When You Don't Like Anything, Maybe You Don't Like Yourself

Nobody experiences or stays in an uncomfortable situation because they want to. Not even those we call “masochists.” Deep down, we all want to be at peace and be as happy as we can be. But we don’t always find the way to achieve it. The fact of the matter is that the way forward becomes much more complex when you don’t like yourself.

Most people are not born and raised in ideal conditions. And there are many who have had to face very adverse circumstances even from an early age. One of the most recurrent is having grown up in an unfriendly and harsh environment, where you received no recognition or appreciation.

When you don’t like yourself, you need to dive into that distant past. There you’ll find the reasons why you have learned to see yourself so negatively. That’s why you haven’t been able to appreciate your achievements, or realize your virtues. That’s where that poisoned seed of wanting to be another person starts to grow. The seed that makes you think you want to live someone else’s life, or escape from your life in some way. The good news is that it is never too late to repair that damage and become at one with yourself.

This is what happens when you don’t like yourself

What usually happens when you don’t like yourself, is that you end up not liking anything at all. The world always ends up becoming a projection of what we carry inside of us. It’s not so much about the world having pleasant or unpleasant aspects, but more to do with how we look at it.

If you don’t like yourself, everything to do with you and your life ends up seeming unpleasant or without any value at all for you. You go from very happy to very discouraged very quickly and easily. You always end up finding something you don’t like in each and every situation.

You start things with enthusiasm, but finish them equally quickly when you lose that enthusiasm. You always find something negative in everything and everyone. Anything that is basically neutral, neither good nor bad, you turn into something negative or worthless. The problem is that you just don’t realize you’re doing it. You just feel bad inside and that’s what you project to others, without actually meaning to do that. The truth is that you have an open wound and you are suffering.

What happens with your life when you don’t like anything

Discontent is not a fact, but rather a point of view. The world and reality are what they are. Each human being gives their own particular meaning to their own universe. Our perspective of reality speaks much more about ourselves, than of what things are like in themselves.

When you don’t like yourself, you find it impossible to find anything positive in what you see, what you hear, what you perceive, and anything that comes into your life.

One of the most worrying aspects about all this is that, without realizing it, it turns into a habit in your life. Your mind starts to operate automatically. It is always looking at things in the worst possible light. And, as you always manage to find this negative aspect, all this does is to fuel your idea that the world and everything in it is pitiful and miserable.

Without realizing it, you have chosen that way of viewing reality. But you haven’t particularly wanted to do it. It is simply a way of dealing with all that rejection that hurt you to the core. Your dislike of everything around you is simply your way of processing the pain of knowing that you don’t like yourself.

What to do and what not to do

What you are, what you feel and what you think has probably been ignored, discarded or simply rejected during your childhood. Either at home or in your immediate environment. It was surely reiterated time after time too.

As a child you couldn’t understand what was happening. You just grew up with the idea that you were either completely or partially “bad”. What is almost certainly the case is that those who acted that way with you didn’t like themselves either. They projected their discontent on you. They were in a similar position to the one you are in now. They only saw what they thought was bad, and ignored what was obviously good. It is an endless chain that goes on and on until someone decides that enough is enough.

Ideally, you should be the one to decide that enough is enough. To decide to end your story of unhappiness, discontent and negative bias. Of course, we all have an ugly side to us. However, inside of us we all possess a worth that nothing and nobody can question. We aren’t any worse or better than other people. We have the right to make mistakes and also to be happy. It’s time to build a new perspective.