@@jays5002 well, sometimes if you can't see yourself as the main character of your life, you try to be the villain tearing it down. Because at least then you're something
My therapist has been telling me for almost a year to "have empathy for myself" and I think this video has clicked a light to what that actually means. Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos!
Yeah. These things are really hard to understand, especially when you haven't felt them before. A lot of "common sense" advice doesn't make sense to people with deep emotional wounds.
Good point. "Common sense tips" without any instructions or examples wont make any sense to someone who clearly missed out on the "common" part of everyone else's life
When your therapist says something like that and you’re having trouble understanding what it means, get them to explain exactly what they mean, most will happily do so
@@Talladarr I feel like the person who needs therapy is exactly the person who is least likely to be asking inquisitive questions like this. Sure there are outliers but I feel like the therapist needs to take initiative here, like Dr.K does. I guess being a streamer/content creator kind of helps to develop that skill.
To be entirely fair, yes, no teenager knows how to make relationships and it's a messy process of trial and error for everyone involved. However, a person's upbringing (or lack of) can feed into making it all the more difficult, and feed into the sense of needing to self-punish oneself for "messing up" their own life. When a child is isolated from peers and is constantly blamed by the parent(s) for things out of their control, they are conditioned to both isolate themselves and blame themselves for being lonely, a catch 22 that makes them fall deeper and deeper into this pit. What people need to do when they find themselves in this situation is not blame themselves/"the person who screwed them over", but be empathetic as if they are someone under their own care who they want to see heal and succeed.
That last sentence actually hit home for me. Just like if I have a friend who is struggling, I want to see them get better. Thinking about myself like that in the third person is an interesting perspective. So I think your comment did add some value!
@@Nik.No.K Yeah, the part that isn't made explicit in the video is that the consequence of forgiveness is patience and acceptance. At the core of all self-improvement is the acceptance that when things go wrong, being pissed at it is the least productive thing you can do to get out of the situation you deplore. And while you can't let that conclusion weigh on you with too much stress to perform, what you have to learn in the end is still always "Yes, I did it for two weeks and then I didn't do it for a month. **Time to do it again,** until I've returned so often that returning to activity becomes the natural response to noticing distraction." OP extremely likely hasn't *never* formed *any* relationships. They just haven't made any that left them wholly satisfied with themselves and their social life. But that doesn't mean you don't have a good understanding of what it is you're looking for, and how you want to interact with other people. You just have to treat it like any other endeavour in life and **value** the little successes as little parts of the eventual fundamental progress. With relationships it's extra complicated, because 1) you have to learn to accept that people have their own motivations in life, and many times you'll simply not be the right match, **no matter how amazing your behaviour is** (And when you're not the right match for them, you shouldn't want to fundamentally change yourself for that one specific person - because then they very likely wouldn't be the right match for you either. They wouldn't like to hang out at the times & places you'd want to hang out, let alone do or talk about the things you'd enjoy.) , and 2) it's absolutely essential to accept that not every social encounter you have needs to result in a deeply satisfying bond in order for you to consider it a successful encounter. You have to enjoy time you spend with other people for its own sake. **Not just because it will make you appreciate your social life more,** and you'll feel more successful - **but also because you'll grow extremely repellent, unkind, and impatient, if you are only willing to care about other people when they are suitable and interested to turn into your (mutual) support beacon, or lifelong romantic partner.** And the best way to reach the patience and appreciation for those things is to quit chasing external validation in the first place, by instead truly starting to be satisfied with one's own company, praise and touch, before going to look for deep connections with other people. Instead, when the social itch hits and you haven't reached self-love yet, try helping out a stranger with a project (could be work, something creative, or a sport), or do something charitable, and just let that fill your social need. Then you'll have the patience to go into future meetings with acquaintances and strangers without expecting something big to come from it, and just enjoy it for each individual experience in the moment.
There may be other factors beyond someone's control. I have a very good life. A degree in pedagogy, a job I love, good people that have my back. But I have no idea how to behave socially most of the time. And even when I'm talking to my students or friends, I feel like I'm fucking up, and bothering them, while being unaware of what I should do. That's partially due to a fucked up upbringing, but I found that I have dyspraxia through my studies, and my brain just can't process social interaction properly.
For better or worse, I've been telling myself that "the last ten years don't count". I, like a lot of us, was robbed of what we think constitutes a normal upbringing, and we have to do a lot of re-parenting in our adult lives. Right now, I'm 32. I started telling myself this when I was 28 and gave myself permission to feel like an 18-year-old all over again. To start learning everything - social skills, career skills, taxes, whatever - from scratch. I'm still mad as heck about a lot of things, and still, I can counter it with compassion for myself. Hopefully this helps somebody else too
I want to be helped. But what I have learned, there are a lot of people that are willing to help, however they only want to help make me the person they think I should be. I don’t want help being a better dog. I don’t want help being a servant. I don’t want help being a cat. I don’t want help being you. I want help being the best me, free, loving, compassionate, forgiving, kind, capable, and pleasant.
You can only learn the best of you by experimentation. And be aware that we all have our ugly side, it's totally normal. You could set some pratical goals and boundaries and just think about how it feels like to you. There's no secret recipe for life, you can't just hack it. And we all change in the course of our lives, because we are shaped by our own experiences and, why not, hormones. Start asking yourself "why do I like the stuff I like" and "why do I feel the way I feel about things/people." Allow yourself to know yourself, if that makes any sense 😂
i feel this way too for the most part. i dont want to be helped just to be in a cycle of abuse somewhere else.. i just want to spend whatever time i have left doing things that create positive situations for me and others
I often procrastinate watching Dr.K’s videos, but this one really resonated with me. I really appreciate what he does because I didn’t even know I felt this way- I especially love the compassion exercise :)
There is no inner child, at what point do you get encased in something else and become a dual personage?, is it the same time for everyone else? can a 10 year old have an inner child? or will they become one in the future? what percentage of you is it? etc, all questions which are asked as if it exists and don't sound like they make sense because it doesn't. Realising it's a myth is actually a good step to healing because you aren't perceiving it as being some part of you inside of yourself being healed but our viewing it as yourself being healed instead which is much more healthy.
