The Psychology of your 20s - 421. Hating yourself will get you nowhere

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

Being your own harshest critic can feel productive, protective, even familiar, but over time, it becomes less of a motivator and more of a cage. In this episode, we explore the psychology of self-hatred - where it begins, how it becomes a deeply ingrained, and what it actually steals from us over time.  We explore: •        How early experiences shape the inner critic•        Why self-hatred can feel protective•        The myth of cruelty as a motivator•        The neural pattern of self-hatred•        The role of self sabotaging•        6 practical tips to build a better relationship with yourself Watch on Netflix: HERE Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s For business: [e-mail]  Our favourite sources: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8341.2011.02044.x https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167211410246 https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0033904 The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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of Formation in Health Supposed by Santee Canada. There was no anything inside those eyes. They turned black. It scared the hell out of me. Evil, wake up. I'm the woman that saw the murder

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Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions ever since I was born. This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is spontaneous, real, and genuine. Just honest conversations about what it means to be alive. I'm Javier Chichariot-O-Nand-es,

and listen to learning to be human. on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Chams podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Sway Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate that. I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still got, like, so much more to do. Like, Prince, he dropped like 30 albums.

We dropped, like, five right now. That's the rate we got to be going. Yep, that's a good attitude. No matter the era, Drink Chams brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversation. Listen to Drink Chams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Speg and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another.

episode. Not much chit-chat this morning, guys, not much small talk because we have a big episode, a big episode on something that I have been thinking about a lot recently, which is how normalized it has become to actively hate yourself and how almost hated you are online, in person, in the real world, if you say or show that you love yourself. How in the world did we get here? Why does that make any sense? and to perhaps get a little bit conspiratorial on you all, who is benefiting from this? Who is benefiting from this system of self-loving? Who set this all up so that self-hatred is the status quo and self-love is the thing that

is seen as sinful or bad? It just seems to me a little bit ridiculous. And I also personally think it's keeping a lot of us stuck in places that we don't want to be. I've been saying this so much on the podcast recently. in so many different episodes, you can't hate yourself into a successful life. And I thought, you know, there's only so many times I can say that before I just do a full freaking episode on it. And today is that day. We're going to look at the science and the psychology

that proves you cannot hate yourself into a successful life. And yeah, essentially just dissects where your self-hatred comes from and why it's lying to you. You know, it's not going to make you humble. It's not going to make you more successful because of that humility. You cannot bully yourself into being better. Even if it gets momentary results, it is not a long-term motivational force, the way that we tend to think it will be. This is a big episode today. We have a lot to explore. I really particularly want to drill into the origins of this feeling and of this like psychological self-loathing. And then also, of course, provide some evidence-based strategies to eliminate that mindset,

especially if you were in your 20s, because if there was going to be a time in your life where you really needed to have a deep sense of self-belief, it would be this time. It would be right now. So I feel like if you are struggling with self-doubt and self-belief, loathing that has become insidious and is bleeding into everything that you're doing. This is the perfect episode for you. Without further ado, let's talk about why hating yourself will get you nowhere you want to be. And of course, the alternative.

Stay with us. Let's start here. Why does it feel easier to hate ourselves rather than love ourselves? Like, instinctually, why does it feel easier to dismiss a complex? or to be self-deprecating in front of other people or why does it feel easier to focus in on all the things we dislike about our bodies and dislike about our personalities and dislike about our work ethic rather than the things that we like. That doesn't come from nowhere. And the best evidence that this is an external influence first and foremost that becomes internalized,

the best evidence for this is being around children, right? Being around kids. kids and seeing that before the age of four or five, children have no concept that there is something about themselves that could be unlikable. Like that is not even something that enters their consciousness. They don't even, they don't even think about it. But then it's almost like there comes a point where a switch gets flipped, a switch gets turned. My friend actually, she has two kids, one who is three and one who was eight. I was watching them the other day and we were doing arts and craft and like the younger one is just like scribbling, she's having fun and like doesn't really care, it's like exploring. And the eight year old was like this one isn't good. Like this

