So this time I am seeking some feedback

So I'm really trying to learn how to tell myself and believe positive ideas and sentiments about myself, as well as let in those delivered by others.

The issue at the forefront is that I worry so much about not being humble and emenating hubris. It's a fear. I also battle against denials of such sentiments, simply.

How do you all let in "goodness" and positive sentiments and insights, both internally and externally derived?

And thank you all. You've already helped me grow so much.

One love

I have a deeply rooted belief/feeling/knowledge that i am pretty ok as a person, and i believe that weed and psychedelics instilled that in me. I was extremely insecure and anxious and shy as a young teenager. Weed made approaching other humans not only necessary, but also easier and often fun. I have to say though that over time, there was also phases where it had the opposite effect.

I'm glad that i have this, because otherwise idk how i'd get through the phases of depression i sometimes suffer. It's not like i can always see or feel the goodness of myself or the world. But because i've had the experiences of all-unity and contentness, even in the darkest moments i still know that there is this dimension of being, and that i'll eventually swing back to it.

In recent years, i discovered gardening as a very stabilising activity. It is grounding simply due to the nature of it. It keeps me from neglecting myself too much, because the plants have no guilt at all, and the least i can do is keep them alive if possible. It also increases the chance of having happy feelings. It reminds me that i am somewhat modest, by being such a small and simple thing yet bringing me the most satisfaction of all. I don't care much about financial success, or social recognition. I care a lot about my garden

I think the fear and denial you describe is basically a form of self loathing. I've done that a lot. What helped me reduce that, was to be more accepting and patient with myself, and less judgy.

I really learned that when i tried to quit MDMA after some months of heavy abuse. At some point (it was during the aftermath of eating 9 pills on a tuesday evening) i realised i had to quit. I'd take none for 2-3 weeks, then i felt better and forgot about it, took MDMA again, just to be right back in the hole. Not only was i feeling like shit (excuse my french), i also hated myself for being so dumb. Many mornings, i literally wished i didn't have to wake up again. Yet i seemingly couldn't commit to never taking it again. Eventually, i decided to be more lenient with myself. I said, 3 months is a reasonable interval, and i must not take it more often than that. This worked, i actually didn't take any for 6 months, then i took once again, then none for well over a decade. I tried again in 2020, and it still brings me back to a negative place. I'll probably never do it again.

All in all, it simply doesn't help to be mad at ourselves for not being perfect according to our own definition. If you think about it, expecting yourself to always be humble and never slip up, is kinda a form of hubris in itself...

I like to treat this sort of dissatisfaction with myself like the thoughts / emotions during a bad trip - i try to take a step back and observe the whole situation as if from the outside. See what i can learn from it, what i can do better / different next time.

It's cheesy, but it's right: it's about progress, not perfection.

Accepting positive things from others can be hard. Sometimes i just don't believe them. Or i do, but inside i think they just don't see the full picture. I think a trick is to listen less to what they say, but observe the impact of interactions with them. People are often happier or calmer after we interacted. And while i don't think that's my doing, it helps me accept the notion that i do have some positive sides.

If i may say so, i've never seen anything from you that looked like hubris. I don't know you too well, but my impression is that you're a very positive person. You give good advice, you seem to be always polite, and willing to admit when you don't know something. Humble is actually a word i would use if i had to describe you.

Thank you so much for such an honest, kind, and thoughtful response. I agree with much of what you've shared.



You hit the core of something with this one, as it ended up making me cry at one point while thinking about it throughout the day.

As much as I've discussed my experience with depression here in the forum, this is something that I tend to avoid. Not only is it painfully difficult to admit externally to myself, but I worry that it may send warning flags up for some. But this is true, and it's something that I struggle to really remediate and turn around. With specific regard to denials, one thing that I have been trying to do is allow the sentiment in as a personal truth of whomever is delivering it, and in turn, and as you mentioned, try to notice my impact on them thereafter. I'd be remiss to say that I do not tend to get along with most people in most places that I go and seem to generally have a positive and balancing impact I suppose.



This is reinforcing for me as I've made it a point to remind myself regularly to be more patient with myself. I think it's fair to say that I show more patience with others than I do myself. I should probably also be better at remember what I regularly deal with and how that [persistent depression] colors my thinking about many things including myself.



