How Can I Stop Self-Hate?

Transcript:

Jon: This comes in from Susanna, and she says, "What to do when I'm awakened out of a deep sleep and self-punishing thoughts fill my consciousness, terrorizing me, punishing me constantly. How to stop self-hate."

GF: Look how far you've come, Susanna. Now that comment of mine might seem antithetical to the question she's asked, but it's not. For many, many, many, many months, the questions have always been, what do I do about this person, about this toxic situation, believing as we all do for the longest time, that my anger and hatred, my ceaseless judgment of other people is because they're not the way they're supposed to be. And now we're starting to understand that what we say about a person, that they're not the way they're supposed to be, means what? They don't look like me. So Susanna, what you're beginning to see, at last, is by a light. But there are parts of all of us that want to claim that light, that want to say, well, what's the point of my work, my willingness to aspire to a relationship with God, Christ, the Divine, if now I find myself waking up in the middle of the night -- or maybe just in my own office chair -- and deep, self-punishing thoughts are terrorizing me, punishing me constantly. How do I stop self-hate? I'm going to answer it briefly and then I'll give you a slightly longer answer. The only way that you can bring an end to self-hate is you have to see that there's something in you that loves it. Why else would I put up with something denigrating me, tearing at me? Because the one side produces such a powerful sense of myself in it, something I don't want. And the more I don't want it, the more I feel like it shouldn't be there, and I ought not have to go through this. The more I set myself against what I believe is against me, the more I am set against myself without knowing it. Here's something that you can work at. It's not the solution. There is no solution apart from seeing how you are involved in this circle of self-hatred. There's no solution other than extricating yourself by realizing through observation, through watchfulness, how it is that this keeps going. But here's something you can do next time you wake up feeling like that. Next time you find yourself punishing yourself, ask yourself six words: Would love do this to me? Would love do this to me? And you see, you're not to say "yes" or "no" and come up with an answer. Asking "would love do this to me?" makes you for a split second have a momentary separation between the habitual identification, with the negativity, with the wanting and not wanting. Because you never have a moment -- I'm trusting that you know this -- there's no moment where you aren't hating yourself when part of that hatred isn't telling you why you need to be hated, and then what you need to do, or why you have to judge and blame yourself for the circumstance you're in. So that you're in a dialogue. When does "wanting" and "not wanting" come to an end? When I see that there is no end to "want" and "not wanting." When does self-hatred come to an end? When I see there's no end to self-hatred, because the part of myself involved in it wants to keep that identity in place, and it will do so in spite of what it does to my own body.