Self Hatred as a Spiritual Path

After years of trying to love myself and not being very successful, I set out to do something different. I thought, "since I'm already self-hating, I might as well follow where the energy is naturally going". One part of me thought that was preposterous and perhaps even dangerous. Yet, another part of me resonated with the truth of what was. Intrigued by this bizarre option, I experimented with allowing myself to hate myself. I had no idea what was to come, and come it did.

The title is not meant to imply "it's spiritual to self hate", it means that exploring self-hate can be part of the path to becoming spiritual. By diverting our attention away from self hating thoughts, we perpetuate self-hatred because we are hating the hateful thoughts!

This paper was originally written with a psychotherapeutic bend (replete with clinical references), but is also written in plain English and easily understood by lay people.

In this paper I talk about the sources of self-hatred and how self-hatred manifests in peoples lives in troublesome ways. Ways of working with self-hatred both on one’s own and with alternative therapeutic modalities are proposed. My experience is that self-love is a natural outcome of exploring self-hatred, and that one of the ways to experience the Universal Creative Force is to fully immerse oneself into that which keeps one from God: one’s own self-hatred.

A cautionary note: Consciously exploring your own self-hatred can elicit strong feelings and emotions; it is not for the weak of heart (we call it ego strength). As with any personal growth work, I recommend that you have a support network as a bare minimum and optimally, to be working with a psychotherapist, counselor or spiritual teacher whom you trust.