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How to Overcome Not Liking Yourself

 

SUMMARY

Sounds like a good idea right?

In this post, I’m sharing how to get to a place where you like yourself by clearing all the reasons why you don’t.

Here are some things you’ll learn:

  • how to tune into how much you like yourself and how much you dislike yourself
  • the problems that come along when you don’t like yourself
  • why seeking and gaining their approval is not the solution to the problem
  • how to overcome the problem of not liking yourself (specific strategies)

There are varying degrees to this problem.

So don’t make the mistake of dismissing it thinking it doesn’t apply to you…

…and on the other end, don’t throw in the towel because you think it’s too hard to overcome.  You weren’t born with this problem.

It was learned and so it can be lessened, unlearned, and resolved for good.

Wherever you are now is fine.  Figure out where that is and take action from there.

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Sebastiaan: Hello, this is Sebastiaan van der Schrier from social-anxiety-solutions.com. I am a former social anxiety disorder suffer and a social confidence coach. I help people go from social anxiety to feeling at ease being their true selves in social situations.

Now I run a podcast, I got some products, I do coaching, I’ve been doing that for 10 years and I make these videos and I usually base them on client work. So, things I figure out when I work with a client or things that I’ve gone through myself. This week I want to talk about liking yourself.

This is a problem for many people with social anxiety, not for all people but for many people with social anxiety. They have a fear of not being liked, they’re worried that they’ll be doing things that other people won’t like and then they’ll be rejected. But what it really is that deep down they’re not liking themselves.

Rate how much you like yourself

Often when I work with a client and I’m aware of this pattern I’ll simply have them rate, “Okay, just say for me out loud – I like myself”.

Do that right now, just say I like myself. And then I ask them, “Okay, on a scale of 0 to 10 how true does that feel?”

Sometimes they say it’s quite high and sometimes they say it’s 10 but if I feel that it’s in congruent, I’ll say okay so say your name. If their name is Billy, they say my name is Billy. All right, that’s 10 out of 10 true, now say again “I like myself; I like myself”.

Is that equally true? And then they’re like yeah, no it’s not as true as saying name.

So, there’s a discrepancy there so you’re not a hundred percent on “I like myself”.

Rate how much you don’t like yourself

Then I’ll have them say okay now say, “I don’t like myself”. So, go ahead and try that – I don’t like myself. And they’re often surprised to find that that’s true for them to some degree.

I’ll have them rate that on the scale of 0 to 10. Now the degree to which you rate that to be true so say you rate it true 4 out of 10 then that’s true for forty percent. So, you don’t like forty percent of you or you’re not liking yourself forty percent of the time. That’s a way to interpret it. This is not exact science obviously but at least you’re aware that you’re not fully liking yourself.

Now what’s the problem with that?

Problems with not liking yourself

Well, that’s a big, big problem because you are the product. You take yourself everywhere you go. You’re with you all over the place. It means every interaction, every place you go, school, work, the checkout counter. You take “you” everywhere and when you don’t like “you” then you don’t like the product that you’re selling. I use that analogy when I work with clients.

Basically when you don’t like yourself what you’re then saying in a way when you’re in a social situation is like hey, I’ve got this product, I don’t like it, it’s not great, it could definitely be better, there are some things wrong with it that should be right, it malfunctions sometimes, basically I don’t like this product and in some situations I hate this product. Some people really dislike themselves they even hate themselves.

I dislike this product but do you like it? I hope you like it. Hey, you should like it. You know what? It’s really important that you like it. Man, got to find a way to have you like this product. You’re becoming this salesperson and you’re trying to convince other people to “buy” your product but you’re thinking that the product is shit. You’re like “I don’t like this product but you should like it”.

Seeking their approval is not the solution

That gives you a very uncomfortable social experience that now you’re not being yourself and you’re trying to be cool or you’re trying to get their approval or you’re trying to people please or laugh at the right time and try all these little things to get people to like you but that’s a strategy that’s an outside in approach.

Now you’re trying to gain people’s approval acceptance respect so that they like you and that then gives you a little bit of a good feeling. So then when someone actually likes you it’s like you can calm down a bit, you can relax a bit.

But if someone doesn’t like you now, they confirm what you already believe about yourself that you’re not that great of person or you’re not that likable and that’s a problem.

It’s an outside-in approach, it makes a lot of sense to have that kind of behavior, it’s just a defense mechanism, it’s a way to get what you need, get that approval, get that acceptance, get that connection, get that fitting in. But ultimately, it’s an outside-in approach that doesn’t really bring you real results but brings you real results is no surprise liking yourself.

That means that you want to get rid of the disliking of yourself and the disliking of yourself that’s something that you’ve learned. Again, the example, itty-bitty baby one-year-old has no problem disliking themselves. There are no little babies that have low self-esteem that feel really bad about themselves. That is something that come as a result of programming.

Most of the time the problem with people not liking themselves comes from their relationship with their mom or dad. That’s where it is most of the time. When they were young what happened repetitively was interpreted by them to mean like okay, my dad doesn’t like me or my mom doesn’t like me.

Now that might be because the dad doesn’t want to spend time with them or the mom is emotionally withdrawn or they’re blamed for everything or they’re criticized all the time or I have to be perfect or they’re compared to their brother or sister and they don’t measure up or they’re always being complained about or whatever.

It doesn’t have to be like massive sexual abuse or actually getting beat up though. That definitely does it by the way and I’ve worked with so many people who have been belted. Parents are pretty creative. I’ve never been hit with anything but the stories that I’ve heard from clients, the things that they’ve been hit with clothing hangers, broom sticks, it’s quite creative. Not nice when you go through it.