one is bad. My art is bad. Like I have to start over again. And just like the parallel like the juxtaposition between these two people was like quite striking. So where does this come from? When does this self-loving first hit? Psychology will tell us that a lot of self-hatred starts as a form of adaptation. When we're young, we don't yet have like a fully formed, stable sense of self. So we often borrow our reflections and borrow our sense of identity from other people who we spend a lot of time around. parents, teachers, siblings, peers, they kind of help us build the first draft of how you understand yourself by offering suggestions, but sometimes also offering criticism and also by displaying self-criticism towards themselves. This is what we call, this first sense of self is

what we call the evaluative self. We learn about what it means to be human by seeing what others are doing, thinking about what others are doing, copying other people's behaviors, and also comparing our own behavior or our own little lives to what we see around us. At some point, we become aware that there is an audience. We're not always performing for the same audience, though. We become aware as children there is an audience. Some of our childhood audiences were a lot meaner. Some of our parents weren't very nice. Some of our peers weren't very nice. Some of our teachers weren't very nice. Some of our teachers weren't very nice. If those early environments are warm, you often learn that mistakes are survivable and that your worth will remain intact, even when you get things wrong, even when you're

not perfect, you're happy to explore, you're happy to bounce back, you're happy to, you just are resilient. Like, I think about my friend's kid, right? Yeah, she didn't like her art, but just because she didn't like it when it was compared to, like, the idea of somebody else's picture, right? Not because her parents were like screaming at her that she was terrible at everything she does like she didn't like it from a comparative sense for some people though like their environment like the inner critic was always external it was a highly critical rejecting humiliating unpredictable cruel completely disengaged person who was like speaking things in their ear telling them they were terrible Children are watching so closely. They are listening so closely and they internalize the tone of our own language, not just towards them, but towards ourselves as well.

Research has consistently found that higher self-criticism and self-hatred as an adult, if you have more of those things as an adult, it's greatly associated with early memories of parental rejection or conditional affection from parents, but also, from favoritism, from, favoritism from teachers, from childhood bullying, basically just harmful experiences that occurred right as we were forming our evaluative self. For example, there was a 2006 study published in the Journal of Effective Disorders, and it looked at the impact of childhood verbal abuse on how adults view themselves. They analyzed the data of like 6,000 people, And they found that heavy or high levels of criticism and discipline and like non-purposeful discipline experiencing that as a child has a really significant impact on the development of things like adult depression and adult anxiety.

The researchers described the role as self-criticism in these studies as basically a full mediator. So this basically means that the verbal abuse didn't. directly cause the depression, but it causes a child to develop a self-critical brain, because of course they're going to believe what an adult says about them. They're the role model. They're the adult. And that self-critical brain is what drives some parts or a lot of parts of adult depression. A similar story is definitely seen in terms of pure experiences as well. When we're kids, when we are teenagers, this weird social like pecking order can emerge as people kind of like fight to promote their evaluative selves and to feel good about themselves. Like the main way that we feel good

about ourselves as children and teenagers is in reference to other people. And so to feel better, we often have to result to criticizing others, bullying, making remarks, jokes, feeling a sense of superiority, that sort of thing. Of course, that's not always the case, but it's very, very prevalent, and that definitely reinforces the self-hatred of the person being targeted, for sure. It also reinforces the self-hatred of the person doing the targeting. Like, there is a reason that as teenagers, when we are insecure, we feel the need to diminish somebody else. And it means that, like, every person in this situation feels terrible. This is why self-hatred can feel so intimate, because it starts so, so young.

Someone else's voice, when heard enough times with enough authority or emotional force, can stick with us and form part of who we think we are. Eventually, like, if this criticism becomes loud enough, it no longer needs somebody else to be present. Like, we inherently believe that, yes, we aren't that talented. Yes, we aren't that attractive. Yes, we aren't that smart. yes, we aren't somebody that others want to be around because we're hearing it from maybe a parent, we're hearing it from teachers, we're hearing it from peers. And then something even more complicated

happens. Self-hatred starts to feel useful because it feels so normal. Sometimes, I don't know, we end up hating ourselves as a form of self-protection, thinking that, you know, if I criticize myself enough, if I criticize myself before anybody else can, I get to feel prepared. If I make fun of myself first, I'm in control of the humiliation instead of waiting to be surprised by it. That is why self-hatred can feel so oddly comforting because it is familiar, because we take what other people have said about us, we become so normalized and comfortable around it. We begin to feel like, well, if we do it before them, then we can make this thing useful. This is one of the biggest myths about the inner critic, that if you stopped tearing yourself

apart, you would become lazy, you would become indulgent, you would become complacent, unambitious, you would become morally kind of soft. And there is this kind of cultural admiration for harshness, especially when it is directed inwards that we actually tend to confuse with discipline. Like we act like being emotionally brutal with ourselves is evidence that we are willing to push ourselves, that we are willing to push our ego aside, and therefore we must be a good person, we must be a hardworking person, we must be a worthy person. Psychologically, that makes sense. And it makes sense why people end up here, end up in this state of just like constant self-loathing without even realizing it.

