16. Self-Love and Compassion
So far, this book is how to control your anger so you quit causing so much wreckage to the people in your life, but most importantly, you need to work on being a little nicer to yourself. I was a complete jerk growing up, and most of my anger issues was because I didn't feel good about myself. I did and said so many things out of anger that I regretted. Some people may even say that the old Chris was a bully, and there's nothing worse than being a bully with a conscience.
As I grew older, I realized that my anger was directed at others because I didn't like myself. This was for a variety of reasons that I learned threw therapeutic processes (by the way, get a therapist if you don't have one yet). As the son of an alcoholic mother, I'm prone to a lot of negative self-talk because I never thought I was good enough. My brain tells me that I'm unlovable and not going to do anything with my life. If you're like me, we beat ourselves up and say worse things to ourselves than anyone could ever say to us, and we need to work on it.
The first step is to cut yourself some slack. I'm going to tell you what someone told me a long time ago, which is you're going to fuck up...a lot. The the reason this was and still is so important to me is because so many of us have insane expectations of ourselves. We think we're never going to screw up and we can somehow some day be the perfect human being. I hate to burst your bubble, but that is never going to happen. Now that we got that out of the way, be a little bit nicer to yourself.
Forgive yourself without becoming complacent. This means to acknowledge that you screwed up and apologize where necessary. One way that I don't stay complacent is to be mindful of the fact that I hate apologizing as I mentioned in that section of this book. As long as you're trying to become a better person each day, you deserve to celebrate that.
Celebrate your small successes! If you went an entire day without freaking out on someone when you would have done that usually, congratulate yourself. Every time I don't lose my mind on someone who was a complete asshole to me, that's a victory, and it helps me love myself a little more.
The best self-love tip I can give you is to just start being nicer to people and do things for others. Again, we're working on minimizing our selfishness and self-centeredness. Honestly, why do you think I love making so many YouTube videos? Why do you think I love replying to comments, DMs and emails? Because it feels good to help people.
The more you go out and do things for others without expecting anything in return, you'll feel better. I've never met anyone who went to feed the homeless or helped an old lady with her groceries who felt like a piece of garbage after. It's extremely hard to believe that negative voice in your head when you're constantly doing good things for other people.
Recommended reading: Real Love by Sharon Salzberg is one of my favorite books of all time, and I'm going to read it for a second time soon. Sharon Salzberg is a meditation teacher who specializes in loving-kindness, compassion and happiness. The entire first part of this book is learning how to be nicer to yourself, and then it goes on to help you with the other relationships in your life because we can't truly love others until we begin loving ourselves, so I
highly recommend this book.
