Exploring Low Self-Esteem & Resentments - Insight Timer Live

In this recent workshop held on Insight TImer Live, join Buddhist contemplative David Johnson for a talk on low self-esteem and resentment. Where do low self-esteem and self-hatred come from? Why do we resent others who behave badly? During this talk, we’ll explore the idea of 'cognitive fusion' - explaining how this cognitive imbalance causes us to project and interact with our world in a fixed way, leading to conflict and pain.
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Transcript

Hello,

Good morning or good afternoon,

Good evening,

Wherever you are.

Welcome to this session exploring low self-esteem and resentments.

Please do say hi in the comments,

Let me know you're here,

Let me know where you're tuning in from.

And I hope you're all well.

So we'll just take a few minutes just to let some people join,

So please do say hi in the comments.

And today we're going to be exploring some ideas behind two questions.

The first question is why do we resent others when they behave badly?

Why do we get so angry at them?

What's going on there?

And then the second question that we'll be contemplating is where does low self-esteem and self-hatred come from?

We'll be looking at those concepts.

And of course there's many,

Many ways of looking at these two.

There's a lot of research into them,

There's a lot of different practices,

Different tools,

Different traditions,

Different psychologies.

But today we'll be looking at just one primarily and it's looking at some of our fixed views,

The ways that we think about these events,

The way we view these events,

The way we cognise of these events that creates conflict,

Pain,

Rigidity,

So the way that we project.

And so this teaching will be a little bit more and so this teaching will primarily come from Buddhism and Western psychology,

Really the interface between the two.

So hi Joyce,

Hi Miriam,

Hi Kay,

Hi Kerry,

Hi Rain.

Nice to see you all.

So we're just letting a few more people join.

And while they do,

Before we go into the talk,

I would like to mention that these talks,

These sessions,

All the online sessions that we do,

It is all offered freely.

But if you would like to donate something,

It would be greatly appreciated.

All of our donations,

They don't go to me or Manu,

The other co-founder of Samadhi,

They all go directly to our fundraising for setting up a retreat centre here in South Wales in the UK.

So if you are able to donate,

If there's anything that I say that might be useful or helpful,

You'd be supporting that vision.

And our retreat centre,

The idea is that we'll have a sort of group space where we'll bring people together like this to explore these kinds of teachings,

To fathom the mind and spend some time going within.

We'll be hopefully off-grid,

Growing our own food,

Being self-sustainable,

And then there'll be individual retreat cabins where people can come and do long-term retreat.

So if you do happen to donate anything during the session,

That's the vision that you're supporting.

So thank you.

So hi,

Katharina.

Hi,

Rugs.

So before we get started,

I would like to do a brief meditation,

Just a few minutes,

Just to get ourselves in a calm,

Clear,

Focused space,

Ready to explore this topic.

So we don't need to get into any special posture,

Just find a comfortable posture,

Perhaps seated right where you are right now,

And just get comfortable.

I'll spend a few minutes in meditation.

Taking a moment to get comfortable.

So we'll be sitting here for a few minutes after this.

And allowing our awareness to descend down into the body.

Immediately becoming aware of the entire space of the body.

Being aware of the various sensations,

Tinglings,

Vibrations,

Movements of energy,

Of breath.

And taking a deep breath in and releasing with a slow exhale.

Another deep breath in and releasing again,

Allowing everything to become more at ease,

More relaxed.

And one more.

And then become aware of your breathing,

Wherever you notice it most.

And of course within moments of focusing on our breath,

Our mind wanders.

So that's natural.

When we notice that,

Allow yourself to relax just a little bit more,

Loosen up and guide your attention back to the breath.

We don't need to become frustrated,

Annoyed with the mind.

And we just give ourselves permission to set aside any worries,

Any concerns,

Any rumblings in the mind about the past,

Which is gone,

Cannot be changed.

Any issues about the future,

Which is not yet here.

Just allowing the mind to come to rest right here,

Right now.

Mindfully aware of the in-breath,

Mindfully aware of the out-breath.

And then take a moment to connect with your motivation,

Your reason for joining this session.

And perhaps connecting this with your highest aspirations for the kind of life you want to live,

The kind of person you want to be.

Breathing in,

Aligning yourself with that vision,

That aspiration.

And then letting this motivation enthuse our way of attending.

Exhaling to this session.

So that every word,

Every concept that we hear and every thought that comes on our side all feeds into this aspiration.

Okay,

We can bring that short practice to a close.

So hello to anybody new who's joined.

Hi Grace,

Hi Claudia.

Nice to have you both here.

So as I said earlier,

Well first just to explain,

So with this session I will explore some concepts,

Some ideas.

You're very welcome to ask any questions.

There will also be times where I pause and ask if anybody's got any questions,

If I remember.

And then we'll wrap it up with a meditation towards the end of the session.

And this concept that we're going to explore is relatively simple.

It has great explanatory power,

It's very practical.

And it won't really take us very long,

You know,

It's a simple concept to explore.

What's really important is what we take from it and how we go forward with the motivations that we go forward with.

So hi Amanda and hi Miriam.

Good,

I'm glad everybody's hearing okay.

So as I said earlier,

We're going to be exploring some ideas behind two questions today during this session.

The first one is why do we resent others who behave badly?

Why do we get so angry at them?

And then the second question is where do low self-esteem and self-hatred come from?

And these can be seen as two sides of one coin.

And so while there's,

As I said,

There's many different ways of looking at these,

We're coming at it from an angle of Buddhist and Western psychology.

Our way of viewing events,

Cognising events,

Seeing them in ways that create rigidity and pain.

So as some background knowledge,

First of all,

A framework perhaps for us to put this teaching in.

I'm going to give a bit of background so we know sort of where it slots in.

And so we're looking at this from the aspect of a training called cognitive balance.