If you grew up in environments where, you know, your parents were also harsh towards themselves as well, not just towards you or harsh to each other, you know, you also have a higher chance of internalizing self-hatred as a normal part of life. For example, if you had a mother or a father who was always criticizing or complaining about their body as a way to force themselves to stick to diets, which I feel like is a lot more common than we realize, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate, your mind then learns that hatred equals motivation and motivation equals progress. We need hatred to make ourselves do the things and stick to the things that we said we were going to do. Here's the thing, and this may sound like I'm about to contradict myself, but stick with me.

Self-hatred actually can act as a very potent, immediate motivator initially because it activates the brain's threat response, and it uses shame or frustration or rage as a force for change, essentially creating a very high pressure, panic-driven need to avoid perceived inadequacy. So initially, being motivated by self-hatred might actually get you to act, it might actually get you to do certain things, but it has a dual function. In one way, like, yes, it may get you to the start line, but as soon as you are ready to start or as soon as you are halfway through the race, that self-hatred that you relied upon to motivate you suddenly becomes the thing that is going to make this all about self-punishment,

and it's suddenly going to become the thing that's going to make you feel like you are not capable. There is no off-switch. You use self-hatred for motivation. It will eventually demotivate you because inherent in your self-hatred is this feeling that you are not worthy, you are not capable, this hard thing that you are trying to do, you actually can't do it. So on the surface, it might seem that that like self-criticizing voice is helping you improve. But actually, that same inner voice has a much deeper, more profound, more wounding impact because it's simply, it's just not sustainable. And we know by now that

that same self-hatra will fuel burnout. It will fuel anxiety. It will have long-term negative impacts. there's this really fascinating 2022 study that measured levels of self-hatred, perfectionism and stress in 220 students in the UK. And this study found that self-hatred is one of, well, is actually the main driver for perfectionist tendencies. People are rarely perfectionist because they like themselves. They're perfectionists because they're searching for this final

and elusive piece of proof. they actually deserve to be here. And that creates an intense and great deal of stress and pressure. In this way, self-hatred works the same way as any maladaptive coping mechanism. For example, if you drink a lot to counteract social anxiety, yes, you may feel more confident in the moment, but the next day, this only fuels your anxiety more. And it actually doesn't do anything to improve your baseline level of confidence. The same can be said for self-hatred. Again, it may get you to over-prepare for one presentation,

it may get you to push yourself harder in one workout, or it may get you to obsess over getting better for one assignment or one exam, but as a long-term strategy, it erodes the very capacity is that you need the most to succeed in the long term, like confidence, like curiosity, like resilience, self-trust, and also the ability to recover after setbacks. Self-criticism is actually consistently associated with diminished goal progress across almost all research, diminished feelings of self-efficacy, diminished feelings of preparedness. One of the best examples of this was five studies done by researchers at the University of

Massachusetts that found that people who motivated themselves through self-criticism and through self-hatred actually moved slower towards their goals. By contrast, people who had self-oriented standards and who had and set goals because they wanted to prove that they could do it because they wanted to prove and prove their own self-belief or because they genuinely enjoyed what they were doing, this was a much greater predictor of goal progress. The people who had self-hatred as well, they may have shown more initial progress, but often tape it off because it's not a sustainable motivator. And this is really important to remember. Although, you know, our self-hatred is disguised as having high standards, it's not the same thing. Like, high standards occur because you believe

you deserve to be elevated. Self-hatred occurs because you believe that you're destined not to be who you want to be. So we can't confuse them and think that they're the same thing. We can't think that I'm just, I'm just putting pressure on myself because I really think that I'm capable or more. I'm just putting pressure on myself because this is just like the way that I've always done things. There's probably a reason why you have to keep relying on self-hatred and you have to keep relying on this short-term, really intense kind of motivator because you haven't built any of the actual long-term reserves and sense of self-worth that would allow you to achieve your goals efficiently, effectively, and to the level that you would want them to.