I certainly agree and don't expect myself to never slip up, but rather it's hard dealing with the nagging worry that appears to deter me from feeling confident.

I apologize for my brevity. Worked 11 hours today and was already tired. But I wanted to be sure to thank you again. I appreciate the authentic feedback and observations, and will take that with me while I chew on some things you've given me to think about.

One love

I think Void that asking this question alone comes with transformative power, though it won't come in an instant.

There are two meditation exercises that can compliment each other. Anatta (non-self) meditation can make you feel spacious and metta meditation can fill that space with good vibes.

People are different, but for me exercises in non-attachment have been helpful. You can't really push away whatever fills your mind, but it's possible to learn to zoom out and increase the space around the things that bug you. With more space there is room for new vibes to enter. Also, becoming more aware of what you send out, helps you tune in to the things you want to take in.

This process can be frustrating if you expect instant results, but if you think it as something you build up little by little, you can sustain those vibrations and in time seek resonance in and out of yourself that amplifies them.

Hope this isn't too abstract 🙂

I have a theory that the mind gets closed not only to positivity, but to negativity too, you can check in with yourself whether this is the case or not, but its possible that this is a defensive mechanism that gets developed early on for some of us assuming the enviroment is particularly negative.

In terms of how to heal this pattern, regardless of whether the above is true or not, I would say accept the rejection, as your mind rejects positive sentiments about itself you might being to soften the knot by not rejecting your minds rejection of that positivity.
This can be a bit of an infinite loop, where you end up rejecting your rejection all the wat to infinity, thats fine too.

I encourage you to try telling yourself affirmations, perhaps in meditation, as a bit of an experiment and see how that feels, its possible that it gets quite uncomfortable, perhaps you find it healing.
"I am enough as I am."
"I am worthy of love."
"I deserve good things."
etc

Explore the feelings, I find that the intellectual mind has little to no value when dealing with this core beliefs about oneself.
No proof, just feelings.

I wouldnt focus too much on the goal of letting those get all the way through, after all your mind doesnt actually know whether they are true or not, I guess in a sense you want to be fair and figure out whether they hold any value or not.
Again, Id be very careful about the intellect doing too much when you are figuring out truth.

As allways, you can balance thougts and feelings, let a particular one arise, hold it, and find its opposite.

Personally, I find that both good and bad ones get through quite easily at this point, I think that dealing with a lot of the rotten pile negative of feelings that I had inside cleared up the path for new ones to come.
I feel like there is a risk to this, opening yourself up to the love of others opens you up to the possibility of rejection, which is why we might have chosen to close up in the first place, again, its all equal, we make the best choices that we can at each step that we take.


Probably worth exploring also, Why do you worry so much about not being humble and emanating hubris?

For me, one of the crucial tools was actively changing the way I use language. A simple example of this is choosing the to say "Do remember..." where many people would say, "Don't forget..."

This could be seen as a variant of affirmation that gets stealth-built into your day-to-day life.

Another thing that crossed my mind (again) recently, quite independently of this thread, was that feelings are like weather - they will change through the course of time. And since anything other than acceptance of the weather is a futile strategy, acceptance is a useful tool when dealing with difficult emotions. Stretching the metaphor further, the linguistic reprogramming is your ticket to a sunnier, more temperate climate.


My take on this is that the social-determined, unwritten boundaries that apply here only become apparent when they're crossed. Venturing out into unfamiliar territory where this may occur therefore brings a sense of vulnerability with it. In a fully open and honest society this might not be so much of a problem. This reminds me how it would be dealt with in the north of England - they would just tell you to "wind yer neck in, pal".

I'll keep an eye out and tell you if your neck needs winding in if you like, Void

Oh my, it wasn't my intention at all to make you cry! I hope it was one of those bittersweet releasing healing ones.


It wasn't an accusation

No need to apologize. I fully understand, and i actually like brevity.

One love indeed 💗

Thank you all so much for your feedback. I suppose this is an instance where I am too hard on myself, but such instances tend to be hard to identify. And apologies, I am currently sick and my head is cloudy and am feeling a bit slow. Fortunately I don't have anything to do with my day but rest, so I can take my merry time in responding. That said, I'll probably be hopping around the most recent responses in responding.