And so as a bit of background in Tibetan medicine and in other similar cultures,

They say when there's something wrong with the body,

When you're unhealthy,

When you're experiencing some symptoms,

They say that it is either caused by too much of something,

Too little of something or a dysfunction not working.

And so that's their approach.

It's either too much,

Too little or it's not working.

And so this was the seed that sparked some research,

Some theories into what has now become known as a theory called the four types of mental balance.

And this is a way of viewing our well-being in a holistic way,

Looking at different ways in which we can cultivate a balanced,

Calm mind.

And so I'm just going to briefly explain these four and then we'll get on to what we're looking at.

And so they are conative balance or motivational balance,

Attentional balance,

Cognitive balance,

Which is where today's teaching fits in and affective or emotional balance.

And so if we take this way of there's either too much,

Too little or it's not working,

The basis for this model,

First there's conative,

There's motivational.

And so it's true that,

So this is about our desires,

Following desires that bring us closer to our happiness,

Others' happiness and well-being.

And so it's possible to have too much desire,

Isn't it?

A lot of just,

I want this,

I need this,

Give me that,

And just a sort of unsatiated,

Uncontrollable desire.

That's the too much perhaps.

It's also possible to have too little,

Just sort of an apathy,

No real desire to do anything meaningful or helpful,

Nothing to help ourself or others and sort of just no desire.

And then there's,

At least from an ethical perspective,

There's the potential to have perhaps incorrect desire,

A dysfunction of desire.

So what wanting to kill things,

To hurt things,

To harm others,

That would be seen as a desire that's not very wholesome.

And so motivational balance is about following reality-based desires and intentions that bring us closer to our own and others' happiness.

So in a nutshell,

That's the first one.

The second of the four is attentional balance.

And so we all know we can have attentional hyperactivity where our mind just flits between everything.

We try and meditate even just for a few minutes,

Place our attention on our breath.

And what do we find?

We become distracted.

Our mind wanders.

We're off,

Lost thinking about the shopping list and tomorrow's argument and work and all those kinds of things.

And we find it very difficult to keep our attention in one place.

So there is that hyperactivity of attention can't be held in its place.

There's also a deficit potential,

Isn't there,

Of our attention.

It's just not good enough to hold the object.

It's just too lax,

Too dull.

Then there's also a dysfunction,

Perhaps attending to the wrong things or our attention not working.

So that's the second.

The third,

Cognitive balance,

Which is where today's teaching fits in.

Cognitive as in understanding,

Knowing,

Recognizing our cognition.

And so we all probably know that it's possible to superimpose assumptions and projections onto our reality.

Have you ever had somebody say something to you and we add things that were never said,

Not done,

You know,

Words that were not said.

So perhaps somebody says something like,

Oh no,

I don't want to go and do that thing today.

And what we hear is they don't want to spend time with me.

They don't like me anymore.

They don't want to do it because I'm a horrible person and all of this stuff.

So that's,

We superimpose something,

Something that was not there.

All they said was,

I don't want to do that thing today,

But we sort of added on some assumptions and projections.

So this is a way of,

It could be cognitive hyperactivity,

It could be dysfunction,

Right?

So it's where we're adding to our reality.

There's also the possibility of subtracting from our reality,

A cognitive deficit.

So perhaps somebody says,

Oh,

Can you pass me the red cup?

And we pass them the green cup because we just heard cup.

We didn't really,

You know,

We weren't really fully knowing and cognizing,

So we just gave them cup.

So,

You know,

Our cognition wasn't quite there.

So that's where today's teaching fits in.

And then the fourth is effective or emotional balance.

And so let's look at it in the same ways.

It's possible for our emotions to have a sort of excessive vacillation,

You know,

Extremes of,

You know,

Suddenly elated and excited and then depressed and then anxious and then loved up and then,

And sort of have this quite an exhausting ups and downs of emotions.

That's very possible.

It's also possible to have a deficit in our emotions,

Just not feeling,

You know,

A sort of apathy for what's going on,

Not really feeling anything.

And then it's also possible for it to not function.

So perhaps we receive some news that should bring grief or sorrow,

But instead we're elated and excited.

So that would be an example of emotions not really working,

Sort of an inappropriate emotion perhaps.

So this model,

Don't worry about it too much,

But if you want to explore it,

You can,

That's sort of,

You know,

A bit further there.

But this model is a way of if you cultivate and get all of these in balance,

Then you cultivate overall mental balance,

Nice sort of wellbeing and even healthy dynamic mind,

Not one is suppressing emotions or anything like that,

But it's healthy and it's dynamic.

So that's the framework.

That's the background knowledge.

Now let's look at that first question that I mentioned.

Why do we resent others who behave badly?

So when someone is behaving badly,

Either two things will happen generally speaking.

And it's two things that are happening all the time,

Not just when somebody is behaving badly,

But in our life in general,

In every given situation.

And it is either that we accept what's happening and we're going along with it,

Or we're rejecting what's happening and we're pushing against it.

And so when somebody is behaving badly,

What do we do?

Of course we reject,

Right?

It's natural.

Somebody is behaving badly,

They're saying things that hurt,

They're doing things that hurt.

And of course we reject it,

Right?

That's very natural.

So let's think of some examples.

For instance,

If you drive,

Maybe you're somebody who drives and somebody that cuts you up in traffic or they go past you on the inside lane,

Or maybe they're hanging about in the middle lane or they take the last parking spot from you.

So instantly we see this and then we reject and we think,

Oh,

What a horrible person,

Right?

Oh,

What an annoying person,

A rude person,

Inconsiderate.

They think the whole world is here for them.

You know,

What a rude person.

So these thoughts come up.

And now for that person,

We might never see them again.

So we think,

Well,

What's the real harm?

Unless you're the type to roll down the window and start screaming and shouting at them,

We might not see them again.

So there's no real issue.

