How to Stop Hating Yourself

In this episode of Permission to Love, we dive deep into the pervasive struggle of self-hatred and how to begin the journey toward self-love. 

As a part of this episode we examine the research-backed strategies and practical tools to help you break free from cycles of self-loathing. 

Learn how to reprogram the negative beliefs that have been holding you back and embrace the transformational power of self-compassion. 

Whether you've struggled with self-esteem for years or are just beginning to recognize these patterns, this episode offers a roadmap to healing.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the roots of self-hatred and how it manifests in daily life
• The role of childhood trauma, societal pressures, and internalized criticism
• How to disrupt negative thought patterns using cognitive tools
• The power of self-love mantras and habit reformation
• Practical exercises, like the 30-day mirror challenge, to rewire your brain for self-compassion

Free Self-Love Webinar: Join me  for a FREE webinar on "Learning How to Love Yourself" this Wednesday, February 5th, at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Register 👉 here or visit www.jerryhenderson.org/selflovewebinar 

Chapters: 

00:00 - Welcome and Introduction: Practicing Self-Compassion
00:41 - The Prevalence of Self-Hatred and Why It Matters
05:45 - The Possibility of Change and Reprogramming Your Mind
09:11 - How Self-Hatred Manifests in Daily Life
13:01 - Understanding the Programming of Self-Hatred
17:13 - Research on Causes of Self-Hatred: Childhood Trauma and Societal Influences
20:09 - You Don't Actually Hate Yourself: An IFS Perspective
26:34 - Healing the Underlying Pain Beneath Self-Hatred
30:44 - Breaking Free: Key Steps to Letting Go of Self-Hatred
38:56 - Practical Tools: Self-Love Mantras and Positive Affirmations
46:57 - The 30-Day Mirror Exercise: Telling Yourself "I Love You"
50:00 - Webinar Invitation and Coaching Program Details

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Jerry

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Chapters

• 0:00 Overcoming Self-Hatred and Finding Self-Love
• 9:11 Breaking Free From Self-Hatred
• 16:12 Embracing Self-Worth and Letting Go
• 21:23 Unlearning Self-Hatred, Embracing Self-Love
• 31:52 Disrupting Self-Hatred Cycle
• 41:20 Shift to Self-Love Through Action
• 49:00 Building Self-Love Muscle & Resilience

Transcript

Jerry Henderson: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Permission to Love podcast. I'm your host, jerry Henderson, and I am so happy to be here with you today and I want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing this time with me. I just want to encourage you for a moment, before we get started in this episode, to be kind to yourself, to be gentle with yourself, to practice self-compassion, self-acceptance, practicing self-care Each one of those are so important in order for us to have a healthy, thriving relationship with ourselves and with others. So take a moment, be kind to yourself and direct some compassion towards yourself in this moment.

Jerry Henderson: 0:41

Now, today, we're diving into a topic that's deeply personal for many of us and, honestly, deeply personal for me, and this subject, this topic, is one of the reasons that I started this podcast on giving ourselves the permission to love ourselves, and the topic today how to stop hating yourself. I know that might sound intense, but the truth is self-hatred and self-loathing are more common than we often realize. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly 85% of people struggle with low self-esteem at some point in their lives, and chronic self-loathing or self-hatred affects 20% of adults, or one in five people. So one in five people that you encounter are going to be struggling with this, and you might be one of them, and if you are, that's okay. And if you are, I'm glad you're here today listening to this episode. Now, even though so many people are struggling with this, there is good news, fantastic news, and it's that you were not born with self-hatred. It's something that's been learned, it's something that got programmed in us over time, and the way it might have gotten programmed is by our family of origin, toxic relationships or the way that we speak to ourselves. That's embedding it into our nervous system. And why is it such great news that it's something that you learned, something that got programmed? Because if it's something that we've learned and it's something that got programmed in us, we can reprogram it, we can unlearn it. You know I talk often about how a lot of healing is not about what we learn, but a lot of it is about what we unlearn letting go of patterns and belief systems that don't serve us anymore, unlearning toxic thinking patterns, unlearning what feels familiar to our nervous system, making that which feels familiar feel unfamiliar, and that which feels unfamiliar self-love becoming familiar to us.

Jerry Henderson: 2:52

So now, before we move on, I just want to take a moment with you and I want to ask you are you struggling with self-hatred? And if you are, how long have you been struggling with it? How has it been impacting your life, your relationships, how has it been holding you back? Has it caused you to play small? Has it caused you to self-sabotage? What has this belief, what has this feeling, been doing in your life?

