Our neighbor is our refuge; self is our demon-foe ~~ George MacDonald
Any teaching that puts the focus on self and what we need to do, instead of on Christ and what he’s already done, is legalistic (consider Romans 6:14).
I respect Job—his devotion to God, and his kindness to the poor. Nevertheless, his concept of God was initially tainted with legalism:
Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom. Job 1:5b.
I might go so far as to suggest that Job’s fearful bondage to religious ritual gave an opening to the legalistic devil:
While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” Job 1:18-19.
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According to George MacDonald self-loathing (repentance) is good. It is a step forward in the forgetting of the self.
“Those are not the tears of repentance!.. Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father’s arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates.”
― George MacDonald, Lilith
I will never badmouth GMac again.
Here’s part of a discussion about that from Dr. J. Vernon McGee I kinda like:
Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom…. Thus dwelt Esau in Mount Seir: Esau is Edom. And these are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites in Mount Seir. (Genesis 36:1, 8, 9)
That is the record that is given, and it is repeated three times. Although I am sure Moses did not know, the Spirit of God knew that this would need to be emphasized: Esau is Edom and Edom is Esau. The Edomites were those who were descended from Esau, just as the Israelites are those who are descended from Jacob.
The story of Esau and Jacob is that of twin brothers, sons of Isaac and Rebekah.
…
Having seen Esau in the first book of the Old Testament, we look now at the last book of the Old Testament and read this strange language:I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, In what way hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD; yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau…. (Malachi 1:2, 3)
…
God never said that He hated Esau or loved Jacob until He came to the last book in the Old Testament. By that time, both men had become nations: Edom and Israel. Israel has been mightily used of God through the centuries. Israel produced men like Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Hezekiah, Nehemiah, Ezra, and on down the line. But the nation that came from Esau became a godless nation. Edom turned its back upon God.
…
The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou who dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, who saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? (Obadiah 3)“The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee.” Esau despised his birthright. The man who had the birthright was in contact with God, was the priest of his family, had a covenant from God, and had a relationship with God. Esau said, “I would rather have a bowl of soup than have a relationship with God.” Now we see that enlarged in the nation.
What was it for which God hated Edom? It was pride.
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We seem to have two threads on the same topic of how good it is to have self loathing.
To have ‘self loathing’ is still to be obsessed with oneself.
True humility is not to have a low opinion of oneself. It is to have no opinion of oneself.
If we truly die to ourselves (or crucify the flesh) then there is no ‘self’ to loathe.
We need to forget about ourselves and learn to allow Christ to live in us.
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I wanted to put up What George MacDonald thinks since he was mentally healthy. The people here are unorthodox. Never will I call George MacDonald unorthodox again. He agrees with the righteous Job.
To continue with healthy self hate go here:
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Turning the self-help genre on its head, this humorous, tongue-in-cheek guidebook satirizes modern culture as it teaches how best to self-loathe. Beginning with the basics of self-loathing, readers learn to loathe everything about themselves, including body, hair, and character, while also covering such topics as self-loathing in sex, dating, fashion, the workplace, and even death. With unwelcome insights and light-hearted abjection, this invaluable resource features quizzes, sidebars, and appendices to aid the ardent beginner in becoming truly proficient in the art of self-loathing.
I will probably put some quotes up later.
In "The Upside of Your Dark Side, " two pioneering researchers in the field of psychology show that while mindfulness, kindness, and positivity can take us far, they cannot take us all the way. Sometimes, they can even hold us back. Emotions such as anger, anxiety, guilt, and sadness might feel uncomfortable, but it turns out that they are also incredibly useful. For instance: - Anger fuels creativity - Guilt sparks improvement - Self-doubt enhances performance In the same vein, we can become wiser and more effective when we harness the darker parts of our personality in certain situations. For instance: Mindlessness leads to better decisions The key lies in what the authors call “emotional, social, and mental agility,” the ability to access our full range of emotions and behavior–not just the “good” ones–in order to respond most effectively to whatever situation we might encounter. Drawing on years of scientific research and a wide array of real-life examples including sports, the military, parenting, education, romance, business, and more, “The Upside of Your Dark Side” is a refreshing reality check that shows us how we can truly maximize our potential. With an appreciation of our entire psychological toolkit, we become whole–which allows us to climb the highest peaks and handle the deepest valleys.
Unfortunately, there are indeed two threads addressing the same subject. I forget in which one it was that I confessed to self-hatred or “self loathing” as Pilgrim puts it. In light of his and others’ views, I have given the matter a lot of thought.
