How To Love Yourself When You're Not Proud Of Yourself

In this episode I discuss some techniques that I'm personally using to move through a difficult situation, I'm having with someone in my life. I'm not particularly feeling like a #winner on this one, guys, but hopefully you find some value in my sharing the unpleasant situation I find myself in! Please note that this talk does contain explicit language and is not suitable for children.

Transcript

Hey guys,

So today I wanted to hop on to quickly talk about something that is coming up for me,

Especially lately,

And that is how to love yourself when you're not very proud of yourself.

So that's kind of a tough one I think.

It's really hard when we're not feeling proud of ourselves because we're not feeling super in alignment and we're also most likely not in a space where we are being the best version of ourselves I think.

And also like when we are not proud of ourselves or our actions or we don't feel like we're being our best selves,

We are incongruent.

And I can tell you from what little I've studied of psychology that people will go out of their way to be in alignment with what they say.

So if someone says something,

Their actions will automatically be altered to match whatever it is that they say.

That's why we say sometimes that people,

We notice that people change their minds and then their actions change.

And that's because we can't take action that goes against what we say or we can't say something that goes against what we do because humans absolutely hate that.

So it can be really difficult for this reason to love yourself when you aren't necessarily in full integrity or in full alignment.

And I want to tell you a little bit about what's going on for me.

So the reason why this is so close to my heart right now is because I am definitely struggling with this.

I find myself in a situation where someone has made a decision and taken an action that I don't necessarily agree with and the consequences of that action have hurt me.

And I'm feeling the repercussions of that now.

I'm finding it really hard to be happy for this person and the decision that they've made.

And I'm finding it really hard to,

I'm just going to be straight up,

To genuinely wish them well.

I don't feel happy for them.

I don't feel excited for them.

I really don't want them to be happy right now.

And that's a pretty disgusting thing to say and I'm coming at you guys from a really real and honest and authentic place.

I know that that's not nice.

I know that's not what you would expect a coach to say.

It's not awesome.

But I'm hoping that you guys can relate and that you found yourselves in similar positions.

Actually,

I hope you haven't found yourself in similar positions.

But if you have,

I hope that you can relate to what I'm saying.

Even the best intentions sometimes aren't enough to get you to where you want to be.

So I kind of wanted to walk through some steps and some things I'm trying to do to get to a place of more love and acceptance of the situation.

So more love for myself,

More love for the other person,

More acceptance of myself and where I'm at and how I'm feeling,

More acceptance of where the other person was and what they were feeling when they made the decisions that have hurt me and more acceptance just for the situation in general because you know it is what it is.

So let's dive right in.

So one of the first things that I think we should be focusing on is acknowledgement.

We need to really acknowledge the situation.

This is what happened.

This is how I'm feeling.

For me,

The situation is someone has made a decision in the past.

Someone had made a decision in the past,

Sorry,

That has affected my present and is causing me a lot of pain if I'm being totally honest.

Now I've made decisions parallel to the decision that this other person has made that are also affecting me.

So I can't just blame the other person like I have a role to play but I really think that it's important that I acknowledge in this situation and that you acknowledge if you're in the similar situation the hurt and the pain that you feel and know that it is okay to feel whatever it is that you're feeling.

So if you feel sad,

If you feel upset,

If you feel frustrated or angry,

Whatever it is,

Acknowledge it.

Why is this important?

Because as I've said to my students when I was teaching at a private school in Italy a couple years ago,

Hurt people hurt people.

This is really important to acknowledge,

Okay,

Because if you're hurt and you allow that hurt to overwhelm you and you don't acknowledge it and you don't give it the space to kind of be,

What ends up happening is we typically retaliate and we take our hurt and we kind of throw it at other people and I've noticed this in the past.

I'm better at it now if I'm being totally frank but I've noticed in the past that there were times where it was like an emotional drive by shooting.

So like I'm angry,

I'm upset,

I'm hurt,

I'm in pain and I'm going to take all of that and throw it at you so you feel what I'm feeling.

That happens when we can't sit with our own hurt and when we can't sit with our own suffering.

So the moment that we acknowledge that we are upset,

That we are hurt,

That we're suffering,

That there's pain and anger and frustration and whatever else there might be,

The sooner we can move past that.

Another thing I think it's almost like an in addition to this,

If you can manage it and I understand that this isn't necessarily the easiest thing to do but if you can remember too that the decision that this person made or whatever situation you find yourself in,

For me it's a decision obviously,

That's why I was using that example,

But the decision that this person made in regards to me,

It most likely came from a place of hurt.

So I'm being hurt by a decision that a hurt person made or on the other hand it could be the exact opposite because if we come at relationships from a place of love and acceptance then we know that people are never really in it to hurt us.

They are not doing things to be malicious,

They are not doing things to cause us pain and so that person probably had the best intentions and didn't actually have any desire to hurt you and so basically what you have is two options.