Jerry Henderson: 3:21

Now I want you to take a moment and imagine how would you feel if you didn't carry that sense of self-hatred. What would life look like without it? Now you might say I can't even imagine, I can't even put my head around that, because it feels so true to me that self-hatred feels like a part of who I am, and so the idea of not hating myself or not loathing myself and who I am, I can't even wrap my brain around that and I want to say that's okay. It's okay if you can't see yourself doing it, if you can't imagine it. That's where we all start, okay. I just want to encourage you to take a moment right now and just try. Give it a shot. And if it feels very uncomfortable to you, awkward to you, you feel a lot of resistance around it, that's okay as well, and that's normal as well, because if you've been practicing self-hatred, self-loathing and having a sense of low self-esteem, it takes some time to begin to reprogram that and get comfortable with finding your way out of it.

Jerry Henderson: 4:31

So if you can't imagine not hating yourself, then take a moment and ask this question how would it feel to not have that burden in your life right now? Just take a moment and imagine what would it look like, or what would it feel like if that burden was relieved from you for just a moment. Because if right now you can't wrap your mind around what that would look like long term, you can just pause in this moment and begin to think about what would it feel like to pull that burden off of your back or outside of you, or you carry it, maybe you carry it in your chest, maybe you carry it in your gut. If you were just to give yourself permission to lay that aside for just a second, what would that feel like? Are you able to do that right now? And if you are, what does it feel like? How much lighter would you feel if you weren't always telling yourself how much you hate yourself, always feeling like a loser, always feeling like you're not enough, that you can't do enough, that you'll never learn how to love yourself. How much lighter would you be if you didn't have to carry that burden anymore.

Jerry Henderson: 5:45

Well, I want to tell you something it is possible to let go of it. Even if you can't see it right now, it is possible. I absolutely know it. I know it. I know it to the core of my being. I've seen it happen in my life, I've seen it happen in the lives of others, and that thing that keeps you from having hope that it can change, that it will change for you, is that self-hate talking expressing itself, trying to pull you back to what feels comfortable. And that's one of the big paradoxes or challenges with self-hatred is that we hate that part, we hate the self-hatred, but we also keep finding ourselves going back to it because in so many ways it feels comfortable, it feels like home and, as we'll talk about later, it feels safe to us.

Jerry Henderson: 6:41

But I want to let you know that just because it feels safe, just because it feels normal to you, just because it feels like such a part of your life doesn't mean that you have to stay stuck in it. You can heal that part of you. You can heal the part of you that you feel like hates yourself. You truly can. You can learn to love all the parts of yourself, accept all the parts of yourself and let go of that self-hatred. And today I'm going to be sharing some personal insights, some research and some practical tools to help you start to let go of that self-hatred and to start moving towards self-acceptance and self-love.

Jerry Henderson: 7:27

Now, on that note of self-love, before we go any further, I want to extend an invitation to you to be a part of a free webinar that I'm hosting this Wednesday, february the 5th, at 10 am Pacific Time, which is 1 pm Eastern time. The topic learning how to love yourself, discovering the transformational power of self-love. It's only one hour and it's completely free. So if you'd like to learn more about what self-love is, what might be blocking you from practicing self-love and then how to actually start practicing it, then join me for this free webinar. Once again, it's Wednesday, february the 5th, at 10 am Pacific time, which is 1 pm Eastern time. You can register for the event by seeing the show notes in this episode or you can go to my website at jerryhendersonorg forward slash selflovewebinar. That's all one word selflovewelove webinar. I hope to see you there as we gather together to explore how we can learn to love ourselves.

Jerry Henderson: 8:32

So let's jump back into today's topic on how to start letting go of self-hatred. Now let's start off by understanding what self-hatred really is. It's defined as a pervasive pattern of negative self-evaluation involving chronic self-criticism, feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt and contempt towards oneself. It's often rooted in past experiences of trauma, rejection or failure. Now, self-hatred or self-loathing has also been described or defined as an intense dislike or negative perception of oneself.

Jerry Henderson: 9:11

Now, it is important to distinguish between the occasional self-criticism that many of us might experience from time to time and deep-rooted self-hatred. Those are two different things. Right, we all struggle with being critical and learning how to love ourselves and speak to ourselves kindly, but that's different than this sense of a deep rooted self-hatred that's gotten wired in our nervous system. It's become a part of our personality, our thought patterns, the way we allow ourselves to be treated by others, etc. Because everyone has moments when they feel down about themselves, right. But when that feeling becomes persistent and pervasive, that's when it crosses into self-hatred territory. Now let's talk about how does self-hatred manifest. What does it look like? How does it show up? Well, it might look like very persistent negative self-talk. That little voice in your head ain't so little anymore. It's always pointing out what you did wrong, never allows you to celebrate any of your wins.