I think it's also noteworthy to specify that this is definitely something symptomatic of my depression (and hence my goal with this is to better manage that even more) and that some facets of that state influence this overall topic, such as being impacted more by negativity that positivity (negativity bias). It often takes effort for me to recall and remember and feel positivity from past events. It's so much easier to remember the negative.



The answer and influences of this are varied. A huge source is my father, who is over-confident, over-zealous, arrogant and quite the narcissist. He's the type to find ways to bring one down when they may be feeling good or "proud" of themselves. He's a source of many disparate traumas and with regard to what I learned from him, I mainly learned what not to do and not to behave. That said, since he was not a humble person and was more a source of hubris, I do my best to embody the opposite. I also see hubris as an ethical issue the world over, and philosophically I feel that it taints the lens of having a clear and authentic picture of things; in my mind it a hazardous and problematic state of delusion., which isn't to say that I'm not in a different state but of the same category presently.



Thank you for saying this. While I have a high and strong intuition as well as being one who critically thinks regularly, I may perhaps try to handle aspects of this topic in too much of a cognitive and rational way. The more "good" something is the more I feel the need to justify it, i.e. if someone provides a compliment, I have to be able to justify it, in a way that's convincing to me (and we can imagine what that's like given the nature and content of my skepticism thread). If such positivity of sentiment is attempted to be derived from within, the standard of justification rises. What is the veracity of the statement? This mode of justification with "good" things applies across the board. Obviously I love DMT, so much so, that I don't feel justified (despite experience to the contrary).



My internal dialogue when interacting with myself could likely use some work. It's pretty incisive as though it's a philosophic focus. So, while I aim to be honest, it might be too brutal.

Which now leads me to...



Repeating such things to myself is usually met with an internal shutdown because I don't believe it. But perhaps I can consciously employ a cognitive bias called Availability Cascade, wherein the more times one encounters some information the more likely they are to believe that it is true. Perhaps I can use this to better believe myself, while curtailing the worry about deluding myself.

To be fair, I used to throw away things such as journals and sketchbooks, almost like an act of self-destruction. Now I just have a hard time revisiting them, which brings us back to the self-loathing aspect.



Thank you very much and definitely not too abstract we all know how I am

I think that both of these approaches can be very useful to me. I'm still in the process of reframing a mistake in interpreting non-attachment as detachment and the spaciousness provided by Anatta can give me the inner space to reframe myself.

And I find the strongest structure are built with care, patience, and time. I anticipate that such a large change will take me a fair amount of time. And to take a step in the right direction, it's change that I have earned and deserve.



No, it's really okay and I still thank you. They were tears of hearing something that needed to be said. They were tears of realization and acceptance.

One love

Hmm, I wonder if you learned more than that from your father, you know, things like what your value as a person is, whether you deserve to cut yourself some slack, how the self deserves to be treated, whether you are alowed to feel proud of yourself...


On a different note, as far as I can tell, both you and your father are essential, equals parts of the Creator.
Rejecting other is rejecting self, which is fine I guess.
What do you think about forgiveness?



Sounds like there needs to be a reason for you to feel good.



Sounds like you dont believe that the self should be the recipient of positive sentiments because you dont believe those positive sentiments about yourself to be true.
Also sounds like you dont trust yourself.

Why do you want to curtail the worry about deluding yourself?
Is it OK loathe the self?

You're not wrong in this observation, I would just classify these effects more under conditioning than learning. Through repetition, I built up an expectation at an early age for certain classes of interactions and scenarios with my father (and sometimes peers, which could have in turn been influenced by interactions and effects of my father). Understanding how to cut myself slack, and patience with myself, etc, were things that were just never addressed in my learning process around my father, and as such slipped into patterns of habituation. Due to it's longstanding presence and increasing strength (levels to which I feel unable to cut myself some slack, bee patient with myself, etc) I'm finding it hard to change.



In certain senses yes, and in other senses it's other things.



That's definitely one way to say it.
And not as much as I'd like.



I'm not sure how much worrying about it is serving me, as this worry is a contributor to action paralysis and indecision.



