Friendship Begins at Home
3quarksdaily.com
3quarksdaily.com
I started carrying around a photo of myself as a kid. I'm sitting against a wall, by a pillar, at our state capital. My eyes are shut. I was kind of a shy kid.
When I start to get frustrated and talk to myself in that short, abrasive, condescending tone, I think of that photo and of myself, as still that kid.
It helps me to be more compassionate towards myself in those moments. I'm still that shy kid trying to make sense of the world.
I'm 47.
the voice is a shock jock, click bait. All headline, no research, no lede.
(reminder to self)
That you can prove the inner voice false does not help in the least. It does not listen to reason, and it does not shut up. It needs to be addressed from a completely different angle.
So it is with internal demons sometimes, I find. You learn to recognize them, rather than expunge them.
It's kind of incredible how the sub-concious finds ways to help you out sometimes. It sucks one needs to first learn how much it likes to use dirty tactics though.
Try keeping distance from yourself. :/ The self is always there, it never relents; its mistakes and weaknesses ever present, recurrent. It's less easy to accept and/or forgive when you can't forget.
In fact what you are doing with that photo -- which is a practice I completely support and agree with BTW -- is precisely that: distancing yourself from yourself, taking a look "in" from the outside. It's easier to find compassion like that, for both your child and current selves.
I'm also 47.
I listen to the grownups here. I am merely 46.
These are excellent. (Not that I'm an authority, of course.)
Additionally, the photo visualization that aantix conveys has a meditation format (I know of it from therapy) where you meet your child self during meditation, and comfort, console, and protect him/her.
Kelly McGonigal has a series (possibly in multiple editions?) on compassion, including self-compassion. The first instance I've encountered on LinkedIn Learning:
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/the-science-of-compassion-...
Searching the web for it now, this one seems related:
https://kellymcgonigal.com/cct
Note especially Tonglen (week 7). In my own uneducated imagery, I describe it as follows: during meditation, you breath in the suffering of others with your heart, and breath out love and compassion, which I imagine as a golden light. It's brilliant, especially if you do it towards someone that you resent because they have wronged you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonglen
FWIW, exercise has proved more accessible (?) to me than meditation. I've managed to turn exercise into a habit; I reach for meditation exceptionally.
Preferably personal, but alternatively something where you helped a friend or child or family member. Asking for a friend. There's a whole parasitic industry built around this concept e.g. selfharm books (selfhelp) or life coach.
Example: in my head, “You’re so fucking lazy, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why can’t you just-“ etc, would be answered by, “You are human. You are doing your best. The modern world asks too much of all of us. You deserve to rest. I’m proud of you. I love you.” Consistently in my head, sometimes out loud if I was alone.
Along with forgiving myself, sometimes I would think through and list out my accomplishments. The voice in my head told me I was a failure, but I built up an entire list of the things I had achieved to prove it wrong, every time.
At first it felt weird and fake. I didn’t have any reason to believe “myself.” But then, I didn’t have any reason to believe that criticizing voice either.
Slowly, the responding voice became more and more “real.” To the point where I was easily scoffing at and brushing off my self criticism. And then, for reasons I really don’t understand, that critical voice started speaking up less and less.
After over two years of this, I have stopped hearing that critical voice entirely. I’m in my mid thirties, which isn’t old but is old enough to still be startled by how night and day different it is now to live in my head. It is so much quieter and more peaceful. And a lot of the stuff I used to struggle with, actually isn’t a struggle anymore. I don’t procrastinate hardly at all now. In most cases I recognize “I’m not ready to tackle this yet, let me put my energy elsewhere and I’ll get back to it when I’m ready” and shockingly enough, when I’m forgiven and allowed to walk away, I do find myself “ready” later on to come back and tackle it.
I think what I did falls under the umbrella of “reparenting your inner child” if you want to research more.
Caveat that I also pulled this off while working at the least toxic workplace I have ever worked and being surrounded by the best friends I’ve ever had. Set and setting might be really important here.
Good luck to you. I hope you can also break free.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy
Magnesium glycinate, magnesium threonate, l-theanine, inositol, NAC - all have been both calming and help with negative ruminations, for me.
I work with a lot of young people starting marriages, families, and life. The advice I give is have as much love and patience for yourself as you do for your partner and others. You won’t always get it right so be forgive yourself, learn, and get better.
(I’m 49)
Misses clear definitions (what counts as "friendship with self"?) and the mechanism (how X->Y). Anecdotes/quotes != proofs.