Jerry Henderson: 10:15

Now, for many people who struggle with self-hatred, they might avoid looking at themselves in the mirror or in photos. I remember working with a client who had most of the mirrors removed in their house and they would never look at themselves in the mirror and they didn't like looking at pictures of themselves. Why? Because it triggered all of these self-hatred feelings. It caused them to start beating themselves up. They began to get flooded with shame and we really had to work on how could they begin to let go of all of those feelings of self-hatred, how could they move towards self-love? We went through a process, a transformational process of helping them let go of all those stories, all the stuff that was stored in their nervous system every time they saw themselves in the mirror. That triggered this cascade of shame, self-judgment, everything that began to unfold as we began to understand the sources of that self-hatred, that self-loathing, and allowed that to heal and then begin to move towards practices of self-love. They eventually got to the point where they could look in the mirror and tell themselves that they loved themselves. So if that's you and you struggle with even seeing your image or looking at yourself in photos, I want to encourage you. You can heal, you can transform and you can get to the place where you look at that image of yourself and your response begins to become one of self-compassion, self-acceptance and self-love.

Jerry Henderson: 11:41

Now, another way that self-hatred will manifest itself is engaging in self-destructive behaviors, like engaging in substance abuse, self-sabotaging behaviors, self-harming behaviors, or choosing relationships that reinforce those negative beliefs about yourself, that you're choosing people who will treat you the way that you feel like you should be treated, the way that you feel like you should be treated, or, to more accurately say it, choosing people who will treat you the way that feels familiar, which is the way that you've been treating yourself. A few other ways that it might show up is overly perfectionistic behavior, so that you can try to prove to yourself and others that you're not what you feel about yourself. We might be struggling with the imposter syndrome. You might be having chronic feelings of inadequacy. You see, all of these can be expressions or manifestations of self-hatred, because we feel like there's something wrong with us, that we're broken and that we need to try to figure out how to prove ourselves, fix ourselves, and no matter what we do, we still feel like an imposter, we still feel inadequate, which then creates another loop of self-loathing because we think, hey, no matter what I do, it doesn't work. So yeah, I must be fundamentally broken, there must be fundamentally something wrong with me. But I want to encourage you, it's not that, it's wiring.

Jerry Henderson: 13:01

So let's go on to start talking about understanding self-hatred. Here's something crucial, critical to understand about self-hatred. As I alluded to earlier, you've been programmed to hate yourself. That's right. Self-hatred often comes from external sources, in the beginning, your upbringing, the culture, societal pressures. And then we take all of those external things and we begin to internalize them, and then we begin to program ourselves around self-hatred and over time, these external influences, and our own internal narrative added to it, create a narrative in your mind that tells you you're not good enough, there's something wrong with you, you're not worthy of love and you're not worthy of your own love.

Jerry Henderson: 13:55

And what happens is we get stuck in a loop and a pattern of that, and then our behaviors begin to reinforce our belief system, which we then think is evidence to confirm the way that we feel about ourselves. But what's actually happening is that the way that we feel about ourselves is producing the evidence. It's backwards. The evidence isn't confirming or proving to you that you're unworthy of love or proving to you that you're unworthy of love. Your belief system is driving the actions. That's producing what you call evidence of your unlovability. And so, if we can reverse that and realize that my behavior and my choices are the outcome of my beliefs, where did the beliefs come from? They got wired in me. They feel natural and normal to me. Even though I hate them, I don't like doing them, they still are serving me in some way.

Jerry Henderson: 14:51

And what we have to realize is that self-hatred is a habit, not a fact. And if you can recognize it as a habit, it is the first step towards breaking free from it. Because what that does is it creates some distance from us and the self-hatred, the loop, the pattern of self-hatred, the programming that got wired into us, that's been following us around for so many years that we feel like a prisoner of. But the truth is it's a habit, it's a pattern, it's programming. I mean, think about the stories you've been telling yourself. Maybe it's I'm a terrible partner, I'm a horrible parent, or I'm always screwing things up, or I'm just not good enough, or I'm a piece of crap, I'm so stupid, I hate myself, I'm worthless. All of those messages, all of those thoughts, all of those emotions, all of those things, when you say it, you are programming self-hatred into your system and it's become a habit, it's become a core belief. And once again, here's the great news Programming habits and core beliefs are all changeable. We can change every single one of them.

Jerry Henderson: 16:12

Now you might be saying but you don't know what I've done. You're right, I don't know. And I don't need to know to know that your mistakes don't define your worth. Everyone makes mistakes. Let me say it again Everyone makes mistakes. But you might be saying not as many mistakes as I've made or not the type of mistakes that I've made. Everybody makes mistakes and that doesn't mean that you are unworthy of love. And that doesn't mean that you are unworthy of love and it doesn't mean you have to keep on hating yourself and punishing yourself. You can let go of self-hatred. I'm going to keep saying that over and over in this episode because I want to drive home the point and I want your ears to hear it and I want it to spark some hope in you to go. I don't have to stay in this place anymore. It might be a long journey out of it, it might be a short journey out of it, but whatever it is, there is a journey and a path out of it.