Like, to the level that you want for yourself. So let's take a short break here. Then we're going to get into how we can counteract this. Like, we kind of know now, like, it's pretty clear. Self-hatred isn't going to work. what's the alternative? Because it actually might not just be self-love. I think it's going to be, and I know that it's going to be something a little bit more complicated. So stay with us. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IR. Radio. Canada's number one streaming app for radio and

podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must-have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists like back in the day pride. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone or listen now at iHeartRadio.ca. In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was going to live. I was terrified.

There was no anything inside those eyes. They turned black. It scared the hell out of me. That was your first murder case? Yes, yeah. Fear to say this was the biggest case of your career? Yes, sir. Rape a murder for a child.

She's as bad as it gets. I would think so. People wake up. I'm the one that saw the murder take place by Crevette and DePippo. Anthony DePippo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grief.

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I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Because their new star is Javier T. Torito Hernandez. Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day, I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships. emotions ever since I was born. And I still have so many questions. Where do we come from?

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It's a carac. Wow. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Mainstream

Mainstream is full of the unhoused. Stories that shame and blame. and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The Un-House is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator, and host. And for years, I've created a space

where the un-housed and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence.

Weidian Houses a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Gio Wichler, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Weillen House on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. We lose a lot when we hate ourselves because we implicitly feel less deserving. We implicitly feel less capable and we implicitly feel less lucky. Now obviously, having a little bit of humility is great and is very, very important and I think also allows us to not seem like an asshole. But when it is just pure self-hatred, that quickly turns into unconscious self-sabotage.

I did a whole episode on self-sabotage like way back when I first. started the podcast, so I may need to do a little bit of a refresh, but self-tabotage is essentially when we protect ourselves from possible failure by creating excuses to not try, by delaying a decision, by rejecting ourselves before anyone else gets the chance to do it for us, because we unconsciously believe their rejection is inevitable anyways. Now, it might be that you say to yourself, you know, I won't apply for that job because I probably, I'm not going to get it anyways because I'm not worth it. Like, I'm not going to go talk to that person because they're probably never going to be interested. I'm not going to post that thing, post the content that I care about, launch the business, launch the course,

ask, like, do anything that I actually think is important because then I would have to find out that I didn't deserve it all along. Then I would be embarrassed. Then I would be judged when it failed. that is how self-hatred creates bad luck by stopping us from trying. Research from the University of Rochester shows that self-sabotaging comes with real psychological cost. Over time, it reinforces maladjustment. It reduces competence satisfaction, meaning that we are never happy even when we do succeed because we always think that it's some kind of fluke. And it's linked to negative mood, substance abuse, and just lower

overall intrinsic motivation because you never try as well. Even if you do succeed, we think that it's a fluke, but often in the situations where we don't, because we never try, you never gather the new evidence that those critical thoughts about yourself are wrong. 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 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, you know, the individual cost of this like 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? I'm going to hate them for it. A really interesting study published in 2014 actually looked at the way that both guilt and shame manifest in social outcomes. And what they found was that actually, whilst guilt can fuel more pro-social behaviors, shame was more associated with maladaptive social patterns. So things like aggression, withdrawal, judgment, not because people wanted to be these things. They didn't want to do these things. They don't want to be that person. Nobody wants to be that person. It just felt necessary to protect themselves and to protect the inner critic from having to admit that maybe it was wrong.

Maybe there was a better way of living that wasn't just hating ourselves into existence. So it just doesn't, it never stays internal. Like a feeling is heavy and harsh. a self-hatred is going to show up in friendships. It's going to show up in work. It's going to show up in how generous you are, how understanding you can be. It's going to show up, especially in those situations, because we begin to think, well, if I'm killing myself, if I'm holding myself to such a high standard, how come others aren't doing the same thing? Like, how come they don't feel the shame and the sadness and like the anger that I feel about myself? How come they feel good about themselves. And we don't want to rethink that key metric or key part of our identity

that self-hatred is helpful or useful. We just judge other people for not having it. So this is what we need to be careful of. And it's why I keep reinforcing that, again, hating yourself isn't just counterintuitive to your goals and your progress. It's counterintuitive to your happiness. And the thing that I be most scared of is that the older we get, the more it becomes a neural pattern, right? Because repeated mental habits over time become easier to repeat. At a basic, like, neuroscientific level, learning of any kind, including learning how to hate yourself, just involves repetition. What we repeat is what sticks. This has an actual term in psychology.