Or if we do see them again,

You probably won't recognize them because they're not in a car.

So no real big issue except for the poison in the mind.

So then what about if it's somebody closer,

Somebody who is a family member or a colleague and they upset you and they upset others,

They say hurtful things.

They act out of anger.

So we're with them,

You know,

In that family situation or in work and they say something that puts us down,

That upsets us.

And so then the same thing we reject.

What a nasty kind of person to say something like that.

What a rude person,

What a bad person.

Well,

Maybe,

Maybe they just annoy us.

Maybe they're not sort of malicious,

But they just really,

You know,

Get under our skin.

And so they just annoy us.

And we thought,

Oh,

What an annoying person.

So I have to hear them again,

You know,

These kinds of thoughts.

So what I'm not going to say here necessarily is that the rejection is,

Is the wrong thing here.

Okay.

Even though in Buddhism,

Um,

This is clearly a version,

Right?

Those of you who know of Buddhism or know of a version or have heard me talk before,

You'll know that this is a classic case of aversion.

Aversion is rejecting what is happening.

We believe the person,

The behavior to be a cause of suffering and so on.

We exaggerate it,

We reject it.

We want to hurt it and so on.

This is true,

Definitely.

But what I want to get at today is something specific here,

Um,

Which is what is making the situation difficult to move forward in.

What is it that we are rejecting?

And so in psychology,

We call this cognitive fusion.

What we're doing is we're fusing two things together.

There's the person and there's the behavior and we have fused the two together.

And so if we reject on the basis of cognitive fusion,

Because the thing we don't like is their behavior,

Right?

The thing we didn't like was the way they cut us up in traffic or the way that they said that nasty thing,

Or they did that thing that hurt.

That's what we don't like.

But if we have fused the person with their behavior,

Then the rejection ends up directed at the person.

So we end up rejecting the person,

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater,

Right?

We end up attacking the person,

Getting angry at the person,

Seeing the person as this bad,

Horrible,

Annoying,

You know,

All these words,

Um,

Seeing them as this intrinsically horrible thing.

The thing we didn't like was the behavior,

But because we fused the two,

Then that's what happens.

And so that's,

That's the reality of rejection based on cognitive fusion.

So what's the problem?

What's the problem with that?

Well,

Many of us,

At least if we're here on Insight Timer,

Where,

Um,

You know,

Trying to perhaps we're on spiritual journeys or perhaps we're practicing meditation,

Perhaps we consider ourselves Buddhists or,

Or,

You know,

We're trying to live a mindful way of life or whatever.

We've probably heard and learned about how rejecting people and responding with hatred and anger towards people is actually not a very helpful thing to do.

You know,

Perhaps we know it hurts us,

It causes conflict.

We're trying to be the kinds of people who cultivate compassion,

Understanding and patience.

So,

You know,

We want to be a peaceful,

Calm,

Happy person.

Right?

And so,

You know,

Maybe these are the things we've been told,

You know,

Um,

That we're trying to do.

We've been told we need to learn how to accept,

Accept what is happening.

So acceptance,

Acceptance,

Again,

This is not the teaching.

Um,

We'll see,

There's a nuance here,

But acceptance is to,

You know,

Just accept wholeheartedly whatever arises,

Having given up the idea that it should be other than what it is.

Right?

So it's just looking at life and events as they are and saying,

Okay,

This,

This is how it is.

This is what is happening.

And so acceptance is something that's encouraged,

Isn't it?

There's a healthy way of looking at difficult events in our life because the opposite,

That rejection causes us grief and problems,

You know?

So do we agree with that?

Have we heard these kinds of ideas before that we should perhaps practice acceptance,

Acceptance would help us,

Um,

With difficult people.

We've heard that kind of teaching.

So if we have heard that we've understood that rejecting the person,

Getting angry at the person is not the right thing to do,

Then the only option is to accept.

But,

And here's the,

The,

The main point of this teaching,

If we accept on the basis of cognitive fusion,

Then accepting translate into accepting their bad behavior as well,

Because we want to accept the person,

But we fuse the behavior and the person together.

And so we end up accepting their behavior as well.

And that's also not okay.

So we've got two options.

If we are fusing a person with their behavior,

We have two options and both lead to problems.

We either reject the person because we don't like the behavior and we throw that,

That baby out with the bathwater and we condemn that person and so on.

Or if we accept,

We're also accepting that bad behavior.

Does that make sense to everyone?

So,

So worse than that,

If we reject the person and the behavior together,

Then we're left judging the person,

Condemning the person.

You know,

What a horrible person,

How could they do that?

You know,

They must be,

They must be really spiteful to do that,

Must act out so much jealousy,

They must have so much hate in their mind.

We have all of these kinds of thoughts and we maybe we condemn them.

We think there's just no saving that person.

They're just horrible person and we just reject them completely.

So that's one,

One layer,

But then forgiveness and compassion,

These minds that we would like to have,

They become almost impossible for this person because having forgiveness or compassion for a bad person feels like what we're saying is what you did is okay and I don't mind.

But of course we should mind bad behavior.

Bad behavior is not okay.

But because we fuse that person with their behavior,

Compassion feels like if I see them in that way,

I'm accepting their bad behavior or to forgive that person means I'm saying,

Oh,

What you did was okay.

It's fine.

I accept that what you did,

It's okay.

So that's what we're end up left doing and that's why we say things like,

Oh,

They don't deserve compassion because there's such a horrible,

Nasty person,

Or they don't deserve my forgiveness because you know,

They're just so hateful and so hurtful and horrible.

And so then we end up with also a fixed bias view of that person.

Don't we,

They are a bad person,

Which means if they end up doing something good,

It's hard to acknowledge it,

Isn't it?

Because bad people don't do good things.

And so we'll sort of brush it off and go,

Oh,

They didn't really mean it because they're,

You know,

Such a horrible bad person.