Jerry Henderson: 17:13

Now let's talk a little bit about some of the research behind what are some of the causes of self-hatred? Number one childhood trauma. Research from the Journal of Psychological Trauma links adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, to lifelong self-esteem issues. Let me just say that again Childhood trauma is linked to lifelong self-esteem issues. Now, that does not mean that you have to carry it for the rest of your life. It means that it can have a lifelong impact on us if we don't deal with it. And I want to tell you something the trauma that you experienced as a child was not your fault, and the outcome of experiencing low self-esteem from having childhood trauma is not your fault. We're going to talk about that some more here in just a minute.

Jerry Henderson: 18:16

In an environment where you are constantly criticized, neglected or abused, it can leave deep scars that begin to manifest as self-hatred later in life. Now the second thing is cultural and societal influences. We're constantly bombarded with unrealistic beauty standards societal pressures to achieve. We're also hit by all of these things in the media television, movies, etc. Social media that make us feel like we're not enough. So it's no wonder we begin to internalize those messages and we compare ourselves to others. And what's wrong with me that? I'm not like that. But once again I want to encourage you try to stay out of the comparison trap. I know it can be hard, but when we get into a comparison trap, the natural result of that is going to be a lot of self-criticism, and a lot of self-criticism can lead us down a path of self-loathing and self-hatred.

Jerry Henderson: 19:16

Now the third thing which I just mentioned is that internalized criticism is a big factor for self-hatred. We talked about this a little bit that if you grew up with critical caregivers, you might have internalized their voices. Research shows that this internalized criticism which means that you're in there repeating what somebody else said about you and you've adopted the voice of your abuser, of your criticizer that that whole story that you're replaying can become the story that you believe about yourself. And when you begin to adopt that as the story, as the belief of yourself, no wonder why you're going to feel that self-loathing and that self-hatred. Now, research also shows that issues such as depression, anxiety and other mental and emotional challenges can exacerbate self-hatred.

Jerry Henderson: 20:09

It can make it feel like it's inescapable. You can feel so enmeshed with it and it can begin to feel like it's not just a part of you, but it is you. It's who you are. Self-hatred is who you are, not something that you're doing towards yourself, and that can feel very painful. But it also leads me into our next point, which is that you don't actually hate yourself. Can I say it one more time? You don't actually hate yourself. Now this might be surprising to you. You might feel like, well, I do hate myself. I know I hate myself. I know how I feel about myself. Take a moment, take a breath and just receive these words you don't actually hate yourself. I know you feel like you do. I know you've been carrying it for years. I know it feels like you'll never be able to escape it. Maybe you feel like you've tried everything. Let me just invite you to be open to the concept for just a moment that you don't hate yourself and give me a chance to explain why I don't believe that you really do hate yourself.

Jerry Henderson: 21:23

Now, many of you know I love the work of Internal Family Systems, which was started by Dr Richard Schwartz, also known as IFS for short, and I use it often with many of my clients because I have found it to be such an effective way to help people, to create a gap, to create distance from beliefs, from thoughts, from behaviors, from emotions and from their authentic self. And when it comes to self-hatred, here's what I want you to know from an IFS or PARTS approach that there's a part of you that feels self-hatred towards yourself, but it is not the whole you or the authentic self of who you are. Let me just dig into that a little bit more. There is a part of you that is trying to protect you, to serve you, to keep you safe, and it thinks that hating yourself is going to keep you safe. Are you confused? I was too, when I started doing the work of IFS.

Jerry Henderson: 22:29

So let me just walk you through a quick example of how self-hatred can be a protective mechanism, how it can be trying to serve us. For example, it might be your attempt or a part of you that's trying to keep you safe from further pain or rejection. You might be saying to yourself consciously, subconsciously if I criticize myself first, no one else will be able to hurt me. If I can beat myself up, hate myself and be as cruel to myself as possible, then when other people do it to me, I've got a shield, I've got tough skin, I've grown some calluses around those spots, and so it's not as painful, it's not as damaging as if I didn't practice my own self-loathing, my own self-hatred. Now that part of you might also be thinking well, if I think that I'm stupid and I tell myself that I'm stupid, then it won't matter so much if others think I'm stupid, if I hate me, then the rejection of others won't sting as much because I'm already expecting it. I already knew I was a terrible person. I already knew that I didn't deserve a loving, healthy relationship. So it allows me to stay on guard. It allows me to stay protected. If I hate myself and believe I've always been a screw-up and I'll always will be a screw-up, it'll keep me safe from trying something new and it'll keep me safe by keeping me in the comfort zone of feeling small, limited and not exploring my highest capacity.

Jerry Henderson: 24:03

And when we've experienced trauma and we've been shut down and we've not been seen or whatever the story is, and we felt like we've had to hide ourself. Well, hating ourselves, shaming ourselves, will keep us from trying to shine, to keep us from trying to be seen, because we don't want anybody to see how we feel about ourselves. We don't want anybody to see the person that we believe that we are, and so it keeps us away from people, and so it's a protective mechanism. That part of you that feels like you hate yourself is actually trying to help you and it is actually, in a very strange, brain-breaking way, a loving act towards yourself. And think about it.

