“That’s why no one likes you,” said my brother. “Well, God does,” I replied. The irony of this moment, now, a decade or more in the past, is that although on the surface we disagreed, we deeply agreed in my heart. He didn’t say anything that wasn’t obvious from my interactions with the kids in the neighborhood, at school, family members, and, yes, even my own siblings. I had thought this for years. Somewhere, hidden in dark regions of my mind, were these thoughts. I was an enigma to myself, an unsolvable puzzle. Why was I the way I was? I couldn’t figure it out and came to the conclusion frequently that people didn’t like me. Thus, at once I was offended, but at the same time I was shocked. Did he pay attention to my experiences with others just as I had? How was it that he’d come to the same conclusion?
The truth is that I didn’t feel like God loved me. If he did, then why would he put me in a world alone, vulnerable, susceptible to the hate of the majority. But, although no quick answer to the problem, I now see that God allows some to suffer for the healing of many. This was my Christ-situation, although I lacked a guilt-free conscience and acted in ways that produced my own contempt. As I look back now, I see that I am more than qualified to teach or expound on the subject of this post. It is a specialty to which my life has made me uniquely fit. We’re going to discuss how to love yourself when no one else does.
The BAC strategy
The BAC strategy consists of one’s beliefs, affirmation, and completing the tasks which aid accomplishment. The goals is to monitor these features of our personality until our temperament becomes positive and our actions are mostly goal-oriented and productive. The bottom line is this: If you don’t love yourself, you will never be happy. No car, or expensive phone, a spouse, lover, puppy, infant, baby, or any thing that you can acquire outside of you will make you happy. Happiness comes from one’s perception of one’s self. For instance, you buy a Mercedes, but you notice that the class you were able to afford isn’t as luxurious as the class or model of passer-bys on the freeway. A feeling of inferiority sets in. Or you marry someone you love. You walk down the aisle, say “I do”, but you begin to question your spouses’ sincerity. Do they really love you? How could they love you? You’re not worth loving, so you think. Without a self-appreciation, a self-loving, then you can’t appreciate all of the niceties you might acquire in life. What is worst is that you may sabotage them since you really don’t think that you deserve them.
Thus, the BAC strategy is a way to address self-hate by monitoring your beliefs, actions, and thoughts about yourself. Your barometer will be your mood and energy level and motivation to achieve. Follow these steps if you feel that you feel worthless or incompetent.
B–Beliefs
Step 1: Identify Your Beliefs
Let’s say that you need to translate some Greek for the completion of a foreign language requirement in your graduate degree program. But you can’t find the motivation to accomplish this task. Each time you intend to, you feel stressed and procrastinate. First, ask yourself:
1. What beliefs am I demonstrating about myself?
If I think that I can’t do it or it is difficult, then I am reflecting the belief that I am either incompetent or cannot overcome challenges.
Step 2: Challenge Limiting Beliefs
2. What is my evidence that this belief is true?
Evidence can come in several varieties. Either something is true because it is impossible for it not to be or there is some kind of observational evidence that demonstrates or supports its truth. Such evidence of the latter kind can be a scholarly consensus, a record, scientific experiment, or the like. But I don’t mean to be exhaustive here. There are many different ways to verify the truth of some sentence. For example, many people rely on their experience in concluding the truth about their abilities. In her book, “The Growth Mindset,” Dr. Carol Dweck argues that many people reason fallaciously, that is to say mistakenly. They believe that anything that requires a significant amount of time and effort on their part is an indication that they are “naturally bad” at it. As an educator, I’ve heard this for many years. “I’m just not good at math,” or “I just can’t read,” says many students. However, this isn’t true.
Some things are more difficult for us because we lack associated skills with the task. Any task will be much easier the more associated skills you have with the task. For example, someone who plays a stringed instrument or piano would expectedly have a shorter learning curve learning to type than someone without such experience. Does the struggling typist therefore have any evidence that he or she just can’t type? I don’t think so.
A–Affirmations
I mentioned earlier that I had always had the thought that no one liked me. Well, we have negative thoughts that we repeat to ourselves. We all have what many psychologists call a “toxic voice”. This is a repeating mantra that zaps our energies and buries our sense of self-worth. “Nobody likes me…nobody likes me…no body likes me…this person doesn’t like me….” These are the negative affirmations that we continually reinforce, the ones that create a self-fulfilling prophecy since we act in ways consistent with our beliefs about ourselves. Thus, if you believe that no one like you, you will act out in ways like a person no one likes, make observations about people’s reactions, and reaffirm this toxic affirmation.
Step 3 — Disrupt Negative Affirmations and Affirm Positive Ones
You must be aware of thoughts and words that you speak which repeatedly attack your esteem and self-worth. When you catch yourself thinking demeaning thoughts or making discouraging words about yourself, negate them. Deny them. Say that that isn’t true and affirm the positive.
C–Complete the Task
This strategy works in combination. You can do all of these within seconds of one another or in reverse order. It is up to you. But this final task is extremely important.
Step 4 — Take Action!
In order to change a perception, you need new data or information. By taking action, we are able to acquire new data that changes our perceptions about what we’re able to accomplish or complete.
In conclusion, although this list isn’t comprehensive. There are many more things that are needed to begin to love yourself, but this list will afford the opportunity to repair future damage to your self-esteem and begin to build your sense of self-efficacy so that you can begin to love yourself and accomplish your goals. Also, it doesn’t hurt to be proud of the person you are at the end of the day, to speak and think kindly about yourself, to interrupt thoughts that bring you down and affirm positive thoughts, and to take action, making the negative thoughts into lies all the well.
Until next time,
love, peace, and understanding,
The Thought Decoder.
For more detailed information on self-love, see click here