And even worse than all of that,

It leads to conflict because they are the bad people.

I'm the good people.

You know,

I'm one of the good ones.

I'm good people.

This is bad people.

And so let's get rid of those bad people because they're the problem.

They're the issue,

You know,

Let's get rid of them.

And so we end up in an us versus them relationship.

And we see this very often in the world today,

Don't we?

Not just in personal relationships,

But in international relationships,

We see this as us versus them.

So let's just take an example.

There's another way of looking at this.

Okay.

So,

But let's just take an example.

First of all,

Let's think of that family member or a colleague and perhaps this person,

They just always get under our skin.

They say things and they're snarky,

You know,

When they always get to us,

Nobody else really notices it.

But what they say,

It really gets to us.

And so it creates a lot of pain for us.

Other people like them.

But to us,

We think,

Yeah,

It's just a self-centered,

Jealous,

Hateful person.

And so we,

What do we do?

We fuse the two together so we reject the person.

They can do no good.

We judge them for their behavior.

We condemn them.

You know,

There's no way of saving them.

And so we have this fixed view.

And then somebody tells us in our family,

Oh,

Well,

They actually,

They did something nice.

You know,

They did something good or,

You know,

They did this.

And so we think,

What's the ulterior motive?

What were they trying to get out of that?

You know,

How,

How are they trying to twist this into getting something for themselves?

And we see them in that way,

Right?

Because we,

We have that fixed view.

They can't do any good.

Maybe we have conflict with them.

Maybe we get snarky back.

Maybe there's actual fighting,

You know,

Verbally,

Verbally or physically.

We take it home with us,

Don't we?

We take it to bed with us.

We go over it again and again.

I think they say such a hurtful thing.

Why did they do it?

Why did they do that?

That negative bias,

Don't we?

We obsess over the negative.

And so it poisons our heart.

It poisons our mind.

How can someone be so hurtful?

We go over and over and over again.

Until we think,

Okay,

I just can't do this anymore for my heart and my mind.

Maybe we hear a teaching or we read something and we think I need to forgive them.

I need to have compassion.

I need to be kind to them.

And as much as we want to,

I really want to forgive them because I know it's going to be good for me.

I just can't.

How can I forgive somebody so hateful?

How can I have compassion for them?

So what's the solution to this?

It's a simple in theory solution,

But maybe not so easy.

Takes training.

We need to,

You know,

Reframe our mind.

And so very simply is to not do cognitive fusion.

Cognitive fusion,

If we look at it from a Buddhist perspective,

Is a false or an invalid perspective because it's not based in reality.

A person and their behavior are not the same thing.

In fact,

Even already the idea of person is a construct,

I don't want to go too deep here,

But is a construct that doesn't quite match up to the body and mind and so on.

But anyway,

Let's take the person.

The person is separate from their thoughts,

Separate from their behavior,

But we've used the two.

So from a Buddhist perspective,

We see it's a false perspective.

It's an invalid perspective.

So our solution,

Our approach should be try to take on the correct perspective that there is a person doing harmful behavior.

Not a harmful person,

But a person doing harmful behavior.

Then what happens is we can accept the person,

I.

E.

Have compassion for them,

And at the same time reject their bad behavior,

Not tolerate their bad behavior.

Does that make sense?

So instead of judging the person,

We recognize that here is a person,

We evaluate their behavior and say,

Okay,

If this behavior is harmful,

We need to have conversations about it,

You know,

Where we can help them overcome their bad behavior if we can.

But we end up with a balanced view of the person.

Here is a person who just like me,

Wants to be happy,

Wants to be free of suffering,

Sometimes gets embroiled up in their anger or their jealousy,

And they act in ways that hurt other people or they,

You know,

They do what they do,

But they also do good.

They also do bad.

They,

You know,

They are a person,

An individual,

Unique,

Just like me.

And then there is their behavior.

We see the two separate from each other.

And so instead of us,

Us versus them mentality,

Like earlier,

Which leads to conflict,

It leads to cooperation because we recognize we're all people.

Sometimes we do good things.

Sometimes we do bad things.

We're all in the same situation.

We've all ended up with this mind,

This monkey mind that very easily follows after jealous,

Hateful thoughts.

And so let's help those,

Including ourselves,

Who are engaging in bad behavior,

Harmful behavior.

So this is a solution.

It enables cooperation.

It enables a way forward.

It enables us in our mind to be very clear about what is okay and what is not okay.

And for us to express that as well.

And there are examples,

Wonderful examples of when people do this already.

Mothers are a wonderful example.

A mother may see her child misbehave or throw a fit in the supermarket.

You know,

Maybe just causing chaos and where other people might say,

Oh,

What a horrible young boy,

You know,

Or they,

Or they blame the parents.

You know,

They always tend to go straight for the parents.

The mum doesn't see it that way.

Mum doesn't fuse the behavior with the person.

She sees that they are two separate entities and she acts with patience and compassion and understanding.

She knows my child is temporarily overwhelmed by their anger.

They don't know how to regulate or express their anger in a healthy way.

This is not them.

I know they're not a horrible little child.

I know that they're just having a moment.

And so that's compassion.

Right?

And so what does the mother do?

Mother thinks,

How can I help?

Maybe not right now while they're screaming in the aisle.

But how can I help?

How can I steer them?

That's beautiful.

That's,

That's compassion.

But we lose that compassion for people who are older.

We think everybody should be in control.

Everybody should know exactly what's going on in their mind and never act out of delusion or anger or hatred or jealousy.

But we know even for ourself,

Are we always able to do that?

If we try and meditate for a few minutes and hold our attention on our,

On our breath,

How quickly is it before,

Before our mind wanders and becomes distracted?

Do we never ever speak or act out of anger or attachment or delusion or jealousy or any of these?

