I’ve been avoiding this. Resisting doing the work. I actually sat down and wrote other stuff just to make myself feel better about not doing what I should be doing.

What would my life look like if I was living without self-hatred?
I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that I would be better able to make healthy choices when it came to my own well-being. I might hesitate to smoke or to eat garbage or to use unhealthy coping mechanisms to distract myself. I imagine that, without self-hatred I might instead place value on myself. That’s the reason I’m here, listening to this audiobook and typing words that are way out of my comfort zone.
I could give myself credit for all of the things that I am doing well, instead of always dwelling on the parts of me that I think “need work”.

Woah. What if a lack of self-hatred allowed me to believe it when other people say they love me? Maybe I wouldn’t constantly undermine that idea with the persistent thought that I am fundamentally unlovable.

If loving myself truly is the key to my emotional prison, I guess pressing through my resistance is even more important than I thought.

One thing that’s mentioned in the audiobook is being able to survive criticism. Oh wow does that sound nice. Criticism pretty much completely breaks me, and most of it I take, package up and use as evidence that I am not worthy of the air that I’m breathing. Let’s just pretend for a minute that I can look at myself in a positive light one day. What might that change in terms of my reaction to criticism? If I am not coming from a place where I can’t stand myself, maybe criticism won’t hurt me so much. Maybe I’ll be able to become teachable. Maybe loving myself could open me up to opportunities and experiences because I believe in myself.

It would be really nice to believe in myself.