You have the option to stay angry and upset or to kind of recognize as well that like that person was doing the best that they could at the time and that actually leads me into the second point which is exactly that.

Acknowledge that you're doing the best that you can.

What would it be like if we just assumed that everyone at any given time as a child of the universe was constantly and consistently doing their best?

What would that mean for all the shitty situations that you found yourself in and all the times that you've been hurt including this one?

How would that change things?

Right?

Like you're trying your best,

You are behaving maybe in a way that is incongruent with your best self and who you want to be and you are not in a space that you want to be in necessarily but that doesn't mean that you aren't showing up in a way that is completely in alignment or authenticity with the situation that you find yourself in,

Right?

Like we can't pretend that we're not hurt and we can't use spirituality to bypass what we're feeling and a lot of people do and a lot of techniques out there that I've seen other people like kind of preach or that I've encountered myself are kind of just like,

Well be positive or say an affirmation and this is not to say that affirmations don't work because I am so on that bandwagon it's not even funny but you can't just put an affirmation over a shitty situation and be like okay here you go that's it it's done like you know what I mean like oh I feel so much better now you probably don't I mean if you're like feeling out of alignment you can use affirmations to help you get back into alignment but this goes back to the first step which is you have to first acknowledge where you're at right and accept that.

Step number three in this I think would be to celebrate your own self-awareness.

So you've acknowledged that you're hurt,

You've acknowledged that you're out of alignment,

You realize that you and other people in the situation that you find yourself in are doing the best that they can and now I think that you need to take a moment and just be like really proud of yourself for the fact that you are being that self-aware because self-awareness is what keeps you behaving in integrity even if you aren't fully in alignment even if you're not really proud of the way that you feel there's a difference between feeling and action in this case and that is huge because hurt people hurt people I'm going to repeat what I said earlier 100 if you were less self-aware you would be in a position to act out on the hurt and the pain and the anger and the frustration that you're feeling and you would maybe want to punish people or go back to that idea from you know the first episode of the podcast like you'd want to quote teach them a lesson and that's just not your job that's not what you're here for it is not up to you to like have to make sure that people learn anything or to change someone's life you are here to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be in any given moment and right now maybe you aren't being like exactly who you want to be but being self-aware enough to not spew your hurt and hate and pain and suffering onto the person that caused it to you is huge one of the examples that I gave my kids when I was teaching at school and working with kids aged five to eleven is that anger and pain and suffering and any negative emotion is kind of like this red ball and it's hot and it's heavy and it's burning our hands and we can't carry it anymore and so what do we want to do well typically if we're in a place of we're not in fully in integrity we want to take that red hot ball and we want to like whack it at somebody we want to throw it to somebody else because we can't carry this pain on our own it's too heavy and it hurts but what I encourage my students to do is just let it go just drop the ball on the ground because when you pass your hurt onto somebody else and they are not in a situation to deal with it then it kind of creates this vicious cycle where people continue passing this hurt on and on and on and I think that we also not to get too political on you but I think we also see that in our current society in so many ways where we have people who are angry and they are you know using their anger to punish other people and it's bullshit and so if someone else has hurt you regardless of their motive but especially if they did it from a place of hurt you now have the option to take this heavy hot red ball and just drop it and leave it instead of passing it along and continuing the cycle and I think that this goes back to what I was saying about self-awareness when you know that you want to do better and you want to be better and you acknowledge yourself and that goal you are one step closer to being there you have granted yourself the permission to accept where you're at and feel what you're feeling and then say okay but I want to do something better than this like this isn't necessarily the person that I want to be I think that in these moments when we're hurt the most important thing is literally just not to hurt another person be hurt be angry be whatever you are but don't cause another person suffering because it's just perpetuating a problem and your hurt multiplies and it it gets passed on to other people I think the final piece in this puzzle then is doing something kind for yourself let's cycle back to the beginning the whole reason why we're in this position to begin with is because someone hurt us we feel hurt so how can we get back to a place of loving ourselves and loving ourselves no matter where we are and no matter how we feel and that's by doing something kind for ourselves I think that this looks different in every situation I'm almost hesitant to like give an example because sometimes doing something kind for myself is actually doing something that's probably inherently bad for me so like for example in this situation that I find myself in right now where I'm hurt and I'm processing through these feelings and I'm feeling like an asshole like I feel like an asshole and also I feel like an idiot and I'm gonna add that that's because of my job right like I'm a coach you know coaches don't get to feel this way coaches don't get to be this way you know you should be able to process your hurt better like you should be able to deal with these situations I'm shouldn't all over myself folks and it's really not pretty but I think that in this moment the thing that I want most is a bar of dark chocolate um that is kindness right now it's not though ultimately in terms of health obviously we know that maybe that's not the best choice but that's like what I'm craving I want some comfort I want a hug and there's no one here to give it to me besides myself like you know if you're into that you can do that too um and maybe I will later after I get my dark chocolate but I think that it's really important to acknowledge that whatever is kind for you in the moment is is what you need to follow ask yourself what you really need ask yourself what you're really craving ask yourself what's going to make you feel better and then just fucking do it and worry about the rest of it later and this is not like me giving you the green card to just be like okay I can do whatever the fuck I want like oh I'm gonna eat like shit now and I'm gonna do something no because the ultimate goal is to take care of yourself so if the action that you're thinking of is going to be somehow like long-term detrimental to you then I would choose a different choice I don't think that having a couple pieces of dark chocolate is going to kill me other times and I've spoken to this in other podcasts other times the kindest thing is to remove myself from the situation and that can be in a myriad of ways it can be through watching a movie and kind of zoning out a little bit or it can be through going for a walk or getting some sunshine or getting into nature or journaling or coloring or meditation I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record because I have a self-care tool kit that involves like all the same things I know what works for me and so you'll hear me say journaling meditation blah blah blah because those are the things I genuinely turn to in these moments that doesn't mean that's what works for you so it's really important too that you build your self-care tool kit and that you really focus on like what is it that makes me feel like a million bucks when I'm feeling like shit how can I make myself feel better how can I be kind loving gentle and you know caring towards myself when I feel bad and for every single person that's going to be something unique because I can imagine that for some people it's gardening you know or maybe it's like going on a hike maybe it's surfing maybe it's skateboarding maybe it's a million other things that I in my life have never touched so I can't give you specific examples you have to find those answers within yourself but I am here to encourage you to take the time and do it because it is worth it so let's go back over what I've talked about today how to love yourself when you're not proud of yourself and when you're out of a life that you're out of alignment and when you're potentially out of integrity so the first thing is acknowledge how you're feeling acknowledge the hurt the pain the frustration the anger you know recognize that if you acknowledge those things it is stopping a cycle because hurt people hurt people and by you acknowledging that you're hurt you are stopping that dead in its tracks realize that whomever or whatever caused this situation was literally doing the best that they could at the time okay that person was doing the best that they had the ability to do at that moment and if you can manage to grant yourself that kindness then it's really really really important too that you extend that to somebody else so if you can acknowledge that you at any given moment are doing the best that you can then you also need to recognize that as a human and as a child of the universe so is everyone else the next part is to celebrate your self-awareness and you know just the fact that you've recognized that this isn't really what you want and this isn't really who you want to be and knowing that you can and will do better as soon as you're in a better place but also recognize that this is where you are right now you know and that's okay it is okay to be hurt and upset and angry as long as you are not causing another human being suffering because of your hurt pain and anger and the last bit is do something kind for yourself love up on yourself however that comes to you take a bath totally not my thing but i know lots of people love it read a book you know watch a show or go for a walk call a friend pet your dog whatever whatever it is that makes you happy do that love yourself and get back into that space of alignment because when you feel good and when you feel better you are going to so much be you're going to be in such a better place to take care of this situation and to give love to the other person even if they are not in a space where they are loving you so as always i really hope that this serves you and that you got something valuable from this and i can't wait to continue connecting with you guys so if you want to you can find me on instagram at candice alacia on facebook at candice alacia coaching and online at www.