It's called long-term potentiation. and it refers to a persistent strengthening of synaptic connections that are used commonly together, meaning that certain pathways become more efficient over time. So when you repeatedly interpret yourself through a lens of loathing, when you constantly replay all embarrassing situations and say, this is proof that I am not worthy and that I'm embarrassing, or when you're constantly scanning your body or your identity for what's wrong with you or you're picking apart your appearance in the mirror, you are practicing a style of self-relation

that becomes neurally reinforced and recognizable. And it therefore makes it easier for the brain to jump to these critical conclusions again and again rapidly in the long run until you don't know anything more or better or different about yourself. And this is where the concept of negative self-referential processing comes in. This is a cognitive bias where people disproportionately focus on interpret events through and recall negative information about themselves and about the world around them because they've essentially trained their brain to do that for them. This is why this is so important to discuss in your 20s.

Yes, this may begin in childhood, but like this is the critical time when you get to interrupt this literal pathway of self-criticism. There are certain neuroimaging studies which highlight where this is most evident. They can literally see patterns of self-hatred in like the medial prefrontal cortex,

in the posterioric, singular cortex, both areas of the brain that are involved in emotional regulation, ideas about the self, autobiographical memory. This is where these patterns sit and become strong. Research has found

that these areas light up significantly when people think negatively about themselves. This is where your self-hatred is stored. And this is where those narratives become bigger and bigger and bigger over time if you do not interrupt them. Recent reviews further refine this understanding by showing that these patterns involve broader brain networks too. So this is where it starts. It starts in specifically the prefrontal cortex.

But then it begins to move out and touch everything. For instance, there was also in the same study, I think, increased connectivity between the default mode network and the salience network, which may explain why internal negative thoughts feel so intrusive and important and hard to break and so subconscious. Over time, again, I really just want to stress this. Repeated engagement in negative self-talk becomes the standard way that we can, think not just about ourselves, but everything. It gets neurally represented in very significant brain regions that influence how we see

others, influence how we see our goals, influence how capable we are. And that becomes a lot harder to escape the older we get. So how exactly are we going to start unlearning this? Because I feel like that's a very, I feel like I've just thrown a lot of negativity at you and you're probably sitting there being like, well, I guess I'm screwed because this is just who I am and I've always had these thoughts about myself. I'm just a pessimistic person. I don't think that's true. I think you've been trained to feel that way. I think you've been trained to think that that is normal and trained to think that that is your status quo or how you just are. Again, nobody is born hating themselves. Like, literally, giving that child example again. At some point, you switch over,

but you can also rewire those patterns over time. I think it's so worth saying, like, again, you are capable of change. All that information I've given you, like, may lead you to believe that once this is entrenched, it is permanent. We know scientifically that is also not the case, as much as we see evidence for it showing up in our minds and showing up in how we treat ourselves. We also see evidence of people unlearning it. you can unlearn self-criticism at literally any stage in your life.

I literally read this amazing op-ed piece a couple weeks ago from this woman who was like 82, I think, and she was talking about how only at 80 years old did she know what it felt like to like herself. Like that was the first time she ever was like, I think I might like myself and she's never looked back. 80, that was the first time. So you're probably in your 20s, maybe your 30s. You have heaps of time.

And I think it literally goes to show as serious as I'm speaking about this, it is also reversible. The first thing to really ask yourself is, who does this voice actually serve? Because you now know for sure it doesn't serve you, right? You have all the evidence that this isn't benefiting you. I'm not asking where did it come from. That is an important. An important question, but not the question we're asking right now. I'm not asking why does it sound so convincing.