Do we ever,

Never behave out of those?

Can we recognize that for ourself?

And if so,

Can we recognize it for others?

Yes,

They're 20,

30,

40,

50 or whatever.

But clearly in this instance,

If they're behaving in this way,

They can't control their anger or jealousy or whatever.

They don't even know how to stop their mind from being dominated by mental afflictions.

Maybe they don't even know they have mental afflictions.

As my teacher said just a few days ago in a teaching,

He said they're terminally ill and they don't even know they have a cough.

So then it's compassion.

I want you to be free of,

I want you to be happy.

I want you to be free of suffering.

You want that too.

How can we move forward?

Are there any thoughts or any questions on that right now?

To summarize,

Normally it's cognitive fusion.

This means that we fuse the behavior with the person and we end up with a bad person.

And what happens is if we reject that,

We reject the person as well.

We judge them.

Compassion is very difficult.

We have a fixed view of them.

We have conflict with them.

If we accept,

Then we also accept their bad behavior.

We say that your behavior is okay.

It's fine.

I forgive you.

I forgive you.

And we accept it.

And we run the risk of just allowing that behavior to perpetuate.

That's with cognitive fusion.

If we learn to see the two separately as a person doing bad action,

Then we can accept the person and we can reject the bad behavior.

And then compassion is easier.

Forgiveness is easier.

We can cooperate with the person.

We have a more balanced view that yes,

They do good.

Yes,

They do bad.

And we can utterly just say that behavior is not okay.

And you know,

You need to do something about it,

Or we need to do something about it,

Or you know,

Whatever it is.

So Miriam saying powerful tools to separate the behavior from the person.

Absolutely.

And the second perspective of this person doing the bad action can be seen as it's a correct perspective from Buddhism.

It's a correct perspective that they are two separate entities.

They are not the same perspective.

And guests,

Sorry,

I don't know your name,

Saying we use unconditional positive regard in education so that relationships can flourish away from judgment.

Unconditional positive.

And so that unconditional positive,

Is that always seeing the good in people or is that also trying to just separate the two with regards to behavior and the person?

That'd be interesting to know.

So that's this first one.

The separate both.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this is this first one about the resentments,

The way that we fuse other people's behavior and their self.

Now this of course happens to us as well,

Doesn't it?

This talk was called low self-esteem and resentments,

Self-hatred.

And so we come to our second question.

Where does low self-esteem and self-hatred come from?

And we're looking at this again,

There's many different ways of looking at this,

But from this perspective of this same concept and low self-esteem and self-hatred are endemic in this modern world.

And so if we look at it again from cognitive balance training,

It's the same thing.

The correct perspective is I did bad behavior.

I did something harmful,

Did something that I consider wrong or whatever,

But instead what happens so often,

And it's really perpetuated by our language and our society and our way of viewing things nowadays,

We fuse the two.

I'm a bad person.

Don't we?

I'm a bad person.

I'm a horrible person.

I'm an annoying person.

I'm a hateful person.

I'm an angry person.

I'm a spiteful person.

I'm a jealous person,

All of these things.

And then we end up rejecting ourselves.

And if we try to practice acceptance for ourselves,

Somebody says,

You know,

You need to just accept,

Accept who you are,

But we accept,

We're accepting ourselves based on cognitive fusion.

Then we end up also accepting our behavior.

This is how I am.

I'm just an angry person.

And that leads to a lot of rigidity,

A lot of,

Um,

It's that fixed bias again,

But it's,

It's a,

There's a word that I'm trying to find,

Um,

Limiting belief.

It's a limiting belief,

Isn't it?

Because if then we accept,

I am this angry person and we accept the behavior with it,

Then we also kind of believe that there's nothing I can do about it.

And there's nothing I should,

Because that's just who I am.

And so it's a limiting belief.

Then we'll always believe I'm just an angry person.

There's nothing I can do about it.

This is how I am.

So it leads to us judging ourselves,

Doesn't it?

Being very,

Very self critical.

Maybe we condemn ourselves,

You know,

I'm just,

I'm just a horrible person and nobody should love me.

And then all of those kinds of thoughts come and,

And,

You know,

You shouldn't get too close to me and I don't deserve your love and I don't deserve your praise.

And all of these,

These thoughts come because we're viewing ourselves as the behavior,

As this bad person who doesn't deserve anything.

And this can go all the way to having actual hatred for ourselves,

Can't it?

Actual hatred for ourselves.

I was going to say that I,

I was going to say,

I can't imagine having actual hatred for myself,

But I remember when,

Um,

I was in the depths of,

Of depression and considering my way out of life,

That I did have a hatred for myself,

A hatred for my behavior,

The way I thought,

The way that I did things,

The way that I burdened other people.

That's not a nice mind to have a hatred for ourself.

And it is,

It is ultimately it's false.

It's invalid.

I am not my behavior.

I am not my thoughts,

Right?

They are separate things.

So where does it lead this,

This,

This way of thinking?

Well,

Not,

Not a very healthy relationship with ourselves,

Right?

But it leads to low self-esteem,

Fixed bias view of ourself.

I'm a horrible person.

I'm no good.

I can't change.

I'll never change.

And so this also highlights the difference between regret and guilt.

From when we look at it from a Buddhist perspective,

Guilt is also something that's endemic,

Isn't it?

In,

In our society.

Unfortunately,

Um,

There has been a lot of,

There's a lot of religious history to it,

Isn't there?

To,

To bash any,

Um,

Any religion or any organization,

But,

But guilt has historically been used by great organizations,

Political and nonpolitical to have power over them.

Right?

Because if you can make people feel guilty,

You have power over them.

And so there's a lot of guilt in Western culture.

Um,

But if we've done something harmful and we have this cognitive fusion and we feel guilty,

What do we end up focusing on?

Bad me,

Isn't it?

Bad me.