Jerry Henderson: 24:46

Listen, for many of us who've experienced trauma or had painful life experiences and we went down the path of feeling like there's something wrong with us and we started to hate ourselves. Hating ourselves feels familiar to the decisions that we made as children or the decisions that we made as a result of the pain that we've experienced. So, having experienced that abuse and then the message that we chose to believe about ourselves and the self-hatred that was developed as a way to cope with what was happening because I must have been bad to have those things happen to me, right, that's a coping mechanism to try to keep us safe because, as I've shared before, that if we believe that we're the problem. We can then try to figure out how to fix ourselves, how to solve us as the problem, and if we can do that, then we'll stay safe. Now, unfortunately, that feeling has become our home and if I feel that way as a result of programming and as a default mechanism about the way I see myself, that's tried to keep me safe, it then feels very uncomfortable to not feel that way, and so we're going to continue to gravitate towards that self-loathing, that self-hatred, that shame, as long as we think that it's us, as long as we think it's something that's broken about us that we feel that way towards ourselves. You're not broken because you feel self-hatred towards yourself. You're not. It's a way that you've learned to cope. It's a way that you've learned to stay safe. It's a way that you've used to avoid some of the deeper emotional pain.

Jerry Henderson: 26:34

Right, if I can put all the energy and the self-hatred and feeling that, then I don't have to look at some of the pain that's underneath there, that that self-hatred is coming from, or that, actually, more accurately, that that self-hatred is coming from, or that, actually, more accurately, that that self-hatred is trying to protect. It's trying to protect the part of you that needed to develop self-hatred as a coping mechanism. And when we go in and we do the work to heal the part of us that's needing protection, then the self-hatred will begin to relax because it doesn't feel like it needs to use that as a protection mechanism. It begins to let go, it begins to create some space and then it begins to find a new job. It then begins to go well, if I don't hate myself, could I be more accepting of myself? Could I be more loving towards myself? Could I be more loving towards myself? Can I be more compassionate towards myself? And it can absolutely happen. You can make that shift and one of the first places to start is realizing that you're not the self-hatred. There's a part of you that's using that as a coping mechanism to keep you safe and creating that distance. So you can observe it, so you can see it is an absolute game changer.

Jerry Henderson: 27:52

Listen, I've worked with people where it felt so uncomfortable for them to think about not hating themselves, for them to believe that they were worthy of love, felt mentally, emotionally and even physically uncomfortable, where it almost made them feel sick. They were repulsed by the idea of loving themselves, that they felt so horrible about themselves that the very idea of loving themselves, of saying to themselves I love you, felt disgusting to them. Those are words that I've heard over and over from people and when we're having those kind of responses emotionally, mentally, physically it tells us that that self-hatred is embedded in our nervous system. And if it's something that's embedded in our nervous system as a belief, as a reaction, as a habit, as programming, training, etc. We can go in there and we can begin to get it out of our nervous system. One of the most beautiful ways that it happens is through the practice of self-love, and you can get there. You can begin to love yourself.

Jerry Henderson: 29:02

Now I want to take a moment and I want to invite you to realize that all the things yes, even the most destructive things you do have positive intention. There are ways to try to keep you safe. Now, the outcomes are not always positive, right, the outcomes can be really painful, but the intention is always positive. We are trying to get needs met with our behaviors, with our beliefs, with our inner self-talk or whatever it is. It's trying to help you and, once again, often the outcomes are challenging and difficult to deal with. But I share all of that because it's a very important energy shift to make to see that there's that part of you, as we've discussed, that you feel like really hates you, that you feel like you hate yourself. It does have positive intentions. As I said, it's trying to keep you safe.

Jerry Henderson: 30:02

Yes, the outcomes aren't helpful. Yes, the outcomes can be destructive and they can be painful, but here's the truth. The authentic you, your authentic self, is the you who already loves yourself. It's just gotten layered over by a lot of pain and part of the healing work is unlayering the messages, the stories and the belief to see the part of us that still deeply and genuinely loves us, wants our best and is the part of us that can heal us. So how does that healing begin to take place? How do we begin to break free from self-hatred?

Jerry Henderson: 30:44

Let me just review a few things that we've already talked about. Number one, and maybe most importantly, realizing that you don't hate yourself is key, that you've been trying to keep yourself safe by carrying around that belief system Absolutely key and can be tremendously freeing. Number two recognize that it is programming, that we got programmed to hate ourselves and if we got programmed and it became a habit, we can unlearn it. Yes, you. You can reprogram your mind. And so how do we go about reprogramming ourselves? Well, the same way that we got programmed to hate ourselves, we can get programmed to love ourselves, and I've shared about this before, but I want to talk about it again because it really applies to this work of how we begin to let go of self-hatred. Well, number one we've had experiences, right, and from those experiences we gave meaning to them and we made decisions from them. And so if we had an experience of childhood trauma or painful relationships, we may have made the meaning that there's something wrong with us.

