How Self-Hate Can Lead to Personal Growth

Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue

Shame, self-punishment, self-loathing, beating yourself up—they can all be catalysts for growth.

“Okay, David. You’re taking it too far now with finding the good in every negative experience.”

Trust me, this is not forced or fake optimism. Just the reality of human nature. And there are a lot of uncomfortable things we will have to discuss here. So read until the end (3–4 minutes) and decide how optimistic it sounds.

Before we talk about how all those negative inner experiences can kickstart your growth, we have to take a couple of steps back and talk about your potential.

There is some potential in you. As far as we know, it’s infinitely greater than you’re capable of imagining.

But trying to actualize your potential is uncomfortable. It requires change. And even the most positive change is scary. Because change means facing the unknown and overcoming countless struggles along the way.

That’s why avoiding personal growth is quite a natural response. But you pay a hefty price for making that choice. Avoiding personal growth results in neurosis.

Thinkers like Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow believed that not even trying to fulfill your potential, or “avoiding your destiny,” leads to disorder in your whole being.

People who ignore their own destiny, their call in life, and their capacities "perceive in a deep way that they have done wrong to themselves and despise themselves for it," said Maslow.

Now, some of you might've recognized yourself in those lines.

But some of you might say, “The shame I’m experiencing is not because I’m avoiding personal growth. It’s because of my mistakes and moral failures.”

Well, what do you think a mistake is? Every mistake that you repeat or knowingly make is an act of self-betrayal. It’s actively straying away from the path you know you should be on.

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Back to our “self-hate to growth” story.

Let’s get to the point. How can this awful inner experience, this toxic relationship with yourself, lead to personal growth?

Abraham Maslow, who spent his life studying human potential and those who are actualizing it, said there are two possible outcomes of this self-punishment.

If you remain in this vicious cycle, it may result in neurosis (depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, etc.).

Or, this self-punishment can result in “renewed courage” and increased "self-respect,” as Maslow says.

"How the hell is the second scenario possible?" you ask.

“...because of thereafter doing the right thing.”

The simplest yet the most difficult thing, right? After taking 99 steps on the path of self-betrayal, not taking the 100th one.

At every point of straying away from your path, you are experiencing this self-punishment as a signal that you’re not living the way you should be.

At every point, you are aware that you could and should make a different choice. And anyone who says they are not aware of it is just giving themselves an easy way out.

Every single time you receive this inner alarm in the form of shame and self-loathing, it's a chance for you to turn things around.

Just one small choice in the direction of who you are supposed to be is enough to turn the momentum in a healthy, constructive direction.

But now you see why I said there is no forced or fake optimism here. Most people won’t find this message optimistic and encouraging at all.

Because it asks you to admit that you still have enough self-awareness to see when you are making the wrong choice.

Most difficult of all things, it asks you to admit you have some control over your life. And who wants to admit that, right? It means taking responsibility for who you are and what your life looks like.

“Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” - Viktor Frankl

Thank you for reading.

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