So guilt comes from this cognitive fusion.

It comes from this invalid perspective.

Um,

And it's bad me,

Horrible me.

Why did I do that?

Shouldn't have done that.

Beaten,

Bash on,

You know,

And everything else.

Um,

I'm a bad person.

I don't deserve an,

An et cetera,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

So from,

From a Buddhist perspective,

Cause we'll look at the alternative in a minute,

We don't need to feel guilty about anything.

Guilt as a mind comes from an invalid perspective.

It paralyzes us.

It makes us feel bad.

And it doesn't even address the negative behavior because the object of guilt is me,

Bad me.

So it's just bad me,

Horrible me.

You keep beating yourself and you never do anything about the behavior.

So you become paralyzed,

Just stuck in a cycle of beating yourself up and never addressing the behavior.

So from Buddhist perspective,

We say throw guilt out.

That is the one that we use and I'll talk about that now,

Really.

So instead we adopt the correct perspective.

I and bad behavior separate,

And we acknowledge I did this bad behavior.

Yes.

We evaluate our behavior and instead of judging and criticizing and rejecting ourselves,

We can accept ourselves and have forgiveness and compassion for ourselves.

And at the same time,

Not tolerate any negative behavior,

Not some negative patterns if we don't want them through regret.

And regret helps us address our behavior.

So there's a difference between regret and guilt.

With guilt,

The object is me.

Guilt is bad me,

Horrible me.

With regret,

It's about the action.

If we've done something harmful and we regret,

We're focusing on the bad behavior.

And so it addresses that bad behavior.

It helps overcome negative tendencies.

In Buddhism,

We have what's called the four opponent powers,

A way of purifying negative karma.

And they are to regret,

To rely,

To remedy,

And to resolve.

And so first we regret that action.

We say,

You know,

I don't want to engage in that kind of action again.

I regret what I did.

It caused harm for myself,

Caused harm for somebody else.

I don't like that.

I regret that.

Deeply from my heart,

I regret that.

Then we rely.

You can rely either on a spiritual teacher,

On the Buddha,

Dharma,

And the Sangha if you're a Buddhist.

You can rely on your own inequalities,

Your ethics,

Your higher values.

Then there's the remedy.

Maybe it's practicing compassion,

Patience,

Loving kindness.

And then the resolve.

The resolve,

I will not engage in that action again.

I will not behave in that way again.

That's a very practical way of overcoming our bad behaviors and purifying that karma related to that action.

So I'm just going to take a moment to read what some people have been saying,

And then we can continue on.

Mirren's saying,

I can apply this to me.

Nice application.

Rarely remember to do this.

That's the thing is we've got to remember to do it.

And that will be my point at the end.

It's this,

We have a habit right now of this negative bias,

Of this cognitive fusion.

And we need to just retrain our mind.

And it's not fast and it's not easy,

But it is possible.

Katharine is saying,

Well,

I find myself being thinking unkind things.

I tell myself,

Stop,

You're better than that.

That's wonderful.

And that is,

There's that reliance,

Isn't there?

That we just saw from those four qualities,

That reliance on your higher ethics,

Your higher,

You know,

The way you hold yourself.

I am not that person.

And so that's a wonderful way of just instantly cutting the behavior and relying on who you really are.

Okay,

Saying I find it difficult when families say negative comments verbally beating you when you try to be positive.

I imagine that a lot of us struggle with that,

You know,

Especially at the time when you are only receiving end of hurtful comments,

You know,

Or verbal or physical.

And so it helps us if we can separate the two,

If we can cultivate compassion in that moment and recognize that their hurtful comments almost always are coming from a place of pain on their side.

It doesn't excuse it.

Remember,

We're separating the two.

But to continue to have compassion,

Understanding and love for the person,

But still work on the behavior and say,

Look,

I don't,

You know,

Whatever it is,

Obviously,

I don't know your relationship and I can't give you full advice for it.

But you know,

However it works in that relationship to say,

Look,

This behavior is not good.

It's not I won't tolerate it.

I will,

You know,

Put putting boundaries in with this person or whatever we need to do.

You know,

This is,

This is,

You know,

Something we should do.

Maria saying,

Can't low self esteem come from other places than guilt?

It can,

As I said,

We're,

You know,

In the session,

I'm looking at one sort of very specific way of looking at it because low self esteem is,

You know,

As a,

Is a massive jungle and there's many different ways of looking at it,

But low self esteem,

It's,

It's in there in the word self esteem.

It's a view of self,

A way that we view ourself.

And if there's low self esteem,

You're viewing yourself,

Your person in a way which you're putting beneath other people for some reason,

Whether it is guilt about behavior,

Or if you're just seeing that,

You know,

I'm not a very useful person,

You know,

Maybe I'm just not all that helpful,

Or I'm a bit useless,

Or I don't have any good skills.

That's not necessarily guilt,

But it's still a view of self.

It's still you attaching some behavior or some lack of skill or skill to yourself,

Your view of self.

So it still works in the same way with still a cognitive fusion.

I hope that makes sense.

Wendy,

When you're force fed negativity and met with no compassion,

How do you emerge and flower?

Again,

I think we need to try and recognize and separate and not,

We want people to be different,

Don't we?

We want people to act in a different way,

But we have to recognize sometimes that they won't and we won't get the responses that we want from them.

And so we need to connect to our inner qualities,

Our inner qualities of loving kindness and compassion and wisdom and identify with these and give ourselves some protection from the ways that other people talk to us and behave.

See that,

You know,

They are not that behavior.

The behavior is,

You know,

As we've been saying,

Is separate,

But then relying on our own inequalities and focusing there and almost sort of a not my monkey or whatever it is,

Not my circus,

Not my monkey.

You know,

This is your thing.

You're acting out of pain.

Your behavior is coming from you,

From what's going on in your mind.

It's not me.