Jerry Henderson: 31:52

And then we've made the decision to begin to hate ourselves. And then that begins to become a loop, a narrative, right, and then from that later, anytime, we have a triggering event, like a mistake, a failure or rejection from somebody. When that happens, we then begin to interpret that event as a reflection of our own personal worth. Okay, so we have a triggering event. Then we begin to internalize it. We're interpreting that because that happened, it means this about me. And then we begin to reinforce that belief.

Jerry Henderson: 32:28

We repeat the negative self-talk and that becomes a habit, a self-criticism, it becomes our default, because that neural pathway has gotten so grooved in your brain and it's become a habit. Right? There's a lot of research in habits where that first triggering event cascades a set of dominoes, basically, that almost are unconscious to us, that we have a trigger. We then create a meaning from that trigger. We might see it as a reflection of our self-worth, and that hits the next domino, which is we start to repeat the negative self-talk, we begin to ingrain that and that's become a default pathway for us and it's a habit. And we don't even realize that it's a habit. We just think it's the way that we talk to ourself. No, the way that you talk to yourself is a habit. You learned to talk to yourself the same way that you learned to do anything else in life. You practice it over and over, you say it over and over, and then it's a habit in your life.

Jerry Henderson: 33:29

And then, from there, the next domino that hits is the behavior, the expression of what we do. We then engage in self-sabotaging behaviors because we're trying to confirm the way that we feel about ourselves, right, that if I'm feeling this terrible about myself, I must be terrible. And so, subconsciously we start acting out, we start sabotaging. We might just say screw it, I knew I was always a failure. I knew I was always going to be rejected. And then we spiral down into those behaviors that continue to reinforce the way that we feel, that provide more evidence, more experiences for us, that then go all the way back up to that triggering event. And every time a trigger shows up, boom, cascade Event that then hits the next domino of internalizing it, associating it with our self-worth. Boom, next domino, beating ourselves up, negative self-talk. And then boom, next domino. We begin to manifest behaviors that align with the way that we're feeling about ourselves. And then guess what Cycle just keeps repeating.

Jerry Henderson: 34:34

Now that leads me to the third thing about how do we bring change, how do we move out of self-hatred, self-loathing? We disrupt that cycle and a part of it is understanding that loop that I just shared and I want to go into that just a little bit more deeply. You see, between every event and a response is a space or a gap, and what we do in that gap is everything. Now I just want to take a moment and break it down in terms of habit language, because it is a habit, and we spent some time understanding how that's getting ingrained in us. So let's dive into how we can disrupt that cycle and a key part of it is understanding habit formation. We have a triggering event, which in habit formation is called the cue, the thing that cues up that chain reaction, as we talked about a thought, a memory, a person, an environment, et cetera.

Jerry Henderson: 35:31

Now the second thing, response, as we talked about. Subconsciously and habitually, we start diving into negative self-talk, self-loathing. Now, once again, that is the programming and it's also chemically wired into you. The chemicals that get released in that whole process of negative self-talk, all the things that you're doing that are causing you to feel that self-hatred, all of that stuff is further wiring it into our systems. Now, the fact that all that's taking place doesn't make it hopeless, doesn't mean that we can't change it. I'm just explaining how that process works so that it can give you some understanding of how you can change that process, how you can disrupt the cycle.

Jerry Henderson: 36:16

And then, after we have that internal response and all that wiring, then we have the outcome, that emotional spiral that leads into those behaviors, et cetera. So I know I might be sounding repetitive about everything I'm sharing here, about how these things get wired in us and how that cycle happens, but I really want to make sure that we get a hold of this. We have a cue, thought, trigger, memory, environment, person, etc. We have a response which can be negative self-talk, feelings of self-loathing, etc. Then we have the outcome that emotional spiral, that behavior, feelings of self-loathing, et cetera. Then we have the outcome that emotional spiral, that behavior, sabotaging, et cetera. And what we need to do is we need to figure out how can we choose a new response Between the cue and the outcome. We have the ability to choose response.

Jerry Henderson: 37:02

Even if you feel like you're powerless to change that response right now, I want to let you know that you're not. You can choose a new response. And is that new response going to feel very uncomfortable at first? Absolutely, and I've said this before, used this example before. It's like trying to switch from riding with your left hand to riding with your right hand Very uncomfortable, very strange, feels unfamiliar. It's like trying to correct a bad tennis group or a bad golf swing. Right, why are those things so uncomfortable? Why are they so hard to break? Because they become muscle memory. These belief systems are muscle memory. That response, muscle memory, habit okay, and those habituated habits and responses feel very uncomfortable to change. But it doesn't mean that you can't, and it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you and it doesn't mean that it's wrong to try to change it and it doesn't mean that it's true about us just because it's hard for us to change it.