I have concluded that I still hate myself for the past sins I committed. God may indeed forget them: Heb. 8:12 “I will forgive their sins and will no longer remember their wrongs.”, but I can’t.
Sorry, Pilgrim.
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Forgive me Norm. You are a saint. It is a complicated issue and I believe that there is some truth on both sides.
“The Lord loves a contrite spirit”.
I think that one of the reasons for some confusion is that the word ‘self’ might be interpreted differently. If I interpret it as ‘my carnal self’ and I look back at all the mistakes I have made, the wrongs I have done, the unnecessary hurts I have committed, then I too am filled with loathing. But I believe that I must hold that in balance with the knowledge that I, along with all people who are made in God’s image, I am the apple of His eye and that He loves me whilst I am yet a sinner (imperfect).
Though I constantly fail to do this, I believe that I should fix my eyes and my mind on Christ rather than on my shortcomings and believe that Christ lives in the ‘newly created’ me.
Satan is the accuser of the brethren and I feel that I listen too intently to his voice which renders me obsessive, neurotic and useless. If I could just think less of myself and allow Christ to do His good work of love for others through me then perhaps I would be more humble- which is what we all want.
I remember the composer John Tavener (28 January 1944 – 12 November 2013) was asked what he would say to Jesus when he met Him face to face. Tavener replied with the same word that came to my heart: “Sorry”.
It may be that the position of balance differs for different personalities. Some people are very proud, self-confident, arrogant, cock-sure, others need to be gently lifted up and reminded of their worth.
I just worry that the road Hollytree is going down may not be beneficial for his spirit.
I hope that some of the above has made half as much sense as your posts have made to me.
God bless you
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I just worry that the road Hollytree is going down may not be beneficial for his spirit.
Well, I’m doing the best I have my entire life now that my focus is flowing outward and not inward. Here’s my diagnosis:
Schizoaffective (bipolar type)
Anxiety
Social Anxiety
Panic attacks
Alcohol and drug abuse
Drug of choice
Crack
Crank
Acid
Ecstasy
Mushrooms
Marijuanna
But no more. Unhealthy Self centered fear and shame is the root of all these disorders. I say unhealthy because I have changed and my fears and shame and guilt over my past now motivate me to stay sober. I hate my old sinful self. This keeps me clean and sober and in line. I’ve lost 100 pounds and no longer doing drugs and alcohol. I look people in the eye and communicate well. No longer have panic attacks. I’m balanced out right now. Here’s what has helped me. I let go of my old self. I despise my old self. Therefore, The old evil self is let go of. I don’t feed the ego. I feed the new self in Christ by praising and worshiping God. The focus is on Christ in meditation and praise and worship. I Starve the evil wolf by turning my focus and concentration off of self and on to God and others. When we lose ourselves we find ourselves. Old self dies new self emerges. It’s a balance of loving God and others as yourself. Focusing on Christ we become one with Him. Psychologists call it flow. Athletes call it being in the zone. Just as a musician becomes one with his instrument when getting in the zone or flow. They play their instrument so well in the present moment that they become one with it. Everything flows in this particular state. Everything is in harmony. Athletes rave about this state during competition. We let go and flow as we meditate on Christ. Beholding His glory (beauty of His worth and value) we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. We find our worth and value in Him. To learn more about flow here’s a book by J.P. Moreland where he talks of how he overcome anxiety and panic.
This book has a whole chapter on what psychologists call flow or being in the zone. Being in the zone is the ultimate in focus and concentration.
Here’s the book J.P. Moreland references and endorses called “You are not your Brain”. It’s on neuroplasticity and how we rewire or brain by refocusing. Written by two psychiatrists.
After steps one and two you refocus and restructure your brain. Here’s a list of some of the things that helped me get in the present moment:
Go for a walk noticing the scenery and environment
Exercise
Listen to music
Read
Write, blog
Play games like solitare
Work
Color
Worship and praise God
Watch a wholesome or educational T.V. show
A hobby that focuses your attention like painting, putting models together. Anything that gets the attention focused and flowing outside of self. Here’s an artcle on adult coloring:
3 Reasons Adult Coloring Can Actually Relax Your Brain
Find out what’s behind the latest craze
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It’s the latest craze. Where you might expect to see children, you find adults: They sit with colored pencils in their hands, bent over the swirls and intricate patterns of coloring books. Yes, coloring books. They are losing themselves in patterns of mandalas, curved flowers and runaway stems. This is a world they create and escape into, and it’s become a popular form of relaxation.
But how does it work? What does this pastime do to our brains to elicit such pleasure and calm?
