Stop Beating Yourself Up Just For Existing

The internalization of pervasive societal abuse

It astounds me how pervasive self-hatred is.
Talk to just about anyone, and if we look just a bit under the surface, it's there in one of it's many forms. People are beating themselves up just for existing.

Life in our society is difficult, fraught with abuse that attacks us mentally, emotionally, and more. In our vulnerability and suggestibility we've internalized it. The world must be right, we must be shit.

.And then we act like it. We treat ourselves like shit, and we treat others like shit. When we do that, we hate ourselves even more. It's a vicious cycle. And it weighs heavy on the soul.

It's no wonder every wisdom tradition and religious has penance and contrition built into it. We need it, we need to come clean, and release that heaviness, and come back into alignment with the goodness that we truly are.

Before you yell at me in my inbox, I'm aware that in many traditions these rituals are often used to compound, guilt, shame, and self hatred. I know that many of us have been wounded by it.

I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about a pure opportunity to feel our part in wounding the world, and to feel the way that has wounded us. And to make amends. I'm talking about what Hafiz was talking about:

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword to drop from men's hands even
at the height of the arc of their anger
because we have finally realized there is
just one flesh to wound, our Beloved's.
- Hafiz

Our terribleness, real or imagined gets pushed down so deep and festers. We cover it with anxiety, cruelty, control. I was reading about someone using time in darkness, without psychedelics even (gasp!), in order to create space for their ancient self hatred to come up and present itself. They wept and wept at all the harm they caused themselves and others, feeling every bit of it, until there was enough space for the love that was there all along to reveal itself. He moved from being in a place of hatred to a place of being so proud of himself for doing this work and listening to the inner voices he'd been ignoring for so long. He wept as he really felt, deeper than ever before, that he was worthy of love. Strikingly similar to many stories of psychedelic healing. Such a paradox.

So this is what I wish for you today that you stop pretending that you aren't terrible long enough to realize that you are worthy of love.

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If you’re interested in working with me, I teach a six week meditation class designed for people who are interested in having a toolkit for psychedelic journeywork.

You can learn more about it here:
https://tamintegration.com/psychedelic-meditation-intensive/