I'm asking who does it actually serve in this state and moment in your life. Does it help you become more honest? Is it helping you become more connected? Can you give me any evidence that self-hatred has gotten you anywhere? Or does it keep you small, obedient, ashamed, hypervigilant, apologetic, easy to control? Because despite how convincing and real these voices are, there are often just evidence, again, of how our brains have. been trained to please, trained to make others comfortable, not how we actually should be. And if that voice is not serving you, you actually don't need to listen to it. You don't need to

keep treating it as gospel. You can start relating to it as a reflex. Every time you hear that self-hatred kind of bubble up, you have to say to yourself, like, this is not factual. This is just a bad lesson that I was taught. This is just incorrect information I was taught. I know better now. The second thing is just to get super rational. Look outward. Again, try and find just one example, just one, of self-hatred actually helping somebody realize their dreams and enjoy their dreams.

Honestly, I have been like racking my brain for weeks trying to think of an answer. The only thing I can ever come up with is people who, like, who present self-hatred as something that I actually had to overcome and they now reflect on, not something that helped them. I think a lot about like the people and this is so random but in biggest loser who like hate themselves, get on the show, lose the weight, still hate themselves. Literally just think of the most inspirational person who you admire more than anybody in the world. Did that person you most admire hate themselves into becoming who they are? Do you know anyone whose life genuinely improved over time because they maintained a running commentary of disgust and humiliation and self-loathing about themselves?

Has it ever made anybody more creative, more open-hearted, more resilient, more talented? Like, if you can find evidence for it, I would love to know, but I just don't think there is any. Self-hatred survives partly by pretending, again, to be practical and self-serving, and that's how it persuades us to keep it around, because it will keep you humble, it will keep you polite. It will keep you, it will keep people liking you. But you can still be humble and polite and not hate yourself. It's just called self-awareness. So challenge it on those same practical grounds. Self-hatred makes a practical argument. You need me to be a good person. You are saying to it, actually, no, I don't. I don't have any evidence that you've actually helped me.

I have heaps of evidence that self-love has helped me, but no evidence for you. And I know that I can continue being all the things I want to be without needing to rely on you. I know this is such a commonly said phrase, but you cannot hate yourself into loving yourself and you cannot hate yourself into changing. All of the psychology says it. All of the motivational psychology, motivational architecture will say the same thing. The third step is to give the little mean voice a name and an identity. We spoke about this in our loving yourself will make you more attractive episode, which is honestly a great companion episode to this one if you're enjoying this ep, you can listen to that one after. And it sounds silly, but giving that voice a name,

giving that horrible, nagging, mean voice a name that tells you that you're embarrassing and you don't look gray and you're not smart enough, calling it Kevin, calling it Sarah, calling it Brian, whatever, allows you to separate yourself from the thoughts that you're having. It's just a thought. It's not true. when the thought appears, the self-hating thought, attributing it to something that almost feels outside of you, almost feels like another character that's coming in and interrupting the vibe and like getting in your way creates cognitive distancing. It means that you can rationally examine the thought because it doesn't hold as much self-truth as if it was coming from you all about you

absolutely true. Instead of fusing with the critical voice and those words that seem to just appear unconsciously. Naming it and giving it an identity just gives you some control. It gives you enough distance to choose whether you want to listen to it, to ask whether this voice is actually yours, or whether it is a bully or a panicked younger version of you, or a perfectionist teacher or a cruel parent who got in your head way too early for you to have any say in it.

I think something that also helps us have more empathy is to remember that this voice, often the reason it appears is to protect us. It is trying to keep us safe. It's trying to encourage us to act in ways that avoid judgment or avoid external criticism. So a nice practice for this is, yes, call out the voice, give it a name, be like, you're a bully, Brian. But also, I know this may sound counterintuitive, thank the voice a little bit as well. the reason that it came up, the reason that it's here, the reason that it started was because it thought it was helping you. It thought that it was a way that it could prevent you from being

judged or making mistakes. If it was harsh on you first, then, you know, the world wasn't going to be harsh on you second or at all. So thanking it, appreciating it, saying like you've done your job, now it's my turn, I can handle it from here. Also as a way of relating to your voice is something that is, yeah, a bit of a bully but also trying to do its best, meaning that you can kind of move past it, meaning that you can kind of put it to rest. You don't need this coping mechanism anymore. As we've said, you've got all the evidence you need now that it's not as helpful as you think, but also that you can be wise, smart, humble, kind, all those things. You can prevent yourself from embarrassing yourself through self-love rather than that.

than just self-hatred. So we're going to take one more short break here before we get right back into it. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. I-R-Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including I-Heart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must-have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists like back-in-the-day pride. Come together, celebrate love. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. smart speaker to play iHeart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone. Or listen now at iHeartRadio.ca.