I suppose it comes down to what one means by ok. I mean, I have a stable job, I'm highly functioning, etc. So in that sense it's okay I guess. But would I like it to change? Certainly.

One love

Yeah, stop being hard on yourself. From what iv'e read of your posts i see that you are a good bloke. And i am quite a critical person. On myself and others. The way i try to embrace positive sentiments about myself is that at least that i know that i am not a paedophile or a serial killer. In this modern internet connected world of judgement by others and ourselves, we have to take any positives that we can....

Imagine your self-assessment preoccupation like a tug of war. Between you and the preoccupation is a giant chasm.

The only way to win this, is not to play. It's what's keeping you from enjoying things, as you're engaging with it.

Deal with it as you would with a stranger saying negative things to you on the street, ignore them, and cross the street, nothing good can come from the engagement.

First, thank you for your encouragement. To address the quoted part, I intend on trying to make a point at finding the "line" of wanting to be disciplined and having certain standards and being too hard on myself. This is something that has been hard for me to identify for a very long time on my own for myself. Very often, someone needs to tell me that I am being too hard on myself in a given context.



I think you're right, and I suppose that I should let them [positive sentiments] in, regardless of how lofty they may seem (from others specifically) in some manner or other. I guess it's about figuring out how...



Thank you for the analogy and advice. It's something I will try to implement the best I can. The nature of a great deal of this thinking is intrusive and its tentacles deeply embedded.

One love

( I was drunk and too tired yesterday to write more comprehensively)

The metaphors I outlined above are just surface level, and fundamentally could be useful, but they don't deal with the actual issue you're experiencing.

The constant self assessment is a symptom, not a disease, to use another metaphor.

What the actual ailment may be, would take some time to pinpoint. What I am getting at is that what you genuinely need to change is not your self assessment patterns per se, but broad strokes in your life, to commit to more personal meaning and life your life to your own values.

What I mean by this is that if you're constantly checking whether your demeanour, behaviour, mentality, whathaveyou, fits some preconceived arbitrary template, you're not dealing with your own identity, but that of someone or something else. Define an image of yourself that you want to work to, in broad strokes and in precise ones, that agrees with your values and the future you want to have, while staying in the realm of the realistic for yourself. (Realistic as in, within a boundary that you can see yourself achieving)

There is little point in engaging in a archaeological, deterministic excavation of your past to somehow unearth "The Holy Grail" to your predicament, that will deus ex machina your way out of your current state. While it may be useful, it can also end up giving you a trap.
"Oh I'm state X because Y happened to me at Z time in my childhood"
You are not your trauma, you are not your diagnosis, these are all externalities.

Admitting responsibility means that you accept that you are the driver at the wheel, in the moment.
The assessment once it becomes negative, is indulging in negative feedback loops, it is the opposite of responsibility, in that you're beating yourself up for the past, this is guilt. Guilt is more often a vehicle for compliance for society, not the individual necessarily.

The point of my tangent is, you need to realize emotionally, not cognitively, but on an emotional, felt level, in your body, that you're fundamentally alright, and unalienable. That your mind is your sanctuary of freedom, not a cage you are trapped in, that your future is malleable and your life being good or bad, regardless of the actual fact, is within your mental-emotional grasp.
That is freedom.

Thank you for clarifying. I really appreciate you taking the time.



Your understanding is refreshing. It's not something I come across often with what I deal with. To state it explicitly and directly, I experience persistent depressive disorder alongside major depressive disorder (double-depression). It's been this way most of my life, and my baseline and default state is unfortunately a depressed one. As such, I also see that the "self-assessment" is a symptom, and I also do my best not to identify with what these experiences tell me... easier said than done because here I am...



I agree. Going back into the past to find points of genesis can be helpful in understanding and approaching healing with regard to certain things, but one must not settle on these details without more work thereafter. And I've been dealing with this for a very long time, so I don't expect any quick fixes.



I see what you're saying here. In many ways, it became too much of a good thing because this all started with attempts at greater self-awareness in ways we impact others, as well as part of a specific goal that I had, and finally my way of attempting to be the best version of myself. Sorry this is hard to express. I suppose I'm also not sure what is "realistic" for myself, what my "image" should be (according to me, and there's really not a lot of trust here with myself because this has been something I've been trying to do as is that hasn't appeared to work out).



