Gemma Speck

And so the old negative belief stays unchallenged.

You do not learn that maybe they would have said yes.

You do not learn that maybe you were ready for that new role.

But maybe people do really like you.

Maybe there was an amazing opportunity on the other side of you just...

asking that question the only truth that remains true and that is reinforced when you self-sabotage because of self-hatred is that your inner critic is helpful is that it is useful and it was correct after all because look you failed look nothing happened see it was trying to protect you that was going to be the outcome all along at least you didn't embarrass yourself in the process

I think the other cost of self-hatred, other than just the fact that you always lose, is that it consumes an unbelievable amount of time.

Honestly, more time than we probably have in our busy life.

If you are constantly hypervigilant and monitoring how you sound, how you look, come across, perform...

or are being like perceived and you are you're just using so many attentional resources that could have gone into actually living when your attention is trapped in self-surveillance you stop being in your own life you stop actually being present and you just start performing the second guessing alone

Literally, second guessing.

It doubles every second you would normally spend just thinking and acting.

Another thing to be cautious of is that self-hatred can leak outwards.

We've spoken a lot about the individual cost of this inner critic, but shame has a way of becoming very relationally toxic.

When people are so wrapped up in this chronic self-contempt and self-hatred,

They may become more irritable, more defensive, more comparative.

And I think it's safe to say more likely to project onto others because we're more likely to feel threatened by the traits we see in those around us.

And we're more likely to feel threatened, especially by the traits that we've taught to punish in ourselves.

So we see somebody who really likes themselves and we think, well, why can't I do that?

Why don't I have that opportunity?