How to love myself? Feel dead inside.

Hello, I have been meditating for the last few months, with a few ups and downs and special occurences. I'm 21 years old, have some hardcore mind patterns that bring me down and make me hurt, Osho said there are people with big egos, and people with big wounds, I feel like the last part describes me pretty well.

I am trying to understand how to love myself. Two times, it has worked. I even at one day, felt a few minutes of absolute bliss, love penetrating my body. However, then my body goes numb again the day after, and I can feel nothing. All I feel is anger arising when I try to love myself.

I have tried; Welcoming and acknowledging thoughts. I have tried thinking of people that I have loved, or visualisation, or thinking of times that I have felt loved. But I don't really love anyone, I can't even visualize and imagine love, I can't feel much of anything except for hate and anger.

Today I tried a guided meditation, even though I believe real change comes from meditating on your own, this was a guided meditation tailored to start self-love, and I felt nothing.

I can feel nothing but anger or hatred inside. It feels as I am dead inside. I must learn to love myself, for the sake of my life and for the sake of my meditation, and I would very much like if someone had tried anything similarly and overcome it, or have any knowledge on the part..

Thanks in advance,
The numb

 

I found this book helped me very much. I had done loving-kindness mediation before but this book really helped me understand and gave me an outlook that helps me when I get hit with 'the numb'

Loving Kindness

 

How are your relationships and work?

 

@Blazing i'm afraid I don't have the finances to buy a book at the moment, anyway you can relay what you found important in it for me?

@Cherea my relationships are ok with some people, my school is not going very well, on the verge of dropping out.

 

I stumbled across the book in my library. Give yours a check.

I wish I could give a summation but I'm terribly inarticulate on these topics and the books effect was explaining the facets of loving-kindess and compassion through anecdote.

If you're not familiar with loving-kindness (Metta bhavana) meditation, it goes through several stages. Cultivating love for yourself, Cultivating love for a good friend, Cultivating love for a 'neutral' person, Cultivating love for a 'difficult' person, Cultivating love for all four and then expand to love for the universe.

There are a plethera of sites that could probably go into this better than I. Give 'em a google.

I started trying this meditation on my own but I have focus issues when I'm out of meditative practice and so I used a audio/guided meditation track. (Shoot me a pm, I can probably get these to you some how)

The most important thing is to keep practising, even if you're feeling low. There are times when I'm low that it's hard, especially the lovin' yourself and the 'difficult person' parts. Repetition is key. That's how we form/reinforce certain neural pathways.

I'll snoop around the internets to see if I can find anything that can explain compassion well but the way that book explained things, it helped my meditation and compassion became my tool to feeling again.

 

In my life, when I've encountered difficulties similar to what you've expressed, I've found it very helpful to get off the mat, away from myself and into a group. This can open up a way into or out of something that would be extremely hard to find by oneself. It's like the opposite door to meditation. Both are good, especially when equally embraced.

Depending on where you live this could be more or less difficult. If you can't find a group, then perhaps a Preist, Monk, Shaman or therapist of another kind can help you. A specialist you can sit face to face with can be invaluable. They can give advice, practices, medicines, pray for you, use their own expertise to work through your blocks in many different ways.

Failing this. Perhaps go out to a place where your alone, say a prayer and go wild for a little bit. Dance, jump for joy, scream, talk nonsense, roll on the ground, massage yourself, embarrass yourself... do whatever comes to you, break your patterns, step outside all of your mental and emotional constructs. It might sound weird or stupid or make you uncomfortable just to think about let alone do, however it's a healing as ancient as the human race. I once went to a Taoist who'd been trained in his particular tradition since he was a young boy and this was a central part of the group healing practice they did and according to Bradford Keeney it's part of the Kalahari way and all humans can be traced back to the Kalahari. If you want to check this out a little further, here's two videos:
In Africa
In the West

 

May I suggest going to a mall or large store and standing out in front with a sign that says, "Free Hugs" and then giving them to anyone who wants one.