Something that I am not sure how to feel in order to realize in this way...

Sorry for trailing off at the end. Sometimes dealing with this leaves me feeling defeated and so in turn close down.

Thank you again though! I appreciate it.

One love

I appreciate the answer, I don't have an issue with longer posts, or 'trailing off', in this context.
It's a difficult, fuzzy topic, and putting words to paper is quite difficult, as you first have to put emotion into words.

One angle to see the reminiscing from, is that it's an attempt to change the past, and thus a rejection of it.Simultaneously I might say it's a rejection of the now, due to the excessive focus onto the future.

If you find you cannot trust yourself, you should discuss and brainstorm a template with a close confidante that has a good eye. Another way to go about it would be to work on your weaknesses, such goals would be for instance "Reduce my knee-jerk responses to X"; "Increase my hospitality to strangers".
One step at a time,some day you might find yourself in a new mind-state.
You're always the best version of yourself, there is only one of you, you always make the best decision you can with the information you have, from moment to moment. Even voluntarily making a "bad" decision is still a good one, after all, you're acting according to your will.
Whether or not this model is objectively truthful, is ultimately irrelevant, as it's incredibly useful.
What you want to achieve, is to become better, becoming the best of anything is a crushing goal to try to live up to, due to the pressure and distance towards the goal involved.

I have to add that I really don't agree with diagnosis, it's useful to give ballpark ideas to others what you're dealing with, but extremely reductive in a qualitative sense. So much of the human gets lost on the way, that I'm not friendly with the concept at all. It's a by-product of the times, where a quick diagnosis, a quick short term therapy (but with long term results!) is expected and deemed realistic, in a sort of play wherein all that play it, bar the customer/client/patient, know is a farce if they really look.

While the ultimate outcome of therapy might be quick in its result, the process to it can be long and strenuous, and shouldn't be forced by externalities like the above, but it is.

I hope you may find some use in my words.

New/different perspectives give me something to think about so I appreciate it.



I align with you in some ways here. I tend use the terms as simple categorizations of specific states/phenomena. To get more of the full breadth of my personal experience, this would be more appropriate to share, as well as perhaps this one to elaborate a bit on my style of thinking and conceptually engaging with things and the world. More to the point, it took me a long time to find a therapist that would align with me enough to continue to work with. And while many seem to expect quick results, it's never been part of my perspective. I was in therapy with a single therapist for six years, which was really helpful and gave me a lot of tools to do more of the work on my own. All the same, some aspects of the overall psychology paradigm do need work; nothing's all good, and nothing's all bad.



And thank you for the reminder

One love

If you dont mind me asking.

You mentioned aversion to this positive feelings based on the fear of the negativity that would come after that.
At which point did you learn that thats how the universe operates?
What exactly did you learn that happens to you after something good?

I remember you mentioning a sense of "being put on a pedestal" on a DMT trip, I cant find the post, but I recall you not being particularly comfortable with that kind of feeling.
Does that feel connected to this in any way?

Not at all. I appreciate anyone who wants to chime in, whether what they say I can use or not, I appreciate the time and effort to help me. I'm aware of my enigmatic nature and how certain things may not be understood in what I happen to deal with.

In regards to my aversion to good, what you've described is but one aspect of it. There's also the feeling of "wrongness" that surrounds it. And that said, I wouldn't say that that's how I learned the universe works. I see things like that in a polyvalent manner. However, I can acknowledge that this aversion to good is irrational (though, it's possible that not all aspects of "reality" are rational), but that doesn't always change its function to recognize.

And you're spot on, in that that experience is an example of this aversion. They are definitely connected.

I feel in the past, after something good has been experienced there have been instances of incredible sadness after. I'm not sure if it's purely from childhood experiences or if it's an effect of the algorithm of depression that causes this, but it's had enough reciprocal effect to leave me where I presently am.

One love

I recognise that feeling. For as long as i remember, happy things have always brought on a sense of sweet melancholy for me as well. You could say as a sort of side-effect.
It's probably the realisation that nothing can last forever.

Maybe we just cannot ever have something that's truly precious, without also that innevitable realisation of the fragility of life at the same time.