Jerry Henderson: 38:01

You have the ability in that moment to step into that little window that happens between the cue and the outcome, the event and the outcome, that little space. You have the ability and the power to step into it. One of the things that helps us do that is realizing that that's the pattern that's happening. And then we realize that that's the pattern. And just because we have that habit doesn't mean that it's true. Just because we feel like we hate ourselves doesn't mean that we do. We've gotten used to it.

Jerry Henderson: 38:33

And if we can step into that moment with a new response, it begins to change the game. So you might be asking well, what can I do? What can I insert in that moment? What response can I have? Well, there's several things that you can do. The first is you can have a self-loving mantra that you have available, that you've been practicing.

Jerry Henderson: 38:56

When those feelings come up, you can begin to just tell yourself over and over I love myself, I'm worthy of love, or whatever the language is that you feel comfortable with, because what it's doing is it's just stopping that negative spiral and in that moment you really don't have to believe that you love yourself. Okay, this is going to take time, this is going to take work. What you're doing is you're just inserting a new response in that moment, and part of it can be just mindless if you want it to be. You just get in there in your brain and you start to repeat the words I love myself, I love myself, I love myself. You look in a mirror, I love myself, I love myself. And if you can't look in a mirror and do it, write it down I love myself, I love myself, okay.

Jerry Henderson: 39:49

And what you're doing simply in that moment is you're disrupting the cycle by inserting a new response, extremely powerful. I know it may not feel like it in the beginning, but you keep that up and your brain starts to let go of that highway that it's always gone down of self-hatred and we started to put up a road close sign and we're diverting it towards the language of I love myself, I love myself, I love myself. Your brain's going to be less likely over time to go down the pathway of. I hate myself. It's just absolutely going to happen. All of the neuroscience around this confirms it. It's rewiring your brain, and we rewire by disrupting and then starting to carve a new path. And this is key, right? We don't just try to stop thinking that old thought. We have to insert a new thought. We have to give our brain a new path to go towards, because if it only knows that one path and it doesn't have another option to go down to, it's just going to keep going back to the old path.

Jerry Henderson: 40:44

Another thing you can do is practice self-compassion. Acknowledge that part of you that feels the hatred. Ask it why it feels that way. Offer it self-compassion, treat that part of yourself as you would a good friend in that moment. And this is why that whole conversation around parts therapy and internal family systems is so important because you want to acknowledge it. Why are you here? How are you trying to serve me? How are you trying to keep me safe? Thank it for trying to do that for you and then treat it as you would a good friend in that moment.

Jerry Henderson: 41:20

And what this is going to do is it's going to activate that curiosity that I talked about, and the research behind curiosity is that it is a big disruptor in our mental patterns. It switches the energy from I should, or I need to be, or I wish I wasn't, to I wonder why I'm doing this. And that shift alone, with just that question, will switch your brain activation from that right side, which is avoidance, which is fear-based, that has all of the negative impact, and then it'll begin to shift you towards that left brain activation, which is the approach mechanism that invites you to come in, to understand. And when we seek understanding from ourselves, it's naturally going to begin to relax the part of us that might feel so much hatred towards ourselves. It allows it to relax, it allows it to feel seen, understood and actually activates a different part of your brain. Now, another thing that you can do in that moment to disrupt it and to give a new response is practice self-forgiveness.

Jerry Henderson: 42:24

When you're regretting something about the past, beating yourself up about something in the past, start repeating in your mind I forgive myself, I forgive myself, I forgive myself. Might even want to practice that right now I forgive myself, I forgive myself, and you say it over and over Now. I've done a previous episode on self-forgiveness and so if you need some help on how to do that. You can go back and listen to that episode, but right now, I just want to acknowledge that your past mistakes do not define who you are, and I'm not saying that we don't recognize that we've made mistakes in the past, but we have to separate them from our identity. We have to give ourselves the permission to forgive ourselves. So if the cue is a thought or a memory about something in the past and you start beating yourself up and shaming yourself for it, the new response instead of all of that self-loathing that you begin to activate can then begin I forgive myself, I forgive myself, I forgive myself.

Jerry Henderson: 43:29

Now, another thing that you can do to change the response is to actively practice a self-loving action. Do something in that moment that's self-loving. The self-loving thing could be, as what we talked about earlier, the self-love mantra. It could be getting up and taking a walk, moving your body, as a sign to yourself that you're going to be active, you're going to take care of yourself, that you're going to show yourself that you love yourself, and the fact that you're taking action can help disrupt that cycle, instead of sitting on the couch and going down that rabbit hole of all the reasons that you're terrible, as uncomfortable as it might feel. Taking an action that's self-loving towards yourself can help disrupt that cycle because you're giving yourself a new response in that moment to the trigger.