In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was going to live. I was terrified. There was no anything inside those eyes. They turned black. It scared the hell out of me. That was your first murder case? Yes, sir.

Fair to say this was the biggest case of your career? Yes, sir. Rape a murder for a child of 12-year-old. She's as bad as it guy. I would think so. Evil, wake up. I'm the woman that saw the murder take place by Creveit and DePippo. Anthony DePippo showed no signs of remorse,

appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grief. Listen to the devil's quarry on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the devil's quarry ad free with exclusive content, Subscribe to Love for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the podcast. the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's a part of the surprise to me because their new star is Javier T. Torito Hernandez.

Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions ever since I was born. And I still have so many questions. Where do we come from? What happens after death? How do you deal with cancellation? Cristiano or Messi?

Do aliens exist? What is love? Real Madrid or Barza. From every day and ordinary to the deep and extraordinary. This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is spontaneous, real and genuine. This podcast is like a deep talk with your closest friends, where vulnerability comes out.

Conspiracy theories end up on the table, and goals and lessons are shared. All in this life has an order perfect and all is just. Wait, me, I'm going to be able to be. We are here to connect. The Chicharito. We are Javier. We're going to make the Ordinary.

We're going to make the ordinary. extraordinary, extraordinarily. Stay close. It is a carac. Listen to learning to be human on IHard radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Mainstream media is full of crude depictions of the unhoused,

stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The UnHouse is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host, and for years I've created a space where the un-housed and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers,

veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Woody and House is a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Whitcher, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Wey &House on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. If you want to stop hating yourself or stop normalizing self-hatred,

this may be the hardest thing in the episode to do, but you've got to stop hanging around people who think that putting you down is normal, or who think that talking about how much they hate themselves is an appropriate conversation, especially when they almost like expect you to contribute. We've spoken a lot about like what you need to do internally. Your external environment also matters. Obviously, it's super normal to talk about our insecurities with our friends and to get support. But obsessing over your insecurities, collectively, without any resolution, almost as a

form of social bonding is not normal. And friends who think putting you down, especially physically, is fun or banter. I don't know who hurt you. That's not something that friends are meant to do. I had this particular friend who was so incredibly insecure that she would almost include me in her insecurity and in her self-deprecating comments she made about herself. If she saw like a really beautiful girl, if we were out together, she would be like, oh my God. me and you could never look like that or like wow we could never pull that off or we'd go shopping and she'd be like well people like us can't wear that people like us can't shop at those stores and it would make me feel like absolutely horrendous about myself so much so that even after

I'd mentioned it a few times she didn't stop and I just had to stop going out with her in those particular ways and in those environments like I didn't want to to normalize that way of thinking about myself. I loved her. I still do love her deeply, but that kind of attitude was not one that I needed any more of. I don't need to be included in your self-hatred. Like at that point I had enough of my own. There are some people that, you know, for whatever reason, will always, I don't think this was her intention, this is separate, but there are some people who will always put you down, whether it's insecurity on their behalf or some other part of themselves they're not comfortable with,

they will involve you in their own self-hatred because it feels less lonely and it feels more normal. Sometimes entire relationships seem to be held together by mocking, disguised as honesty, and not just mocking each other but others, strangers, mutual friends. in those spaces, this is why self-hatred feels so normalized, right? Because self-respect saying, actually, I really like myself and I really think that person looks great and maybe we shouldn't talk like that can sometimes feel arrogant or like you're embarrassing them. So we stay quiet,

we get used to being nasty to ourselves, we almost adopt a nastier persona as a way of gaining social approval. There's also this weird social ritual we see all the time where like somebody insults themselves and then you feel obligated to insult yourself in return as if like self-rejection is how we maintain that closeness. You just don't have to participate. You can just not say anything. Someone else's self-loving does not require you to join in. That is, that does a lot of damage more than I think we can afford in a society that wants us to hate ourselves constantly. how our friends treat us, how they treat themselves is really psychologically powerful. There's an osmosis, there's a transference that happens when we are close to somebody emotionally

where we can feel their pain and we can feel their self-hatred and it is reflected onto us. And again, that's not to say, like, cut off everybody who isn't as far ahead and they're like self-love journey as you are. But just be aware of it. keep tabs on whether it's infiltrating you and don't be afraid to just not participate or be, just say, I'm sorry, but that's not what I feel and I don't talk about myself like that. And I don't think you deserve to think those things about yourself either. So maybe this is a good place to start. Maybe our friendship can be like a self-loathing free zone.