It's not related to me.

And you know,

I let you do your thing.

I wish you well.

I want you to be happy.

I want you to be free of that suffering.

But I'm going to protect my own wellbeing,

My own mind here.

I'm in touch with my own in a wellspring of wellbeing.

So not easy,

Really not easy,

But relying on your own inner heart.

Change my expectation of them.

Yes.

We tend to have an expectation of people of both ways.

We expect them to be different.

We know we want them to be different.

We think they should be different,

But we also expect them to behave in the way that they always have behaved.

So we set ourselves up for failure a little bit.

So acceptance can be really helpful.

But what are we doing?

We're accepting the person and we're rejecting the behavior.

But if there's nothing that can be done about the behavior,

If it can't be changed because you can't change,

You can't force people to change.

And if conversations don't change it,

Then we just have to accept that that is the way it is.

That is the way the person is.

There's nothing I can do about it.

And then look to what I can change,

Which is my response,

My inner self.

So I hope some of that helps.

So we looked at the difference between guilt and regret.

So with regret,

Even if we engage in harmful behavior,

If we separate the two here,

The person,

Which is our self and the behavior,

If we separate the two,

Even if we engage in harmful behavior,

Because we don't identify with it and don't say,

Well,

That's me,

I am an angry person,

I am a jealous person,

Then we can have good self-esteem.

We can recognize I am doing my best.

These are my ethics.

These are my higher values.

Like Katharina said,

You know,

I tell myself you're better than this.

We know what my higher values are,

My ethics,

My morality,

Who I want to be,

Where I want to go.

I'm doing my best.

I'm going in the direction.

Yes,

That occasion wasn't great.

I did let anger come out in my speech or I did,

You know,

Do that harmful thing,

But it doesn't mean I'm a bad person.

It just means that I was,

You know,

Temporarily influenced by mental affliction.

But I have Buddha nature within me.

I have limitless potential within me.

I want to be a compassionate,

Loving person.

I already am.

And so we connect with that,

But at the same time,

Not tolerate our negative behavior.

We address our negative behavior.

So another comment to make here,

Which was made by one of my teachers is that,

You know,

As we know,

As we've said,

We have a bias to obsessively focus on the negative.

Don't we?

That's very common.

It's a survival mechanism to always notice the negative.

But we do that nowadays with other people,

With ourselves,

Always focusing,

Obsessing on the negative with this cognitive fusion.

And so one way that we see nowadays that is not always so helpful,

It can really help.

But in many cases,

It doesn't help.

The advice for overcoming the obsessive focus on the negative to overcome self-esteem,

Sometimes I've heard it to be to flip to the other extreme,

Focus on the positive.

And so we exchange,

You know,

Oh,

You're not a bad person.

You're a good person.

You're a wonderful person.

You're a great person,

Which can be very helpful,

But it's not always helpful.

And here's why.

Because it's still cognitive fusion in a way.

And so if the person believes it,

Oh,

I'm good,

You know,

I'm special,

It can lead to not always,

But it can lead to,

In fact,

I'm better or I'm okay.

And my behavior is fine.

And then it leads to a sort of unapologetic,

I can act however I want.

I don't need to apologize.

This is just who I am.

And we might say and do bad things,

But think,

You know,

Well,

I don't need to apologize.

It's just who I am.

I'm a great person.

I'm a wonderful person.

So that's a potential because there's still a cognitive fusion.

Or if we then,

If we,

You know,

Have this belief,

You know,

I am a great person.

I'm a fantastic person,

But then we engage in some bad behavior that can then reaffirm the first belief and say,

Well,

Actually,

No,

I'm a bad person.

And then everything comes crumbling down and we're back with,

I'm a bad person.

And this proves that I'm a bad person that I know is never a great person.

And then we sort of go around in a cycle of replacing it with good,

But then something bad happens.

So this is a potential,

I'm not saying this happens all the time and that identifying with good qualities is a bad thing,

But if it's still cognitive fusion,

We're still equating the view of self with things that are not self,

With behavior,

With thoughts,

With other things.

And so in some ways it will lead to some issues.

It's healthier to just remove the cognitive fusion,

To view ourself as separate from our behavior,

To view,

To see our potential.

Yes,

Our potential to be a Buddha,

Our potential to have limitless compassion and kindness and patience and fortitude and all these qualities.

But to not fuse anything with our sense of self.

At least that's the Buddhist view,

Nobody has to take that on.

But it's,

You know,

Buddhist view.

So one solution to low self-esteem is to separate these two.

So I think I've covered it,

But as just another reminder,

With cognitive fusion,

If we reject,

We reject ourself.

I'm a bad person.

And then comes guilt.

We condemn ourselves,

Compassion for ourselves,

Forgiveness for ourselves is very difficult to do.

And we don't address our behavior because we just guilt ourselves.

With the correct perspective,

If we separate the two,

Here is I,

Is the bad action,

We can accept ourself,

Have forgiveness,

Compassion,

Love and kindness for ourself,

And we can regret the bad action,

We can address our behavior and try and change our behavior.

So unfortunately,

All of this is embedded in our society,

Our culture,

Our language.

The way we're brought up,

The way our language focuses,

It promotes and encourages cognitive fusion.

You know,

We see that person as a bad person,

Horrible person.

And so what we need to do is reprogram the way we think and speak.

And it takes time and it takes mindful effort.

But if we consciously do that,

Consciously keep changing our behavior,

Our way of thinking,

I think you'll find that it does become more and more spontaneous to have compassion for others who behave badly.

We don't have to always keep separating.

But if we practice again and again doing it,

It becomes spontaneous.

We see the person for who they are as just like everybody else,

A flawed human being who is not always perfect.

And we have compassion for them.

And we see,

You know,

You're suffering,

You want to be happy,

You want to be free.