Jerry Henderson: 44:19

I want to remind you, as you're doing all this, realize you're rewiring yourself. You're rewiring an ingrained habit of self-hatred and, just like with any habit, you're going to need to keep at it and guess what? You're also going to begin to default to the old way of doing it. That's a natural part of habit change. And just because it keeps coming back up and you might continue to default back to the old way, it doesn't mean that you're not making progress. I want you to think about it like any habit you're trying to break or that you're trying to change, going to be a part of muscle memory that defaults back and you could be going for months feeling good about yourself, loving yourself, and all of a sudden something throws you off and you default back to the old way of thinking. That's a normal part of change.

Jerry Henderson: 45:09

I often tell people we don't change like up and to the right. The path is not always a straight line. A lot of times we spiral upward, we're continuing to kind of go around some of the same issues, but we're making progress. We're not the same as we were before. So any progress in this space is good progress, and don't let the fact that you go back to that old golf swing or that old tennis grip as an example keep you from trying to learn how to practice self-love, how to let go of those old beliefs and those old feelings.

Jerry Henderson: 45:44

Okay, now you know me. I always like to try to close out with something practical that you can do or some kind of exercise, and we've already talked about several practical things. But I just want to give you one tactical thing that you can do and it's something that was very powerful for me and I've watched it be very powerful in the clients that I work with and it's this it's telling yourself that you love yourself for 30 days in a row. And here's some ways that you can do it. You can do it by looking in the mirror. We call it the mirror exercise, right? You get in front of the mirror and you tell yourself I love you, and you try to do it with some emotion, you try to connect with it emotionally and you stick at it for 30 days, because the research on the 21 days they've kind of updated that to 30 days. That can really help ingrain a habit. And the other thing that the research shows around habit formation is that it's an action that's repeated in the same way and then doing it in the same environment can really help create that cue response outcome that we're looking for in habit change and habit formation.

Jerry Henderson: 46:57

So in this example of the mirror exercise, what can start to happen is that when you see the mirror, instead of seeing it as a cue that starts self-loathing, you'll begin to shift that to a cue that begins to activate self-love, a loving response towards yourself. So for 30 days, while you're getting ready and you're in front of that mirror, tell yourself I love you and I'd encourage you. Try doing it for 10 times each day for 30 days Now, even though it might feel uncomfortable. Neuroscientific studies show that repeated affirmations can rewire your brain over time, especially if you're doing them in a way that involves many parts of your system. So when you're saying it in front of the mirror, you're seeing yourself, you're saying it verbally, you're thinking it mentally and if you can connect emotion to it, you're supercharging the process. I do just want to make a note, if you don't feel like you're there right now, that you can look in the mirror and tell yourself that you love yourself. It's just too hard right now. You've been avoiding mirrors and it's really difficult for you to do that.

Jerry Henderson: 48:09

You can take another very powerful approach, which is writing it out 10 times each morning for 30 days, and here's a few tips on how to do that. I encourage you to physically write it out pen and paper. The research shows as we activate our brain's motor systems and motor pathways and we're writing it out pen and paper. Research shows as we activate our brain's motor systems and motor pathways and we're writing it out, we're activating it more deeply than if we were to type it out. So, taking that time to really sit with it, think the thought I love you, write it out with your hand, see those words and then try to connect with it emotionally. And so, once again, I encourage you write it out 10 times a day for 30 days and allow yourself to feel it, see it, and as you're doing it, you're involving multiple parts of your nervous system.

Jerry Henderson: 49:00

I want to acknowledge that I can't cover everything in a podcast about how to let go of self-hatred and move towards self-love, but I want to encourage you to start there. Try that exercise of telling yourself that I love you 10 times a day for 30 days and see what happens. And one thing that I think you might find that does happen is that that practice of telling yourself that you love yourself is getting you ready for those moments when you do get triggered and you want to spiral into self-hatred. You're actually building a muscle that allows you to have a new pathway to go to, and so you're building resilience towards the triggers or the cues that you're going to face that are going to allow you to move more naturally towards self-love.

Jerry Henderson: 49:45

Now, if you need help on your journey of learning how to let go of self-hatred and learning how to love yourself, I want to encourage you to sign up for my free webinar on learning how to love yourself and then also check out my coaching program.

Jerry Henderson: 50:00

You'll find a link to both of those in the show notes of this episode or you can go to my website at jerryhendersonorg. I also want to remind you if you've not yet had a chance to subscribe to this podcast, take a moment to do that. That's going to mean a lot to me and it's also going to keep you updated on when new episodes come out. Now, if you know somebody who could benefit from this episode or other episodes that are part of the Permission to Love podcast, share it with them, because if it's making a difference in your life, it's going to make a difference in their life as well. Now, finally, I just want to say once again, thank you for being here today and, in case nobody has told you, I'm grateful for you and I'm so glad that you're here and remember you are worthy of your own love.