I Hate Myself

 As I write this, one of my neighbors, someone I’ve never seen, is screaming “I hate myself” at the top of his lungs. His pain and anger flow through our little neighborhood like the howls of an animal that’s been hit on the freeway. 

He shouts this every day, his voice piercing though my double pane windows.  He used to yell in the mornings, early, as if he was berating himself as he got ready for work.  Now he yells throughout the day; I worry that he’s lost his job.

As alarming as my neighbor is, his cries have a familiar ring.  I know what it’s like to feel that I’m not enough, to feel like I’m drowning in my flaws.  It may not hit me hard enough to make me scream out my window, but I know that empty, hard feeling of lack when I allow the berating voice in my head to take over.

The flip side, the easy place, lies in the realization that what we hate about ourselves, our mistakes, faults, and failures, are simply containers for the knowledge we need to learn and grow.

My neighbor is a constant reminder of the pain of living in the hard place.  When we hate ourselves for our imperfections we shut down, and when we shut down we lose the ability to do the repair work necessary to move on.  Our failures aren’t meant to be carried with us until we end up screaming out our windows.  They’re meant to be mined for their wisdom and then left behind. 

***

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

• It’s Just Fine to Make Mistakes  (New York Times)
• The Easy Place
• Recovery 
• It’s True – They Might Not Like You
• Meany
• Faking It
• The Wild West of Self Employment
• Letting Go of Guilt
• Self Doubt
• The Perfection of Imperfection
• That Flare of Temper
• The Boss From Hell