And I know that can be an very awkward conversation because sometimes it can feel like holier than now or like you're scolding them. Yeah, maybe it will feel like that. Maybe that's how they will interpret it as well. But I think it's worth having boundaries around the language that people use with you as a way to also maintain boundaries around the language that you use with yourself, especially considering everything we've spoken about today and how important it is. The fifth thing I would suggest is also just keep an ongoing list of what you like about yourself and add to it as much as possible. every day, if not once a week, to almost aggressively prove to yourself you are worth liking and you are worth feeling proud of. This list tip uses like this simple, attentional trick

that what we focus on expands. Think of it like when a biased researcher looks only at evidence that like confirms their hypothesis. That is what I want you to do. When we're in the mindset of self-hatred, like that's what's happening in reverse. We only pay attention to the negative evidence. And we think that that must mean it's the truth and that that must confirm everything that our inner critical voice is saying missing like 50% of the picture. Flip it. Reverse it. Instead, try to create a really deliberate, ongoing set of reasons or pieces of evidence why you are amazing, why you care about yourself, why you are a productive person, and why you deserve to feel proud of your achievements,

why you look amazing, why people like you. It should be like the small granular details that make you who you are. You make people feel less awkward. You are observant. You make people laugh. Dogs always seem to want to be near you. I feel like that one's an amazing one. You keep your word.

You're a good friend. That really forces us to focus back in on everything that society has kind of said, we don't get to acknowledge. because if we were to acknowledge that, we would be arrogant, we wouldn't be humble, we would be, I don't even know. Like, again, once you interrogate this a little bit further, you kind of realize how deeply impractical it is. Like, it doesn't actually work. It doesn't actually make us like ourselves.

It doesn't actually make us better people. Who is it benefiting? It's benefiting people who get to sell us things, get to sell us products, get to sell us surgeries that stem from a socially conditioned self-hatred, and it benefits people who like it when you are small and don't stick up for yourself. So I think that's kind of all I have for this episode. I think I have a few more things, but like I feel like I need to do a part too.

I hope this is just as much as it's been a ranty episode, been kind of informative and persuasive that you need to get more serious and you need to be more spooky about, interrupting your thoughts of self-loathing because they are not, A, an accident or be harmless. They deeply infiltrate what we think we deserve, how we behave, how we motivate ourselves, and how we connect with others. And if we're not careful, especially during this formative period of our lives, they can become the entire basis of our self-belief, meaning that the older we get, the harder it comes to reverse, not impossible, but the harder it becomes. And eventually we kind of

sit around, survey our lives and realize all the things I've missed out on have come from the fact that, like, way back when when I was a kid, somebody said I didn't deserve to like myself and I thought that they were true, despite all the other evidence that I have every reason to like myself. And that even the reasons that I have not to like myself aren't as important as the reasons that I do have. So I think that's all we have time for. I hope that if you made it this far, you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend if you think that, I don't know, if you think they can relate. I don't know, if you think that they could benefit from some of the research and some of the things that we discussed. Remember that if you are listening to the episode, you can also watch it on Netflix. And if you are listening and you've

made it this far, leave a little love heart emoji down below so that I know that you are a loyal listener. You can also follow us on Substack. I'm going to post the full transcript of this episode if you want to, I don't know, absorb it in a different format. And you can also follow us on Instagram as well if you want to contribute your thoughts about self-hatred as a complex, your thoughts about societal self-hatred over there. But until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon. There was no anything inside. those eyes. They turned black.

It scared the hell out of me. Evil, wake up. I'm the one that saw the murder take place by Krivac and DePippo. Anthony DePippo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum.

I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grief. Listen to the devil's quarry in the Bone Valley Feed on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101.

It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by C. Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions ever since I was born.

This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is spontaneous, real and genuine, just honest conversations about what it means to be alive. I'm Javier Jirnandez and listen to Learning to Be Human on IHare Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation.

I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akela Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down,

I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority black city in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human