 

Yeah i like that book too! Salzburg basically tells you to be a nice person (help other people and do voluntary work for charity ect), develop more compassion, and introduces you to metta meditation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettā

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I also find louise hay quite helpful (but please ignore the new agey stuff about healing your body) - learning to appreciate and be grateful for your life is the most important lesson. And the statement that your thoughts create your future is wise

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmc0BvY96ss

It maybe sounds like you're just thinking too much about the past. Eckhart tolle is wonderful for explaining how to live in the moment
http://www.eckharttolle.com/eckharttolle-books
And Thich Nhat Hanh
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aubF7v-MlMM&feature=related

Anyway, good luck, I'm sure you'll start to feel better about yourself. The secret is to be gentle with yourself! and don't expect to be perfect, especially when learning to meditate.
You can accept and be kind hearted towards yourself regardless of what you think you deserve or think about your past. What that means is accepting both your good sides and bad sides. You do NOT have to think you're the best person in the world. We all have good and bad in us. You don't have to be perfect, or anywhere close! Loving yourself means seeing both your best and worst parts and deciding that you might as well be kind hearted and gentle to yourself anyway.

I think the big egos are also created by wounds. The big ego is like a defence some people create against their wounds, it's a form of overcompensation. THe secret is to accept the wound (accept that it happened, that it doesn't say anything about your value as a person, and that everyone has wounds - it doesn't make you different to other people), and accept that we're all pretty much in the same position. We all have wounds, every single one of us, so don't feel separated from other people because of it. In the long term, having big wounds might even help you, it definitely helps you develop compassion for other people in the same situation. In a lot of mythology, it is suggested that in order to heal other people you first have to be wounded yourself http://www.realitysandwich.com/wounded_healer

It sounds like you're using this idea (that you need to love yourself) as another way of depressing yourself or beating yourself down. When people recommend loving yourself, it doesn't mean you have to do it all the time, let alone that you have to feel good all the time.

The idea is just to be a bit more gentle and forgiving towards yourself, and that includes being gentle and forgiving towards yourself even while you're learning to be gentle and forgiving towards yourself! If you feel anger or hatred inside, then that feeling isn't the end of the world. Simply accept that you're feeling angry today, and realise that the anger is just some thought patterns or chemicals running through your head, and that it really isn't such a big deal (every single one of us has those emotions - it's perfectly normal, temporary, and doesn't make you a bad person).

Learning to love yourself isn't some kind of mystical experience which suddenly happens (like flicking on a light-switch). It's just about increasingly learning to relate to yourself (and your past experiences) in a more gentle and warm-hearted way, and it's something that will hopefully improve slowly & steadily over the years

 

Angry young man huh? Ha!

You're more normal than you know.

At your age, you're hard at work trying to get your footing in the world. This is a process of addition and subtraction. Likes and dislikes are amplified so that you are forced to make a decision.

The end product is an adult.

Such as we are.



x

 

Dear Zeniues,

Emotions can be engineered. We are very logical feedback systems. Negative emotions produce distress, and more distress produces more negative emotions. This happens as uninhibited feedback between the amygdala and the hypothalamus in our brains. Your hippocampus is sidelined and "isolated" right now. You are probably feeling isolated yourself.

How do you activate it to create a healthy balance?

You have to change your emotional imput, which is hard if you are genetically predisposed to negative emotions. But it is very doable. It's about engineering. Anger or fear (fight or flight response), usually a combination, is driving your distress right now.

The opposite of anger and fear are compassion and love - the king and queen of positive emotions and happiness (long-term input). I'll give you a script to a very powerful compassion meditation. My advice: Practice the prayer meditation (no religion needed), then lay down and do the balanced mindfulness/mantra meditation. What happens? You focus really close on love and compassion for yourself, filling your mind with it, then detach from your prayer and simply let your positive emotions flush through and alter the distressing feedback cycle.

You have to push the prayer/your statement, which makes it hard in the beginning. But you can do it.

It is about engineering your focus (mantra), then become mindful. Reason and emotion interact in your brain. Negative emotions attract negative reasons and vice versa. So focus on loving, compassionate mantras - people, animals/pets, yourself. And repeat until you believe in it, then you will start feeling it. Religions have been founded on this principle, and you simply will design your own loving, compassionate beliefs.

Just do it. It happens automatically if you stick with the meditation.

