Saturday, May 4, 2024
When you put pressure on yourself, feeling like you’re “under the gun,” that’s self- enslavement. The master has his gun pointed at your head.
When you feel fundamentally flawed, and that society, “others,” your spouse, or “the world” expect you to conform and be a certain way, that’s self-bullying.
When you feel regret and guilt over your actions, this is a way of seeing the past as it shouldn’t have been. This is the root of beating oneself up. This is self-torture.
When you see your circumstances or other people as the cause of your misery and misfortune, this is self-victimization.
When you fear that you won’t have enough, that you’ll end up being homeless and destitute, and that you will never find a way forward, this is self-sabotage.
When you fear that you can’t keep sweets in the house because you’ll eat them, or that you’ll never find a way to get fit, be mentally healthy, or that it’s just “genetic” or a “chemical imbalance,” this is self-distrust.
When you think you don’t amount to anything, you’re no good, and you are impotent over your situation, this is self-neglect.
When the circumstances don’t seem to add up and you are certain disaster will find you, nothing will work out, and you’ll always be a failure, this is self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you cannot believe that you have the capacity to harm yourself in these ways, this is self-denial.
When you compare yourself to others, this is simply insidious.
But I keep wondering why there are all these problems in the world. If you are still wondering why the world still has problems, re-read the list above until it sinks in. When you realize you are both the slave and the master and the bully and the bullied – you can say, “Enough already! Knock it off!”