According to clinical psychologist Scott M. Bea, Psy.D., it has everything to do with refocusing our attention. “Adult coloring requires modest attention focused outside of self-awareness. It is a simple activity that takes us outside ourselves. In the same way, cutting the lawn, knitting, or taking a Sunday drive can all be relaxing.”
What does adult coloring do to relax people?
Dr. Bea cites three reasons adult coloring can be calming:
- Attention flows away from ourselves. A simple act, such as coloring, takes your attention away from yourself and onto the present-moment event. “In this way, it is very much like a meditative exercise,” Dr. Bea says.
- It relaxes the brain. When thoughts are focused on a simple activity, your brain tends to relax. “We are not disturbed by our own thoughts and appraisals,” he says. “The difficulties of life evaporate from our awareness, and both our bodies and our brains may find this rewarding.”
- Low stakes make it pleasurable. The fact that the outcome of coloring is predictable also can be relaxing. “It is hard to screw up coloring, and, even if you do, there is no real consequence. As result, adult coloring can be a wonderful lark, rather than an arduous test of our capacities,” he adds.
Why does it help some people but not others?
Adult coloring does not relax everyone. It depends on the individual and their prior experiences. Dr. Bea suspects that the more a person enjoyed coloring as a child, the more likely he or she is to respond to it positively as an adult. “It has been my impression that adults choose variants of activities they loved as children for their adult recreations,” he says.
Is there research to support it as a form of relaxation?
Research on adult coloring specifically is limited, as it has risen in popularity relatively recently. However art therapy has been used for many years with much success.
In a 2006 study, researchers found that mindfulness art therapy for women with cancer helped to significantly decrease the symptoms of physical and emotional distress during their treatment. Art therapy has also been helpful to people cope with other conditions, including depression, anxiety, addictions and trauma.
“While adult coloring may differ slightly from this mindfulness art therapy, I suspect the adult coloring would yield similar results. It is likely that its therapeutic benefits would be similar to listening to a person’s favorite music,” Dr. Bea says.
Why has this become popular now?
Having hobbies to help de-stress is nothing new, whether people like to golf, cook, build model airplanes or put together scrap books. People are also open to finding new ways to unwind. “We have a very stress-inducing culture, and I think individuals are always seeking new ways to reduce tension, restore feelings of well-being, and reduce the toll that our stressful lives take on our health,” Dr. Bea says.
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Self Hate, The Most Dangerous Coping Mechanism
https://tealswan.com/resources/articles/self-hate-the-most-dangerous-coping-mechanism-r290/
An article from “Psychology Today” showing that those with high self esteem (narcissists) are violent. It’s a myth that violent and aggressive people have low self esteem:
quote from the article:
It is important to base beliefs on scientific evidence rather than intuition, common sense, gut feelings, hunches, instincts, intuitions, and premonitions, which can often lead us astray. Although many people believe that aggressive and violent people have low self-esteem, they do not. Aggressive people tend to be narcissists. Narcissists think they are special people who deserve special treatment. When they don’t get the respect they think they are entitled to, narcissists lash out at others in an aggressive manner.
From the psychiatrist David D. Burns, M.D. He’s a clinical psychiatrist sold over a million copies of books and has lectured for general audiences and mental health professionals throughout the country as well as a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. He’s received numerous awards including Distinguished Contribution to Psychology Through the Media Award from the Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology. A magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Amherst college, Dr. Burns received his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine.
A person can have too much self-esteem! A person with healthy self-esteem also respects and likes others. In contrast, a person with excessive self-esteem is arrogant and self-centered and disrespectful of others. In it’s most extreme form, excessive self-esteem is known as narcissistic personality disorder. People with this disorder have fantasies of grandeur and an inflated sense of self esteem. They are insensitive to the needs and feelings of others and exploit other people for their own purposes. When they are criticized or confronted, they react with rage or with feelings of shame. They have difficulties forming close, trusting, equal relationships with others. ~~ 10 Days To Self-esteem page 189
There’s also the criticisms of the psychologists who founded Acceptance Commitment Therapy. The psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Mississippi from “The Wisdom To Know the Difference” under the section called “The Self-Esteem Myth”
The myth says that low self-esteem lies at the core of many individual and societal problems…During the last ten years, there has been a major effort by scientists to examine whether this story about the role of self-esteem is true. As it turns out, the answer is no. High self-esteem is related to aggressiveness, bullying, narcissism, egotism, prejudice, and high risk behaviors.