That really can make you feel like wow if my dad goes to such an extent that he actually hits me he must not really like me. But it can also just be small things build up over time. “Well, my dad really doesn’t like spending time with me, he doesn’t like me”.

And then that belief is there and that eats at your self-esteem, you get that when you are a little kid, you take that with you and it becomes a bigger problem as you grow up and you get some other evidences of people not liking you and you start to think well, I don’t like myself, I’m not that great of a person or maybe I’ll like myself once I’m actually perfect or I have all these friends or I achieved this success or I have this boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever.

That’s the problem. How do you get rid of it?

How to overcome not liking yourself

Well, there are various ways of getting rid of it. I use a variety of techniques to deal with that not liking themselves. It’s a feeling, “I don’t like myself”, it’s kind of like a feeling and so, “I don’t like myself” can be traced back to what I just talked about.

Those experiences single wants or repetitive ones they have emotions connected to them and these emotions that are connected to those experiences are the super glue that hold those beliefs “I don’t like myself” in place.

You can imagine that “I don’t like myself” it’s like super glue to your nervous system and the super glue that connects it to the nervous system is emotion and with tapping, emotional freedom techniques, psychological form of acupuncture it looks really funny and weird because you’re tapping on your face and body but studies have shown that it reduces the production of cortisol, your stress hormone increases the production of serotonin. These biochemical responses create a sense of calm.

In layman’s terms you tap on your face and body while you think about particular problems and emotions connected to these problems start to release and resolve. You process old stuck emotions. You’ll watch other videos on my channel or go to my website and get the free starter kit to figure out what it really is. I won’t go into detail there but that’s one technique that I use.

Then we go back to those experiences where they learned that they’re not likable and we release the emotions and as we release the emotions, I won’t go into exact detail how to do that beyond the scope of this video.

But once we release the emotions then the superglue dissolves and now the “I don’t like myself” is just a thought and it’s no longer an emotionalize thought, it’s no longer belief, it’s no longer connected to your nervous system.

Then as a result of that you no longer see that, see the world through that lens of “I don’t like myself; People have to like me in order for me to like myself and approve myself” and that kind of stuff.

That’s what I wanted to share with you today. Now I hope you find it helpful. If you want more tips and tricks and insides like this subscribe here. I released videos like this every Thursday. I have interviews with former clients.

I just did another interview with a former client. I released one like a couple of weeks ago, go check it out on my channel. It’s called “She released 90 percent of her social anxiety” something like that. It’s quite an inspiring interview and I think you’ll really like it.

Now I also have a podcast. On that podcast is something cool happening. My best buddy Tom who I interviewed on my podcast for on vulnerability and sensitivity. He and I ran my retreat almost two months ago here in Bali. I ran it and he was assisting me and when we were having a conversation there on that retreat he was talking about the “nice guy” syndrome and one of the participants on our retreat could relate to that.

I couldn’t relate so much to it and that book has never been so interesting to me – “The nice guy syndrome” it’s called by Dr. Robert Glover.

Because while a lot of people that have social anxiety deal with that “nice guy” syndrome I can personally not relate to that. I’ve more been on the other side where I’ve been quite a dick and I’ve had to become a lot nicer in order to get back to center.

But he could very much relate to it and I’m like well, why don’t we reach out to him and maybe you can interview him and I interview him and I’ll put it on my podcast. So, he’s done that and that’s going to be released pretty soon. That’s cool. That’s at social-anxiety-solutions.com/podcast and you can also find that in iTunes.

When you go to the earliest podcasts you find like 60 or 70 interviews that I did with coaches, psychotherapists, researchers, healers, bestselling authors, psychotherapists who have incorporated energy psychology into their practice.

Most of them are traditionally trained Western psychology people who have tried out this EFT or tried out this tapping, have seen the results of their clients go through the roof.

Things that would take years would now take weeks, things that would take months which sometimes take only a few sessions and people that would be totally stock now started making transformation. I interview these people on my podcast and I get them to share those stories. I asked them and we cover specific social anxiety related topics.

First episode is like how to overcome social perfectionism. Second one is how to overcome shame. We talked about how to get rid of bullying experiences, how to be okay being vulnerable, the importance of self-acceptance when it comes to being socially at ease. All of these podcasts are focused on social anxiety related topics and people find them very inspiring and I think you’ll really enjoy listening to that.

It kind of helps you be in the right mind frame and it helps to not just hear me, this dude talking to a camera say these things to you but you also get it confirmed because they’re all pretty much saying similar things to what I’m saying and they’re having some additional insights because I’m interviewing people who are an expert at what they’re doing. I interview Steve Wells and self-acceptance because he’s an expert at self-acceptance.

I interview Carol Look on perfectionism because she’s an expert at perfectionism. Like that you get an even richer and even deeper experience but simultaneously you’re also learning that what I’m saying is not just me saying that. I didn’t study in an official school, I’m self-taught, I studied under mentors, I found the best in the world and I started to do what they did and I got lots and lots of mentoring. I went through my own journey but I don’t have the official route.

Some people want to hear from PhDs from psychologists, psychotherapists, if that’s you then you’ll find this really fascinating because those are the kinds of people that I interview on my podcast.

After those 60-70 interviews it’s mostly me and you’ll hear the audio of these videos that I’m doing but that’s changing a little bit. Once I have some more time since I don’t have so much more time at the moment my friend Tom just interviewed Dr. Robert Glover from the “Mr. nice-guy” book.

Go check that out and I will talk to you next Thursday. All right, talk to you then. Bye.

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