IOW, prestige != proof. Two quick checks 1) strip the names - does the reasoning still stand? 2) Flip to counterexamples - does the thesis survive? We all know people who are hard on themselves but deeply loving to others.
Nice essay but treat it as a opinion to test, not a truth to inherit. The thread reads as if the case were already proven.
Loving yourself means you have acknowledged your weaknesses. Whether or not you strengthen them, it enables you to empathize with others as their own weaknesses manifest.
The world becomes much more cozy once you realize others are not much different than you.
(Edited for clarity)
Allows you to appreciate the perceptiveness of others when they're correct.
Also, if you do not know yourself (and especially if you cannot forgive yourself) you're going to struggle to deal with your own children.
My kids reflect me back at myself in what were frustrating ways, until I realised it was me and my influence, and it became massively endearing.
Although I may be too forgiving of myself (but in amongst that I do still have 'the voices of discontent' but the longer I live the more their sentiment is proven wrong).
--sometimes their unforgiveness (beyond mere unforgivingness/mercilessness :) is a spur to get better..
Are some voices of discontent not simply expressing a desire to make things better for others? Those shouldn't be dismissed so readily
Interestingly enough, once I started forgiving myself for my flaws, a significant portion of them went away.
A lot of (most?) people get some sort of self love more or less by default, not because they are necessarily super self aware, but because their upbringing fostered that. They're emotionally normal and well adjusted. You don't have to be a philosopher to love yourself.
For those of us that did not get appropriate love in their upbringing, or even learnt self hatred, we will spend significant time down the track learning acceptance. That's when you need a lot of self awareness, because you will need to uproot a lot to move towards a more helpful emotional system.
As someone who's had to do extensive work on myself to survive I can relate to a lot of things said here. I have gone through a lot of material on psychology and spend a lot of time thinking myself when I read or go through the material. This was after 3 years of medication and 20 years of suffering and reaching the point of wanting badly to end my life due to multiple factors growing up.
What I would suggest if you wanted to start working on yourself building healthier relationships with yourself and others:
First is find a suitable therapist. Shop for a therapist like you shop for clothes. Do a session or two and see what you feel. What you need depends on what you are going through. Depression panic anxiety marriage health etc. But don't continue therapy where you don't feel good. There wont be a perfect fit but 'good enough' is someone you can talk to and is compassionate and helps you to do well. They will also assign small homework and that is important. The right therapist will be on your team and slowly nudge you in the right direction (though with your knowledge not sneakily). This builds trust.
Second would be start working on your body. Your body is just as important as your mind. And the two are very interlinked. Yoga, Mindfulness, being more present (ditch your phones and social media accounts), exercise, food, etc. all contribute to your mental wellbeing which will help you create a good relationship with yourself. Once you give the body the love it needs, it will give it back to you.
Third would be to do some reading on mental health and books by psychologists. The thing is you will get lot of insights on your own life reading all that. But be careful too, it might bring up intense memories (like trauma) that can be dangerous. So go slow. Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, Bessel van Der Kolk, Gottman, Richard Shwartz, David Burns, beane Browne etc. Such authors are actively doing work on the cognitive side of things. Some have extreme theories so look for things that apply to you.
I will admit that I was skeptical of the whole 'change your thoughts and things will change' and to some extent I still think that it's not the whole story. But you have to do the self work and your mind is a big part of it. I am very far from building healthy relationships in my life but I think I am having a good relationship with myself lately. I may have gone a few notches down in depression and things have improved.
There is a lot more to share tbh on this but these things are something I did in the last two years that seem to have helped.
This feels like a weird combo of "I know talking about this subject will put the thought in people's minds, but I still want to talk about it and say the same thing exactly while at the same time showing that I think it's problematic". But then why do it?
You say it all with so much certainty. Why do you think your approach is better than the other commenter? (Also, certainty is a tipoff, ime, of a lack of knowledge or wisdom.)
I think there's validity in avoiding gratuitous mentions of some topics given some audiences, but what I'm puzzled by is the specific implementation that to me makes it worse than just not thinking about it and writing what you'd write anyway. It really makes no sense, to me.
Well, I think that's pretty wise. Sorry to be so argumentative! :)
> I think there's validity in avoiding gratuitous mentions of some topics given some audiences, but what I'm puzzled by is the specific implementation that to me makes it worse than just not thinking about it and writing what you'd write anyway. It really makes no sense, to me.
I don't pretend to know enough about human psychology to have a certain answer, but here are my thoughts:
Words, specific words, have impacts beyond their meanings. For example, people use euphemisms all the time - gentle ways of saying something harsh - in many (all?) cultures, because they work. More generally, people say things politely rather than rudely or directly, even talking about happy things like sex, or natural things like excreting waste.
