There is nothing wrong with you

Cheri Huber (CheriHuber.com) wrote the best book I ever read about self-hatred, entitled There is Nothing Wrong with You. She walks the reader through the recesses of the mind and how it endlessly tries to control outside circumstances by blaming and criticizing the self.

What if there was nothing wrong with you? Nothing that needed to be changed: no weight to be lost or gained, no pathology that had to be eradicated (or covered up), no character defect or personality flaw that needed to be overcome? How would that change your life? What would you do with your free time?

Katie Hendricks (Hendricks.com) talks about moving away from the idea that your life is an ongoing self-improvement project. She recommends that, instead of putting our attention on what is wrong with us, we focus on what we are becoming. Our attention can then be placed on the much more fun question of "what wants to happen?" and how to be a full participant in life.

There is no evidence that judging, criticizing, ridiculing, humiliating, badgering or tormenting ourselves (or anyone else) leads to anything like actual change. What these actions are very effective at is creating a sense of collapse, resignation, and helplessness--which can give us a reason to engage in those very behaviors that we judged to begin with. 

The antidote to self-hatred? Taking a good, deep breath and conjuring up the feeling of someone or something you love. Instantly, you create the space of true potential and possibility, the field where anything can happen.

If you loved me...

Have you thought this?

If you loved me, you would

• bring me flowers
• appreciate me more
• call/text/email me
• consider my feelings
• be more thoughtful
• not use that tone
• use the other tone, the nice, kind one
• look into my eyes
• stop staring at me
• want to be sexual
• let me decide when to be sexual
• let me sleep
• wake me up
• give me space
• get close to me
• tune into what I'm really saying
• let me be a jerk sometimes
• not be so nice to me when I'm I'm being a jerk
• tell me the truth
• ...except about THAT
• fill in your list:

How do we end up connecting being loved with this long list of behaviors that we expect from our intimate others?

I LOVE YOU is an action. At a particular moment I create the vibration of love, and then decide to send it your way. That action has nothing to do with what you are currently doing, or did or didn't do. It's my choice, and I can do it anytime, anywhere. Expecting this particular action to be in any way connected to whatever else is happening is like trying to twist together smelling the spring fragrance of lilacs with standing on one's head or dancing a jig. There is no connection, and trying to link them can look foolish.

Want to know if I'm loving you?

Ask.

Transparency evolves us

The theme of transparency has been up all week. Couples, colleagues, clients have wondered, why tell the truth? Isn't it easier not to "hurt someone's feelings" by not telling them how you really feel? Doesn't saving the connection matter more than whatever the truth is? Others have spoken about what it is like to be on the other end of the truth-telling: the shock of hearing what is really going on, and then having the reaction that the other person was trying to avoid having to see by not being transparent.

I'm in the rather unusual and privileged position of watching the consequences of this dilemma over time. I see how people choose the short-term gain of making everything sound "just fine" when it's not, not expecting the long-term consequences of loss of aliveness and being in the flow of what is real. Family members who prefer to expend great energy talking to everyone but the person they have an issue with; partners who would rather stifle their true selves--until they can't stand it anymore; business associates who feel awkward speaking or showing their real feelings, so want to quit the business instead. Each making the choice to give up what is real for them so that they don't have to feel the scary unpredictability of speaking what is true.

I've been in each of these positions. This week I just witnessed them. And watched the ongoing anguish from the outcome of the lack of transparency:  projection, distortion, blame, defensiveness, confusion. And the ultimate consequence, the one that all of this withholding was supposed to keep from happening: disconnection.

Speaking the absolute truth at any given moment grounds us in what is. It allows those around us to choose the next step for themselves. Being willing to hear the truth without attacking, shaming, or blaming supports those around us to be fully transparent. This step into the unknown that transparency provides is the channel into evolving our consciousness, as we show our real selves to those around us. In the vulnerability of our transparency, we experience true power, the power of being with what is. Because once we can land squarely in what is, everything can change.