And so we,

You know,

We see them with that compassion instead,

Rather than just becoming angry or condemning them.

And it also becomes more spontaneous not to fall into low self-esteem either,

Blame type thoughts and to see ourself as the potential that we have and not equate our behavior.

And that's,

At least that's my experience.

And that's the experience that I've heard from people who've practiced it from my teachers.

It gets easier.

It's training.

It takes time.

So firstly,

We need to work at it,

Don't we?

Working with our motivation,

We need to have the motivation to do it.

We need to be mindful of our motivation and start to cultivate awareness of how we do it and actively reframe our view on a day-to-day basis.

See these two separately.

So I hope this is,

I hope this has been helpful in some ways.

Raines saying this is so helpful.

Thank you so much.

Do you do TED Talks or YouTube?

I don't do TED Talks.

I haven't been invited yet,

But if anybody's connected,

Please feel free.

But there's talks here on Insight Timer.

There is also a lot of talks on our website as well,

Where we share different things like this and different classes and retreats and things like that.

So you'd be very welcome to join any of those.

Amanda saying don't want this to end.

I'm sorry.

We will do a meditation now.

I know I've gone slightly over with my timing,

But if you are still available for the next 20 minutes,

Then we'll close this off with a love and kindness meditation.

So I'd love for you to join me for that.

We can see people saying thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you all for joining me today,

This morning or this afternoon or evening.

So let's engage in a meditation now if you are still available.

So taking a moment to find a comfortable posture.

And we'll do a practice for about 15 or 20 minutes.

And so we'll just take a moment to connect once again with our body.

Becoming aware of the various tactile sensations.

Kyasal'mo Aldana.

And releasing any tension that we have in the body with the out breath.

In particular any tension that are in the shoulders.

Any contraction in the forehead,

In the eyebrows,

In the jaw.

And I'd like you to visualize,

Bring to mind.

Someone to whom you are very close.

Someone you love.

Maybe somebody from the past or the present.

And bring to mind their specific aspirations,

Their desire to be happy,

To experience contentment,

Fulfillment,

Enjoyment,

Love.

And looking upon this person with a loving mind,

The thing we really want for them is for them to be happy.

We want them to be happy,

We want them to flourish.

And so with the out breath,

Breathe out the wish.

May you be happy.

May you be well.

May you be safe.

May you find happiness in the true causes of happiness.

And wish them well.

And imagine them becoming happy,

Finding genuine happiness,

Genuine well-being.

And this person,

They love you very much and they equally have this same wish for you.

They want to see you happy.

They want to see you flourish.

And we want that for ourself as well.

So arouse your own desire to be happy,

Content,

To be well.

And affirm the belief that you deserve it.

You deserve to be happy,

Looked after,

To be loved,

To have joy.

And with every in breath,

Breathe in that loving kindness wish for yourself,

Coming from you and coming from your loved one.

May I be happy.

May I be safe.

May I be well.

May I find happiness in the genuine causes of happiness.

And then we bring to mind somebody who is neutral for us.

Somebody we don't feel very strongly about either way.

We don't really love them.

We don't hate them either.

We don't really know them.

It could be a distant neighbour,

Somebody who works in a market,

Somebody you see every now and then.

They too,

Just like you and your loved one,

They want to be happy.

They want to find joy,

Love,

Contentment,

Fulfilment.

To recognise at your core,

Beneath it all,

You are the same in that regard.

And so we want that for them.

We want them to be happy,

Fulfilled,

Content,

Safe,

Joyful,

Loved.

So arouse that wish,

That loving kindness wish.

With every out breath,

Breathe the wish.

May you be happy.

May you be safe.

May you be well.

May you find happiness in the genuine causes of happiness.

Imagine them happy,

Peaceful,

Content,

Fulfilled.

And then finally we bring to mind somebody to whom we have a more difficult relationship.

So as we've looked at in this talk,

Perhaps somebody we hold some resentment for,

Somebody we regularly feel some aversion for,

Anger or hatred.

This doesn't have to be somebody personal,

But can be somebody on a more global level.

And now let's recognise that at their core,

Just like the loved one,

The neutral person and myself,

Beneath all the layers,

All the veils,

This individual wants to have happiness,

Contentment,

Fulfilment,

Joy.

They want to be free from suffering,

Just like me.

Separate the person from their behaviour.

Pull away the webs of cognitive fusion.

Beneath it all,

This person is just like me.

And the way in which they go about finding happiness,

Satisfaction,

May sometimes cause harm.

But they don't know the true causes of genuine happiness.

They think that satisfaction and happiness is in doing these things.

They think that will make them happy.

But they're mistaken.

And so like adding one more person in a group hug,

Embrace this person with this loving kindness wish.

That I hope you're able to find genuine happiness and the causes of happiness.

I want that for you.

I don't wish pain on anyone.

May you overcome your mental afflictions and find genuine happiness.

And then extend this wish out further to all of us here gathered across the world,

Across space and time,

For those who are listening later.

Connecting with that desire that is innate in you,

That desire to see everyone flourish,

To see everyone happy.

We don't want anyone to suffer,

Not really.

May you all find happiness and the causes of happiness.

Extending it out further to all beings near and far.

May all beings everywhere without exception find happiness and the genuine causes of happiness.

So just listen.

So thank you all.

Thank you for saying that,

Miriam.

That's very kind.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I hope this has been useful.

I hope there's even just one thing that you can perhaps pluck out and use.

It is practice.

So it is over to you.

Please don't forget to follow me here on Insight Timer.

There is a group that I have here as well that you're very welcome to join.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

I really appreciate sharing this space with you.

And I hope to see you again very,

Very soon.

Thank you.

Reviews

I love your work thank you for providing your wisdom ;)

Thank you for sharing this in-depth exploration of self-esteem and cognitive fusion, it was really thought provoking!

So many deep & supportive teachings in this recording.