Perhaps it lessens the blow; it allows people to glance at something troubling without being retraumatized. It also signals care: Being polite communicates you care about and respect the other person; being rude conveys the opposite.
People have long made the logical point that the meaning is the same so why not say the rude thing, but clearly almost everyone feels otherwise and the words we choose have an impact beyond their meanings.
And in case it does help someone to obscure the word, why not do it?
> Obviously I speak in first person, makes zero sense, to me.
It's not obvious. People make assertions about the world all the time.
They activate different neural pathways? Might not apply to you but it probably applies to others. At least that's what GP believes, and I find it plausible too.
Sort of like illegal vs undocumented migrants. First time you hear, it may pass in different ways. But once you realize what’s the topic, people on both sides will read both words the same way. And both in their own ways. It just becomes a kind of virtue signaling after few uses.
People who study these things, including persuasive public communication, have a very different opinion. So do writers of every stripe, from technical writers to poets. The words we use matter.
For example, the sides in the abortion debate call themselves 'pro choice' and 'pro life', and call their opponents negative things. Goverments have long called targets who challenge the status quo, especially voilently, 'terrorists', even though their tactics may have nothing to do with terrorism. Political actors invest lots of money and work in finding the most effective words.
There's a difference between 'slaves' or 'colleteral damage', creatures or objects that play a role in someone else's actions, and 'enslaved people' or 'enslaved men and women' or 'people who were killed by the bomb', who are real humans caught up on something awful.
People use pejoritives for the same reason - for example, 'wetbacks' or 'illegals' for undocumented people, all sorts of names for enemies in warfare, etc.
Wording may make difference in marketing for on-the-spot decisions. But in the long run, when people take a deeper look, wording seems to not make a difference.
> I’m yet to see someone who switched camps because of pro life or undocumented wording.
How would you know how much influence that wording has?
Should everyone else just quit because someone is attacking? If someone attacks everything you do and say, does it mean anything substantively, or is it just a signal to their comrades?
I see people in various camps trying to use double speak as a weapon. And I don’t see people changing camps because of wording. And all camps are making fun of wording of the other side on any topic.
I’m not on US so here camps are slightly different and don’t exactly make two camps. With many topics crossing what you may call „reactionary“ and „progressive“ lines in strange ways. Here frequently people at the same time are in different camps on different topics with same people. And use same tactics both „with“ and „against“ same people based on topic.
> I don’t see people changing camps because of wording
I still don't see what evidence you have. I've presented evidence that experts and practioners have long invested a lot of resources in using language in this way. Just look at Fox News - it's almost their entire reason and means.
People have invested time in all sorts of useless ideas. And social sciences have a pretty bad track record in recent decades.
I’m not very familiar with Fox News. But isn’t it the example of what I’m saying? It does nothing to convert the other side and pretty much a circlejerk of believers?
How may Fox News watchers changed their minds because NYT started calling illegal migrants „undocumented“? My bet at best it’s feel-good virtue signaling for their crowd that was already deep in that camp.
I don't have a proof, but I think 'su**de' is a more appropriate form of 'suicide' here than 'suicide', just because it is.
Self-censorship is a worrying trend.
You can do it for a while but, the long lasting stuff, you need that personal foundation.
Easily said but difficult to do for many.
It requires a level of self awareness and an acknowledgement of your strengths and weaknesses and how they impact yourself and others. But like a doctor, the first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis.
Something something Jungian shadow work or something.
I love this formulation and will add it to my collection of aphorisms. I myself like a similar phrasing: one cannot pour from an empty cup.
I think the biggest thing that the "self-love prerequisite" idea misses and that the article sort of indirectly gets at is that this feeling of social self-efficacy is something most (all?) people learn through successful relationships with others - sometimes in our upbringing, sometimes not. I don't think it's unnatural at all for others' love of us to outpace our own just a little.
Except you can, you can be a middle layer. I'm not just nitpicking on the analogy failing at the first degree, you can love someone much more than you love yourself, and the nature of what you bring to them doesn't need to be how you deal with yourself.
People raising kids in particular are supporting a level of self abuse that flies in the face of the analogy. They also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed. But asking them to treat themselves like they treat their kid just doesn't work in any practical way.
how do you figure that? or, what exactly do you mean here? i don't exactly treat my kids the way i treat myself, but that's because we have different needs. but i most certainly don't treat my kids worse or better than myself.
you also say: they also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed
exactly, so where is the self-abuse?
