Many people don’t like themselves. Normally a person should like himself. But that’s not the case. Of course, someone might argue that if there is a standard of beauty, for example, or of behavior, and I don’t feel adequate to that standard, I don’t feel accepted by others. Apparently, that’s the case. Others accept us a lot depending on whether we accept ourselves or not. When we don’t like ourselves, we start to think that they don’t like us because we’re not beautiful. Or because we’re not good enough, or because we’re not clever enough. Of course, the reason must be sought in our parents. It’s difficult to accept this concept as truth, especially in non-Western cultures. But if our parents didn’t approve of us, we think that there’s something wrong with us. And then everyone reacts according to their own character, because each of us has their own innate character. So there is the one who rebels, there is the one who tries to do everything to please his parents, there is the one who tries not to be heard, to become invisible, there is the one who tries to excel etc. etc. … Any person who has an ordinary Consciousness is convinced that he can please others if his parents have liked him. He certainly does not know this, it is an unconscious process, but he lives it like this. After all, we have an imprinting, as do animals. The imprinting that human parents leave on a human baby is certainly longer, more complex and therefore more complicated. But it is there. Just like in animals. So, if our parents send us a positive response, we think we are good. And if we are good, we think that others like us. And if others like us, we no longer ask ourselves if we are beautiful, ugly, good, etc.… If, on the other hand, we are not good enough, we think first of all that we are not beautiful enough, good enough, intelligent enough. Many translate it into physical appearance. Especially in the West, but also in some Eastern countries there is this tendency. Like in Japan, China, South Korea. They are starting to have surgical operations. Women in particular, but today this is a phenomenon that also affects men. Because people think that they are beautiful if others accept them. But it is not true. Others accept us if we accept ourselves. And if we accept ourselves, generally we are not against others, we are not suspicious of others, we are at peace with others. So we emanate a certain benevolence. Which is not goodness, it is different. And so others accept us more willingly. But many of us are convinced that acceptance by others is rather due, especially women, to physical appearance. Body care is certainly a good thing if it is done in a healthy way, the body must be protected. But the body care I am writing about right now is more of a torment. A continuous wound that we cause to our body and we never feel good. We are not good. Because we do not feel beautiful since others do not find us beautiful. We do not have a thought of our own. And we do not have a thought of our own because inside us we have the thought of our parents. And of course this can also be poured into other expectations. Especially for a man. In the Western world, a man does not have to be beautiful, but rather someone who has a career. In the Eastern world, men tend to seek beauty a bit like women do. Today this is a trend that is starting to be important in the West As well. So much so that there are plenty of men who shave, who take care of themselves, just like a woman would. They go to the gym to create the perfect body from an aesthetic point of view rather than from a health point of view. Only and always to please others. Or he has to make a career to prove to the parent that he is worthy. The parent in real life but, above all, to the internalized one. That is, the internal judge. So he has to prove it to everyone. He makes a career. If he makes a career, he thinks, he lives the life he wants. And in fact we often hear people say “I have not lived the life I wanted. I am disappointed”. So what? But who is it that lives the life they want? The life we dreamed of? But we also dream of Prince Charming, Snow White. … The life of our dreams never happens, or almost never. And even if we had had a different life, it would not have been a happy life. Happiness is not achieved by obtaining external objectives. Happiness is a very difficult goal to achieve, and it comes at the culmination of a spiritual journey. Happiness, banal to say but damn true, is inside us, in a place of us that we often do not know yet and that we have to work hard to reach. But it does not depend on external conditions. Until we reach that place inside us, how can we be happy? We can go through ephemeral moments of quiet, of joy. But everlasting happiness, true happiness, is something else. How can we be happy in this world? In the face of the pain of the Earth? And with this level of Unconsciousness? You have to have a blanket over your eyes to not see. People suffer. Animals suffer in an incredible way. Just thinking about it would make you want to cry. How humanity is treated. What kind of life they lead. How children are treated. We are in a horror movie. Those who have had the opportunity to cross the threshold of the insensitivity of human Ignorance and have come into contact with deeper feelings, when their gaze meets something horrible produced by human unconsciousness, or even sometimes by the brutal force of nature, it is logical that they become sad. Tenderness towards others, feeling the pain of others, sharing fear, dread…If we meet a child or a dog, we can see how they are treated simply by looking into the eyes of the child, the dog. And if you are in touch with your deepest feelings, you feel sad. Because you understand that that child, that dog are not loved.
Going back to liking yourself, a lot depends on changing the things that we keep inside. Because they are the things that terrify us when we unconsciously project them outside of us. In our real life.
What does it mean to like yourself? Since we go there with our mind, liking yourself means I think what others think of me. I like myself if others like me. Or better yet, I like myself if I think that others like me. It seems normal. It may seem normal because if others like me, it means I am pleasant. But it shouldn’t work like that. All the people who think they don’t like themselves, stay huddled in their place. This doesn’t allow you to feel okay. Now, feeling okay is different for everyone. There are those who want to feel beautiful, there are those who want to feel intelligent, there are those who want to feel good, depending on their predispositions. In all societies, or at least almost all, people don’t care about what you have inside you. What matters is what you have managed to do, what you have built around yourself. Pleasing yourself is not possible as long as we believe we have to please others. Those around us. That is, as long as we have to think that we have to adapt to other people’s standards. As long as we think that we will be pleasant only if we adapt to other people’s standards. Because it means that we adapt to others by distorting ourselves. And therefore no longer being fluid, no longer being spontaneous, no longer being true. I’m talking about spontaneity, I’m not talking about those who say: I’m spontaneous and therefore they don’t accept me. No, you’re aggressive, and they don’t accept you because you’re aggressive. It’s different. Spontaneity means having ideas that are different from others. A feeling that can also be different from others. It can have habits that are also different from others. And as long as they don’t harm others, they’re fine. To like yourself you have to accept yourself. That is, the mind must accept our body and our soul. We have a mind that does not accept our body in our soul. And not only does she not accept the body because it does not have the “optimal measurements, I am not tall enough, I am not short enough, I am not thin enough, I am not feminine enough”… But my question here is: is it really possible for the mind as it is now to accept myself? Does my mind produce original thinking? Or is it just a patchwork of others people ideas and prejudices? Sri Aurobindo would intervene in this topic by reminding us that the ordinary mind doesn’t have one single original thought. That all the thoughts that we believe we are the creators, come actually from outside. If so, then what is the solution on “you to like oneself”?
Here’s my answer then: we need to regain our own internal originality, our own internal feeling. The real one. The soul one. That is, we need to make the transition from the ordinary mind, in which the internalized parents live, to the Heart. We free ourselves from the conditioning of the Mind when we finally manage to reach the core of our Soul Truth. And then the all discussion about liking or not liking ourselves falls away, it no longer makes sense. I won’t need to “believe in myself”. I will Be the True Myself. Because when we are in our Heart, We just Are. And that’s it. We are a sensation, not a negative or positive judgment about ourselves and the world. An expanding sensation, in Light, in sweetness, in eternity. A whole other thing.
I thank Gabriella Tupini and Taylor Swift for the inspiration