Candicealacia.

Com i love you guys so much and i'm sending you so much love and light and can't wait to hear what you guys took away from this

Reviews

Authentic, brave, and very helpful! Thank you very much. 🥹❤️

Exactly what I needed to hear. It has been 10 months & been working very hard on everything u shared w us. For me the best is to love yourself & let it go. Meditate, pray & love 💕 🙏🏻🌺
Namaste 🥰
It is what is ✌️

Good talk. Drop the hot red ball. As hard as it may be.

Refreshingly real and raw. What an insightful and inspired talk. Loved. True growth.

thank you so much; this change my life

Very relevant for me at this time 🥰

I think this was a very brave and authentic podcast, as well as useful and insightful. Thank you 💜x

Hurt People, hurt people... In my experience, true. Observe and attend works for me during stressful moments. 3rd person.
Peace, Love n Cheer!

Thanks for your vulnerability and honesty in sharing that. I took a lot away from it.

Thank you so much! Just what I needed to hear right now. Hurt people hurt people. Thank you for teaching. Really is going to help me a lot. Never even thought about sitting with my feelings and not hurt other people. Wow that will be a huge growth for me...

How nice to hear such honesty. You were so cross you made me smile. Bless.

Wonderful wise insightful inspiration yet gentle and nurturing

Timely and wise. Thank you!

Thank you. You've helped me to be proud of myself, as you should be of yourself. It's quite the opposite of what you've said, that you're a coach and shouldn't be feeling this way, but you can relate and connect. That is what matters. You've made a difference in the way I see my situation that is hurting me and I greatly appreciate your sharing.