And that's fine, that's an arrangement I'm choosing, and that's what makes the most sense. We're also getting something back emotionally, but I'd never expect for the whole thing to be balanced, and it would be crazy to expect as much from my kid as we're pouring into it.
T I don't know how it works for you, that's just not what raising kids is in our society today. We'd have to get back to sending kids to work 8h a day if we stick to the simplistic "treat others like you treat yourself" view of the world.
And I think more generally, that's not how caring for loved ones work. You can't be doing mental bookkeeping, the whole concept is just weird.
> self abuse
If we remove all the emotion and human aspects of it, sleeping a total of 4h in 3 days to keep an ill small human alive is self abuse.
As a parent the physical/mental efforts and money I'm spending raising a kid aren't reciprocal to anything I'm doing for myself.
why? i mean, i agree they aren't equal, but i do for my kids what they need, and for myself what i need. so i consider it fair, neither to much, nor to little.
I'd never expect for the whole thing to be balanced
my definition of balanced is that everyone gets what they need. so yeah, it's absolutely balanced for me. or at least i try to make it balanced.
it would be crazy to expect as much from my kid as we're pouring into it
strongly disagree on that point, however, what i expect from my kids is what they do in the future. my dad stopped pouring anything into me when i moved out of the house. simply because i moved far away and we had little contact. which was fine. i now spend a lifetime giving to others what i learned from my dad. i expect my kids to do the same. for me it's the whole point of raising them. for them to go out and pay things forward.
We'd have to get back to sending kids to work 8h a day if we stick to the simplistic "treat others like you treat yourself" view of the world.
this doesn't make any sense to me at all.
but then, i am a freelancer, and i work on what i want, when i want. i don't work 8hrs a day either. so maybe i am an exception here, and i treat myself better than the average person? but even with a full-time job i don't think i would feel different.
also, we are sending kids to school. that's their "job" and it's just just as hard. including homework some kids work more than their parents.
mental bookkeeping
i don't do bookkeeping. all i am doing is making sure that i am well, and my family is well too.
sleeping a total of 4h in 3 days to keep an ill small human alive is self abuse
disagree calling that abuse. it's a sacrifice. but when that happens i'd take time off work, including a few days afterwards to recover. self-abuse implies that i should not do it. instead i make sure i get enough sleep on normal days. i am 50, and i am still able to pull the occasional all-nighter. not regularly, but i can if i have to.
"I love eating delicious food" is a totally sensible sentence with involves only the self and an inanimate object, and arguably only the self because it is about your own enjoyment and actions more so than the food itself.
"I love computers", etc etc.
Love is broad, it can be shared, it can be unrequited, it can be with an inanimate object or with an abstract concept. The object can certainly be the self.
Maybe it is a British cultural difference, however, 'loving oneself' and the language of 'self love' definitely makes me cringe.
Hence, I prefer to think of 'not hating oneself' as the area to improve on. From time to time I do hate myself. This can be from letting someone down or from an accidental misunderstanding. This is when I truly loathe myself and only the passage of time will help me move on from 'shameful behaviour', but that self-hate will never fully go away.
In these situations, any talk of 'self love' really won't help. What does help is to have friends to confide in, and sometimes they provide some perspective that is helpful. Maybe they have also upset the same person and can reassure me that I meant no harm.
This service can have cookies switched off, though "legitimate interest" is left on.
"Legitimate interest" sounds innocent, yet it is not.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
If you scroll down the dilog box for this service you will find a link to "vendor preferences".
Click this, and you will find dozens of companies, with many having "legitimate interest" switched on. I find this deceptive (hiding this, essentially, and also using "legitimate interest".
If I really want to read what the site says I laboriously click no to legitimate interest, though usually I just close the page.
You can accept yourself and be content/happy and still want to learn new skills, try new hobbies, and grow.
I think the better word here is contempt.
Bit of a corollary but I've just never been motivated by love. E.g. I don't feel driven to perform well because I love my teammates or love my company or love the world and want to do good by them. It's always a hatred-contempt of wanting to prove someone wrong or to prove that everyone else has been doing it wrong (whether on a team level or a world level). That's actually why I stopped being too chummy with my direct teammates. If you like someone too much, you lose the desire to brutally outshine them. Some part of you pulls you toward the group average so as not to become ostracized.
I don't think that a genuine love for humanity will give you the energy to do good for humanity. It must come from hatred-contempt, there is no other way. "Let me show you fucking animals...". It will never come from "I love you all so much let me build this for you."
