floods our mind.

Right here, right now, is where you can take a moment to pull out your mental sledge hammer and chip away some of that guilt you are carrying around like a dark cloud. For YEARS I carried the heaviest emotional weight regarding my weight. I would literally wake up feeling guilty and go to sleep feeling guilty. It stemmed from a lot of things, but one of them being that I am in the entertainment industry and their standards of beauty, that I was "supposed" to, were not realistic for me. And it crushed me. I held my lack of success against myself. But what I needed to do was GENUINELY give my self permission to release myself of meeting those standards, because MY standards are based on a God that loves me and made me perfectly, not based on an industry based off of perfection and strife.

So whatever is may be that you hold against yourself, take a look at WHERE you're getting that "lie" from. That, "I'm too heavy". Or that "I'll never make it". Or "I wish I could look like her". AND then crush the lie like you've been crushing the gym for the last week. Remember that your indie film is so much more beautiful that "their" major motion picture because your film is real, unique, intentional and it's YOU. Which is all you need to be. Give yourself some slack next time you see an Insta-image that triggers negative feeling towards yourself. If their grass looks greener, it's probably just AstroTurf, AKA: not the real sht.

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