Today on Ask Cristen we're basically going to talk about how to give yourself a hug even
if like me you're not much of a hugger.
On last week's Ask Cristen video 'Can bullying ever be stopped?' deerguy19 commented and
asked, 'If you do have all that hate locked in you and then you put the hate on yourself,
how do you deal with self hate?' I do have some advice and hopefully it will help. Keep
in mind before I get into all of this stuff that everybody's a little bit different. A
lot of this advice is going to be pretty general. The immediate advice in the YouTube comments
that I gave to deerguy19 was to treat yourself like a best friend and importantly have compassion
for that friend. How would I talk to a best friend who is having this issue? How would
I talk to a best friend who is saying these kinds of horrible things about him or herself?
Self-loathing can just be a constant kind of presence in the background of our lives
but a lot of times at least in my experience with this kind of stuff there are usually
these climaxes where all of the sudden it's all that we can think about. Allowing yourself
to step back and say okay, okay, I'm not going to feed into this, I'm not going to talk back
to myself as myself. I'm going to talk back to myself as a friend. Tip number two, be
willing to find your you-ness. The you that makes you you. Be willing to look at yourself
with an open mind. Negativity often makes our thinking so rigid. When someone says,
'Well what's the thing about you that's so amazing?' you'll say, 'Nothing!'. Think about
being willing and open to explore figuring out what that is and sometimes that requires
trying out new things, maybe you don't know what your you-ness is because you haven't
stepped out enough to even try and find it because that can be really scary. I can also
tell you from experience that when you are brave enough to try new things and step out
a little bit you learn more about yourself. Tip number three, forget humility. It can
be daunting for us to say identify our you-ness and be okay saying hey, this is something
about me that's awesome. I can call myself awesome and that's not me bragging necessary
that's me acknowledging the truth. Lack of humility is probably not what is going to
be your ultimate downfall if you are trying to simply figure out the basics of self-love
and appreciation. Tip number four with a little bit of background music courtesy of my neighbors,
risk vulnerability. A lot of self-loathing or self-hatred or just general insecurity
is often linked to an element of shame and that element of shame is often linked to a
fear of vulnerability. Of being exposed for who we really are and who we really are being
deemed unworthy. So we try to hide, we do all of this work and it's so exhausting to
make sure that no one really knows. I personally experienced this power of being forced into
vulnerability quite by accident a few years ago when I went through a really just bad
breakup. It forced me for the first time in my life to a degree that I never had to be
vulnerable. There was no way around the emotional wreckage state that I was in. The only thing
that I could do was ask for help. And I received that and I allowed myself to receive that.
It was really really scary but at the same time it was life-changing to know that it
was available. Tip number five, any good therapist would probably recommend that you have a gameplan.
A gameplan simply means that you have something quick to do that you easily remember, you
can easily do it, it's portable, you can take it anywhere. Anneli Rufus for instance who
wrote the book Unworthy recommends envisioning a space, wherever that is for you where you
are your best self. I picture myself wearing an eye-patch and a hideous wig. Or another
simple thing that you can do especially if you experience this kind of self-loathing
or hatred with a lot of anxiety. It's helpful to conceptualize that anxiety as just a ball
of energy inside you and you need to release it. Couple of physical things you can do for
instance are simply running in place, running up and down stairs, standing in the middle
of a doorframe and pushing on either side of the door just getting all of that energy
out in a healthy, easy way. In times when you do need to rely on yourself you want an
ally in yourself. It's really good to make sure that you have that healthy relationship
established. This is not to say that there is never room for personal improvement, that
is distinct from learning how to love and appreciate yourself. I also have a feeling
that you all have some excellent tips as well about how to stop beating ourselves up, silence
those lying voices inside our heads and learn to hug ourselves. Before I wrap up thanks
to everybody who watched and commented on last week's Ask Cristen video, 'Is bullying
unstoppable?'. Fuzzlefeenix commented, 'When I was being bullied regularly and openly when
I was fifteen-sixteen at school, something that I found really disheartening and upsetting
was the fact that no one ever called her out or told her to stop and that what she was
doing was wrong. It made me believe that maybe what she was saying was actually what everyone
else thought about me too and I really was so irritating that I should never speak and
that all my ideas were wrong and stupid, ect. and that she was just the only one bold enough
to say it. It really damaged my self-esteem for a long time and I think that if other
people had stood up to her for me, even if it hadn't stopped the bullying I wouldn't
have taken it so much to heart.' It's true people when it comes to bullying, see something,
say something. Abigayl Meadows said, 'I'm a high school student and I work with middle
schoolers on issues of bullying, self-esteem, peer pressure, ect. We used a method called
the bully circle, which shows the different roles in a bullying situation. It includes
the bully, his or her supporters, the bystanders, the kids that stand up to the bullying and
the victim. The thing is if you keep bullying from being normal, you minimize it.' She went
on to say that school councilors had reported that more bullying was being reported by those
students so perhaps that bullying circle technique was an effective way to stop that behavior
from happening. You know what else is effective? Asking your questions so I can give you ba
dum dum ba dum boom chhh-some answers. And some air drums.