*The Prison of Self Hatred*
If you hate yourself, you're in prison.
No matter how comfortable your surroundings or loving your relations,
if you're mired in self-loathing you might as well be the sole inmate in a
barren prison cell a thousand miles from the nearest person.   The joy
that you could derive from even the simplest of life's pleasures is alloyed
or even negated by the keen sense of yourself.   The elation of beholding a
lovely sight is dampened by the notion that you are the  only unsightly
thing in that environment. Yet, deeply embedded within you is the ardent
desire to fully experience the exultation of being alive. You believe,
however, that such an  experience would only be possible if you were
someone else.    By being you, you are imprisoned: loathsome in some
profound way, be it appearance or character or in your very nature.   Your
jailor (i.e. you) considers you unworthy of the world's beauties and will
deny you access to them.  Instead of allowing you to be truly alive to
life's miracles, your jailor forces you to constantly seek out validation
of your self-disgust in a world populated by many people who are very eager
to provide you with it.  The insults, derisive laughter, humiliating
moments, and rejections are all retained in memory and are re lived
innumerable times in your mind.     Some of these excruciating memories
could date back decades.  They are all employed by the jailor to fortify
the prison walls:  to diminish your life force and, ultimately, to
annihilate it altogether, either psychologically or literally.    That
statement is no exaggeration.  According to the World Health Organization,
during the minute and a half you have spent reading to this point, at least
two people have removed themselves from this world forever.

If you're reading this article and you hate yourself, I need to
tell you something. No, I won't tell you I love you.   Though the
expression of such a sentiment would be well intended, it is also
disingenuous when offered to a stranger.  I will tell you that you are
worthy of the deepest love of which the human soul is capable.
That you believe otherwise stems from a self-hatred that is as delusional
as it is destructive.     The aim of this article is to speak
to you directly.  Yes, to YOU directly.  I know the jailor will be
present.   While you read what follows, your jailor will behave like a
psychologically abusive spouse who is attempting to distance you from all
positive influences.   Every assertion I make will elicit an instant
rebuttal that will probably start with "yeah, but that doesn't apply to me
because..." or "Well, you're saying that to me because you don't know me
and so don't know what I've done or what I am thinking or how horrible I
truly am."         I just ask you to listen, not only to me, but also,
counter intuitively, to your jailor, as well.  In fact, pay very close
attention to what is being said to you internally throughout.     If it is
any comfort to you, your best friend will be allowed to be present as
well.     Yes, that best friend exists.  He/she is the one who is silently
encouraging you to keep reading.  (Even if that best friend eventually
considers this article to not be worth finishing, please don't forget that
part of you that wants you to be free from this prison.  So many great
resources are accessible. Avail yourself of them.)    Your best friend
probably doesn't talk that often because you might have a tendency to
ignore what he/she keeps telling you.    You've invested much more time
listening to your jailor so that he/she can and does speak constantly.
Yes, you hate what the jailor says because it is tormenting you.
 However, that jailor is accustomed to garnering your attention and will
likely interrupt more than your best friend.

Now we're going to move away from anthropomorphism for a moment.  The
internal jailor and best friend aren't real, at least not in the
independent existence sort of way.    They don't occupy space or engage
with life in your absence.   The jailor and best friend are highly complex
sequences of thought patterns that evolved in your miraculous mind. They
arose in response to myriad stimuli and experiences that have accumulated
over many weeks, months, years or decades depending on your age.
That you are crippled with self hatred is evidence that the destructive
thought patterns have established a dominance over those that are positive
and life affirming.   In order to counteract the thought patterns that are
imprisoning and killing you, we must craft other patterns of equal
complexity.     One should never bring arithmetic to a calculus fight.

*You're a human being.*
The simplest of all statements?  No,  the most complicated.   Being human
is so widely misunderstood and devalued in our society that we tend to
exist as shades of ourselves.   To be human is to be immensely powerful and
intensely alive.    Vladimir Nabokov described the human as a "spine tipped
by a divine flame."   At this moment that fierce, blue-white flame
illuminates the vast galaxy of neurons encapsulated within your skull.
Through 13.8 billion years, the cosmos somehow managed to craft that
unfathomably intricate array of neurons out of vast fields of hydrogen and
helium that crystallized out of radiant energy.   Your mind is connected to
every point in space-time by virtue of its origins.     You are reading
this strange array of symbols and the mind is instantly processing the
information contained within.   Whether you agree with these premises or
dismiss them out of hand, your mind is engaging with thoughts.  Moreover,
your mind is generating 50,000 - 75,000 thoughts a day, a prodigious,
unrelenting outflow.      That mind's capacity is seemingly unlimited: from
the ability to create art to attaining proficiency in a skill or fluency in
a language.        How many of those thoughts are rendered toxic by the self
-hatred:  like bubbles hatching out poison?   How much neutral activity is
devoted to your own psychological self-destruction?   If you are afflicted
with self-hatred, you might be surprised -and scandalized- were you to
tabulate all the negative thoughts you generate in one day.   If these
thoughts have rendered you miserable, be consoled:   you don't have to be
imprisoned by them forever or even much longer.    If you have the
inclination to heal your mind and  thrive, you will heal your mind and
thrive by means of neuroplasticity.

*Neuroplasticity*
It was once believed that our brains were quickly calcified.  Humans
behaviors were quickly established in childhood and so any given person was
powerless to alter their reactions to stimuli.  The ill-tempered grouch and
the serene poet were formed early and retained the traits associated with
these dispositions throughout life.   Thought patterns were believed to be
as unalterable as height, ethnicity or fingerprint design.      Only
recently have psychologists discovered the brain's astonishing potential
for reconfiguration.  Now, instead of being condemned to a life dictated by
reaction patterns over which a person exerts no influence, anyone can
change those patterns merely because he/she truly wants to do so.       The
alteration might require great effort and unwavering determination, but it
can and will be achieved if the desire for the change is sufficiently
strong.     The same principle holds true for the self-hater.    You can
literally turn away from the well-worn neural pathways that have been
tormenting you and forge new, positive pathways that will prove
life-affirming and life-enhancing.     This article's aim is to offer more
positive thought patterns to counteract the negative ones, much as a base
serves to neutralize acid.

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