You still grow but in the direction and with the motivation you decided.
That's not a good definition of love. Counterexample: most parents love their children, and yet don't just accept them for who they are (at the moment), but try to change them for the better, by raising them. You can love yourself in the same way.
Growth, as we mean it, is a positive thing. It isn't a value statement that you are inferior as you are and only through growth will you have value and be acceptable.
Accepting (and loving) yourself for who you are is seeing that you have innate value with all else stripped away. It doesn't matter if you never grow, or in fact, if you decline (as we all do, if we live long enough). You see that you still have worth despite this. You have your lifetime of experiences, your hopes, your dreams, that which makes you who you are.
Growth is one of life's biggest joys. Depriving yourself would be a shame. When you have accepted yourself for who you are and then srive for growth you aren't saying, "Once I have achieved X, I'll be more worthy of acceptance and love". You are instead saying, "Let me explore the heights to which I can climb in this human experience". You might epicly fail, but that is alright, because you are fine with who you are. On the other hand, if you are insecure with who you are and don't love yourself, then growth becomes a risky endeavor. Should you fail, it is further proof that you are an inferior person as you weren't able to live up to your ambitions.
> It is commonly, and truly, said that you can only love someone as well as you love yourself.
> I’ve worked with patients [...]
I wish it was clear from the start that they're looking at it through a pathological lens. The advice is worded as some generic fortune cookie wisdom, and I personally think that's a pretty big leap.
In general people should care about themselves and understand their impact on others. But that doesn't need to be "love", and the author seems aware of it, as the nitty gritty parts he describes are more varied than some single umbrella approach.
The "love yourself" meme has been used and abused for so long, I personally found it grating and inadequate for the people we wish to actually help. I'd wish we retire it.
There's some people that think "they are depressive" the same way some people think "they have a penchant for being late to things". All these negative self images just perpetuate behaviors and trains of thought that go nowhere positive.
There's a lot of regular people that hear that and think that's justification to being narcissistic selfish assholes, but that's like all advice, you should first see if it applies to you.
I see depression as specific states that requires different handling. The analogy is limited, but if you break your arm you'll heal it in different ways than if you're just tired.
For people not reaching critical states, creating a positive image of one self doesn't need to come from within. As the article points out, one can start by interacting with others, and getting enough positivity from it to also change self-perception or at least self management.
To borrow another meme, "believe in me that believes in you" effectively works as well.
I agree that anything can become overused cliche. Still, I think the parent comment is like saying, 'people need sustenance but that doesn't need to be water'. There is nothing more essential.
People need love like we need water. We are social organisms, living in groups; we are not like bears who live alone. The lack of love makes us ill and drives us to madness. We've seek, with everything we have, to love and be loved; you can see it in love between parent and child, between family, friends, and romantic partners. These things are universal to humanity - you can find them in every culture, and every culture's stories. Evolution, survival of the fittest, etc. has resulted in that.
And it starts with love of self; how could you love someone else, or be comfortable with them loving you, if you didn't think you were worth love. I've never heard of anyone who seriously studies such things say otherwise; I'd be interested in any references to such people.
The analogy is apt enough IMHO, so let me stretch it.
You wouldn't tell someone holding a melon they absolutely need water or they'll die. You'd tell them to eat the melon, and see if they can get more water from there. If all their hydration ends up coming from different sources than pure water, you wouldn't tell them they're screwed.
The "love yourself" sounds the same to me. There's a thousand ways people can deal with themselves. Self preservation, understanding what they bring to others, what they mean to others why they're needed can and will happen outside of what people call "love".
In particular that "advice" will be pushed toward people who can be in the worst place to reinterpret and adapt it to their needs.
But those things don't provide love, which is (also) essential. People need love even to pursue self-preservation and helping others; it's the people without love that commit s*de.
Why is it important to build a model that excludes love, which seems obvious and overwhelmingly present?
To put it a bit bluntly, there's a laziness in wording it that way that IMHO comes with a real cost.
We're starting to go in circles becauase I think you are assuming there is some other message. Love is the fundamental of the message (see GP), according to almost everyone with expertise and many others who have thought about it and experienced it (as far as I know).
That doesn't make it undeniable; still I think we need to address it to go forward. On what grounds do you dismiss it? Inconvenience isn't related to truth.
once i learn to accept (grateful receipt of) myself (who i am, what i’ve done, what’s been done to me, what i do today) then it’s easier to accept (grateful receipt of) other people (who they are etc).
compassion is possibly apt too
> Deep awareness of the suffering of another accompanied by the wish to relieve it