Do it in the morning and in the evening. This is just a bad phase - everything is a phase. Push through it with love and compassion, and engineer and design your internal environment through compassion meditation: http://www.meditation-techniques-for-happiness.com/compassion-meditation.html

Best wishes,
Oz

 

Meditation is a tool for one. If that tool has an adverse effect like making one feel empty or emotionless then save that tool for a time when you can get more into a developed path, or when you are able to use it to advance your wisdom.

The common notions of 'emptiness' or 'witnessing' are not hollow and deadening feelings but just the opposite. Sometimes some forms of thought control can make one feel dull. Don't use those techniques if they make you feel bad. Don't follow those gurus if they take away your self volition. Stay your own boss of your own destiny. Even your mistakes are yours and of value.

As for developing self esteem that takes a lifetime and we all have to strive for it at something. In that way nobody is uncommon.

 

Sorry to hear that. And sorry you've gotten quite a few responses that will lead you nowhere.

The first thing is to stop trying to not feel hate and anger. Osho would be the first to tell you to feel it until you know that shit inside and out. Don't avoid it at all. Realllly feel it. Express it (though without hurting a living being, or getting yourself into trouble). Go out and break some stuff. Yell. Write out how pissed you are at everything. Keep going until you're sick of it, then go some more. Keep on going until the anger and fear seems absurd and you're exhausted and tired of the anger and fear itself. You need to mobilize those feelings and release some of the turmoil before you can get clarity and get down to the love that's inside you. It hasn't left, trust me, it's just buried.

Second, start asking the question, "who's feeling this anger?" Really try to get to the bottom of that. Do this through meditation. There are two ways: 1) (what I would suggest) In meditation, try focusing on "who/what am I?" 2) Before meditation ask God/Spirit the question "who am I," then release it and focus on your focus of meditation.

Third, find something that you're naturally good at, and at least take up an interest in it. It could be cooking, art, writing, making people laugh, tuning bikes, teaching birds to talk, listening to people...it doesn't matter, but everyone has a unique gift- try to find yours. If it doesn't come immediatly, don't worry, just keep trying to find out what it is.

Fourth- Stop trying to find happiness, or to make yourself happy. It won't work. Happiness is ultimately a result of being fulfilled, not a result of chemicals.

Fifth (though this could/should really be #1)- Stop looking to things in the world to bring you happiness. Happiness/true Fulfillment comes from Spirit/God which is both beyond and simultanesouly this world (though so completely that it's hard to see.) Try to find God and everything else will come into play.

Sixth- Get involved with a group of spiritually minded people. Find a meditation group, take a yoga class (at an open-minded place, there are a lot of very rigid places out there), etc.

If you seek the Infinite/God first, everything else follows.

Seriously, don't lose heart or courage. To have reached the end of fulfillment in the world, and to have found meditation means you are veeerrrrryyyyyy far along the path. It's natural to reach a point of utter despair and depression when a person reaches the end of worldly fulfillment. Look at the Buddha, he nearly starved himself out of despair at not finding fulfillment.

Anyhow, best of luck, feel free to PM me if you need anything or just want to vent.

 

Your mind is what it is, trying to forcibly change it through meditation will bring you pain.

There is a saying in Zen "You'll make a diamond by polishing a brick before you make a Buddha by practicing Meditation"

It seems counter-intuitive at first, but it's point is that you aren't trying to transform your mind from one thing to another through meditation, but to come to terms with your mind as it is.

You're feeling "empty" and judging yourself on it.
When you meditate you will feel a myriad of things, but all these feelings rise and fall, none of them are permanent.

I've found as I become more familiar with my mind, I'm much better at breaking out of mental patterns that cause me suffering, and spotting these things as they start to occur, but ultimately you can't stop a brain behaving like a brain, anymore than you can change the function of your kidneys or liver.

 

This has to be one of the greatest pieces of 'advice' I've read in a while.

It is such great advice, it transcends advice.

 

I also do Weddings and Bah Mitzvahs

 

just do your best... and realize all that anyone ever does is their best.. what is just is.. do what you want.. how can happiness be missed? and if it is, you tried your best.. sometimes it is unnattainable, just makes it better in the future