We are all so messed up
How many people do you know that really love and accept themselves? I’m not talking about arrogance or selfishness. I’m talking about true appreciation for who they are and where they are at, a healthy attitude of “I can do it”, an ability to cry when the desire arises, the ability to analyze and improve without feeling insecure about themselves or being pressure down by herd mentality, and an overall positive attitude towards life.
In the past week I’ve read steemit posts and had conversations that brought up a variety of emotional and psychological issues. One had questioned their own sanity because they couldn’t make sense of backward bureaucracy, one has been ridden with guilt over the shame inflicted for exploring their own body as a child, one with a lack of trust in life to the point where she might as well say “Life does not want me to be happy”. I know brilliant writers who can’t put their fingers to the keyboard because they don’t believe that they have what it takes to inspire. I’ve know beautiful people who have been betrayed so many times to the point where they start betraying others. I know countless people who have a hard time accepting the decisions and opinions of others simply because they are not secure in their own. I’m willing to bet that you know people like this too.
Psychological and emotional abuse is normalized in our world. Parents don’t express their unconditional love to their children, they express expectations. We become blunted objects in school where we are expected to conform to a strict idea of what is normal and acceptable. We are boxed into thinking in labels and categories. Friends want us to stay the same rather than to grow and redefine ourselves as we were meant to. Lovers threaten to leave us at the hint of a natural attraction to someone else, and suppress their own attractions, or act out on them sneakily and self righteously in ways that decimate our trust. Even the lessons we learn for our own protection are damaging to our psyche, “Don’t talk to strangers” “Nothing in life is free” “People are selfish”.
I won’t even bother mentionioning the worst forms of abuse, of which, many of us have experienced to some degree.
Recognizing yourself as a victim is not a solution in itself. Turning that victim mentality on its head is true liberation.
It’s not my intention to fill you with despair by mentioning this. On the contrary. Look at how far we have come, and how far you have come, despite all the pain and suffering in the world and in our own lives. We are durable creatures and a lot of our pain comes from the myths that we tell ourselves, the myths that we learn from others.
The biggest myth you have learned is that you are not good enough, that you aren’t perfect as you are.
If there are things you don’t like about yourself, you can overcome them, or learn to love them and be proud about them.
You have made mistakes and that’s ok!
We all do. And you are here, now, and have a chance to do things righ this time. Believe that you can.
Forgive yourself for everything that you may have done, for every fault you think you have. You are not crazy. You are not worthless. You are not bad deep down. You are whoever you want to be. There will be people who love you for who you are and understand you. You will right the wrongs of your past by becoming the best version of yourself. Don’t dwell on the past, it’s a mess.
The future will be bright if you bring yourself back to right now and realize all the possibilities that depend on you. You got this!
Humanity has a bright future too, we just need to realize that we are worthy.
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Confessions of the Damaged - a collection of short stories
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by @skyleap
There is a good message here. I see a ton of people fall in the trap of victimhood by not realizing that there is a second step to the healing process. Recognizing it and doing nothing else isn't productive and leads to a lot of misplaced resentment.
There is a self-worth issue which you touch on here too and it is an interesting one. People do seem to get it in their heads that they don't "deserve" good things or that they do "deserve" punishment. I can't blame it all on one thing though. Some is external. Just about anything pleasurable is deemed immoral by one authority or another (I am actually working on this concept for an upcoming post) but that does not sufficiently explain the issue. I wonder if it was a survival advantage for those who underestimated themselves in the distant past and if that has been bread into us. The cave man who thought he could fight the lion died and the one that said "I am not good enough" survived.
The trick is moving past the cause, whatever it may be though. We can will ourselves away from instincts like that and we can cast off cultural and social baggage. One just needs to try and fail and try again until they do.
You've made a good point @artisticscreech. For sure the mind is a survival mechanism, and it will tell you to make the safe decision. Mind is part of the animal, and the animal wants to live at all costs.
Unfortnately mind is only privy to data from the past, which is how it makes projections. Therefore the mind is liable to circulate the same information and never get anywhere, and it's also highly likely that what mind gives you is not at all true - it's just a psychological emotional imprint. Hence our tendency to get 'stuck'.
For me this is why I am such a big proponent of transformation and embodying the 'breakthrough' archetype. A way of being that goes against the mind and goes where it wants to even when mind is screaming survival. The greatest spiritual seekers have had a kind of attitude in that they were willing to face their own death (and realise that it's not a real death, it's just a mental projection).
That’s is exactly where’s so many people are at. They see themselves as victims of abuse which is a necessary first step, but then they get deeper entroached in the victim mentality and let it become part of their identity which is sooo detrimental to growth. I’ve written about this before but could write more on it. You could too.
I agree and thank you.
It runs into a lot of aspects of people's lives. I think this plays into some of the identity politics we see now. I tend to stay away from those issues but what I think causes some people to be offended by non-offensive things is that they feel like or are some sort of victim for whatever reason and they transfer that sense of being victimized onto a song or shirt or whatever. I won't tell someone that they are wrong to feel a certain way but sometimes we don't fully understand why we feel the way that we do.
This is some real shit, I very much agree. You've honed in the real issue of this life that many people are suffering.
All of these rampant mind programs we accept without question. It all seems to be based around as you say 'the past' (or imagined future) which is an idea of what life is and has been, or could be. It's a big fat 'should', it could be parents and siblings and teachers, it could be friends or lover, it could be facebook or it could be god. The fundamental thing is this idea of what I am 'supposed to be'.
Failing those conditions means I'm just not good enough.
But we made it up ourselves! (without realizing) so it's an amazing freedom to realize that we got ourselves into the shit without knowing we were doing it. We don't have to swim in it, so long as we pay attention.
Amen brother
How to help empower people and show them that only theyre attachement to seeing themselves as a victim stunts their growth....it’s not an easy thing to approach, I just try to remember that everyone is on their own path and I should try to push them one way or another if it isn’t what they ask for. It’s easy to see why people do it though, they ARE victims, but they are also free to break out of that.
A very good post, and highlights a lot of today's problems.
I think this very much a truism, not protection. I have never come across anything free, anyway...
An apple tree in nature won't charge you for the apple.
true - but there is still a cost to the apple tree...(nutrients blah blah).
...the transaction may be free to you, but not for the apple tree.
There is a cost to picking up the apple, eating the apple.
(this sounds pedantic, even to me, but it's really not! lol)
If you extrapolate that a million times....sooner or later if you want still those apples, ya gotta feed that tree...
Ultimately - nothing is free.
I’ve heard this argument before...all I can say is....sounds like a really tiring way of looking at the world. If you frame it that way then yeah, it’s true, but the tree certainly doesn’t frame it that way nor does the apple and I think I’ll follow their lead :-)
You have a pineapple for a head, you would say that!
😂
I learned,i am not enough. So true.
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