It’s those who love themselves (inflated egotists) who get angry and violent when perceived wrongs happen. As many of you know I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Through the years I’ve improved tremendously and have gained insights into my disorder. I no longer take mood stabilizers and am on a very small antipsychotic. It’s about 1/4 of what I use to take. That’s how much I have improved. My social skills are 10000 times better today. I find that Hyper Calvinism with inflated self esteem exacerbates the mental problem. It places me at the center of the universe with no break in the deterministic chain of logic. There’s no room for paradox and mystery and hence no room for health. Moreover being at the center of everything is just an egoism delusion that paranoid schizophrenics have to an extreme degree. This is why I have become nothing or nobody special in the worldly sense. Here’s how Eckhart Tolle describes the mental illness:
The mental illness that is called paranoid schizophrenia, or paranoid for short, is essentially an exaggerated form of ego…The mental illness we call paranoia also manifests another symptom that is an element of every ego, although in paranoia it takes on a more extreme form. The more the sufferer sees himself persecuted, spied on, or threatened by others, the more pronounced becomes his sense of being the center of the universe around whom everything evolves, and the more special and important he feels as the imagined focal point of so many people’s attention.
This has been my experience as well. When my ego deflates and I’m no longer a “somebody” or a special famous person the symptoms subside. The chain breaks as I see mystery and paradox within reality. I’m no longer boxed in on center stage all the time. When I’m inflated fear and shame take on an extreme form where psychoses results. That’s why the title of this thread is proper self - hatred. The kind George MacDonald and Job are referring to.
When I have a proper self-loathing my self-esteem lowers. When this happens it makes me more creative as I seek meaning in pain, it makes me more respectful as I esteem others as better than myself, it makes me more gentle because when I’m weak then I’m strong, it makes me more empathetic because I’ve suffered therefore I know, and it makes me a good listener because I would rather listen to others. It makes me more contemplative. Self loathing has given me gifts that I can keep. From “Psychologist World”:
Hate by itself is the emotional dynamic of the ability to sustain long periods of concentration and meditation. It does not require an object to focus on (it mirrors pure love in this respect) ; it is a general-purpose tool for cutting positive attachments, especially in relationships (for example, pride in hate mode rejects another person, whereas hate by itself rejects any pleasant attachment to the other person). Hate produces clear thinking and strengthens a person’s will power. It supports the desire for solitude. It cools the mind and may easily be mistaken for a mild sense of peace. It is likely to be the prevailing mood when a meditator claims that they are no longer acting from a sense of ego. The skilful way of using hate is to clear the mind of redundant attachments and desires. https://www.psychologistworld.com/emotion/types-hate
Here’s something else I’m pondering about repentance and love/hate. I’ve said since the beginning that we hate the evil self and love the good self. It’s love/hate. If love is the disposition to seek the good of someone and hate is opposition to the values and plans of someone then it is possible to both love and hate myself. I can hate myself at the time of repentance in the sense of opposing myself and being disgusted by my character and actions, while at the same time desiring to change. Thus, I can both love and hate myself at the same time.
I wrote about my experiences with shame spirals here:
Here’s a paper on shame, paranoia, and self-compassion
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13801/
Background: High levels of shame are frequently reported in individuals with experiences of paranoia, and recent literature suggests that shame is an important factor in the development of paranoia following stressful life events. Psychological therapies that involve the development of self-compassion are designed to address high levels of shame, and emerging evidence suggests promise for the effectiveness of these interventions for individuals with paranoia.
It’s also in my “Treating Psychoses” book. It has what I’m talking about with shame and psychoses paranoia or persecutory delusions in a section called Compassion Focused Approaches.
Compassion focused approaches are most effective when working with delusions associated with critical auditory hallucinations, which are in turn linked to shame and an underlying schema of self-blame. Such exercises are also pertinent in persecutory delusions where, in the face of constant perceived threat and hypervigilance, they promote self-soothing. They are viable in the face of the delusional system with the negative underlying core belief such as “I am a bad or unlovable person”. Compassionate self statements can be reinforced by compassionate imagery, compassionate letter writing to the self, or a compassion box containing items that nurture the self, such as key photographs, poems, music, and so on. page 117
It’s a proper self-loathing that leads to repentance. Not all self-loathing. When I’m inflated with high self esteem the shame is more intense when it happens. I don’t deny that shame spirals cause psychoses. That’s what caused mine. But there is a proper shame and guilt. Just as the Ph.D. in psychology describes here in “Psychology Today”. Feeling bad about yourself can lead you to change.
Quote from the article:
In other words, self-hatred is psychologically damaging but it can also make you more motivated to change.