@@Mr.Goodkat From what I understand, the inner child is a name for the part of the mind that stores emotional experiences from childhood. From the time of birth to about age 7-8, children are in an egocentric state. This means that they view everything that happens to them (especially from their parents) as their fault. For example, a mother is in a bad mood and loses her patience with her child. The child can interpret that as loss of love and feels unworthy of their mother's love. The child cannot interpret why their mother is in a bad mood, it just assumes it is to blame. This experience is now stored in the mind and shows up as childhood trauma later on in life. The way I see it, the concept of 'the inner child' is just a handy way of accessing that part of the mind and releasing those repressed emotions.
@@alleras46 Nobody should experience anger at others when 7-8 under approx. because they view everything that happens to them to be their fault but I had experiences younger than 7 that I was pissed off at others for because I felt they were unjust and I mean I was pissed off at the time not retroactively and I know of other's who were back then too. Also if you google mortality experiences "puppet play" you'll see toddler's were studied and had moral senses/instincts and a thirst for justice when observing villains winning in entertainment. Now I know you said everything happens to THEM and the character in the fiction isn't them but if they wanted justice against the character for a wrong that means they recognise it was a wrong/unjust if someone does the same thing to them that was done in the play then they will not see it as their fault, they know it's wrong, we all have that sense, it's innate. And I know there is a change in brain waves at approx. 7 (some say at 5 for stronger dispositions) but the experiences from before then aren't stored in another part of the brain as other experiences although maybe you just mean it as a metaphor sort of.
What if you havent gone through trauma but are just fundamentally worthless? What if your inner child never went through trauma and yet still ended so fucked up?
@@Zedzilliot You definitely have gone through trauma. You just don't know it because it could have happened as early as when you were a baby. Everyone experiences childhood trauma in some form or another. It's a natural mechanism we still have from prehistoric times.
Exactly. "If I got myself into this mess, I can get myself out." Maybe that's a terrible fallacy, but I've been trying my darndest for 12 years now and I can't quit now.
maybe try looking at it differently. when you go to school, your teacher gives you the information, but you do all the work on your own. an athletic coach can show you how to do a workout, but it's up to you to show up everyday and get the reps in. it's the same with a therapist or coach. they give you support & info, but they can't make any actual changes. you have to do that yourself.
@@bigtimbolim would you take that approach if you broke your leg? you "get yourself out of that mess" by seeking out the best expert you can find and working with them to meet your specific needs.
The feeling of deserving a sh*t life situation feels so real to me. The idea that all you'll ever know is failure and frustration is all too real, and inspires a level of dread many understand, but others somehow can't fathom. I think it doesn't help in the least bit that the "just world fallacy" - that is, the idea that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people - seems to resonate so much with the general population. Look at how when somebody is a victim of anything, others are so expedient at playing devil's advocate and finding the reasons why they "deserved it". What helps me is by looking at others misfortune and saying that they don't deserve it, despite their flaws, and that the same is true for me. Nobody is perfect, yet imperfect people can lead seemingly "perfect", blissful lives. Look around, and you'll see it too.
I was having a nervous, anxious breakdown and my wife was trying to help. She basically did this (Somehow she knows therapy by instinct, lol) to me. She asked me to imagine a poor, small weak person being kicked. (This is what I was doing to myself) She said "How does that make you feel?" I said "Sad". She said "What would you do if you saw this? Like IRL?" And I said "Call the cops". She said there are no cops. I said then yell for help. She said it's just us three here. No one is coming. I said.... well then IDK. Yell at the attacker? She said he's not stopping. The weak guy is crying for help. The attacker is definitely going to kill him at this point. What do you do? I sat for a LOOOOOOONG time, thinking about this and the metaphor that was being presented to me. I was able to figure out what she wants me to say, but I never realized before that actually HELPING the weak person myself was basically NEVER something that would come to mind. This was a little shocking, and I wanted to play my own thoughts out rather than just giving her what she was asking. (Hooray, safe people!) I was asking her: Well does he deserve it? We can't tell. What if that supposedly weak guy had just pulled a knife or gun or some other aggressive equalizer on the other guy? What if he had started it? I just came across this scene, I don't have enough information to determine if this is just or not, so I can't find a reason to risk my own well being to intervene and then turn out to be WRONG! Or get hurt/die myself defending a person that could DESERVE this! If anything, I relate more to the weak guy, and if I tried to stop the attacker, there's a pretty good chance that all I'd do is disrupt and possibly escalate the situation. I realized my instinct was, effectively, to just watch, maybe hide, and hope the attacker got tired or decided to stop before killing the victim. At no point did I come to place myself as an equal to the attacker. Only related to the victim and was, probably, just glad the attacker wasn't on ME at that exact moment. In a way, my own attachment to a value I've always had... rationality and neutrality, was making it so I was failing basic human moral standards. I've always been annoyed how people will just 'automatically' take the perceived underdog's side, even if the underdog was just dominating (games or whatever) recently. I thought I was some enlightened scholar with that opinion, basically. Really, what I was doing, I now realize, was internalizing the bullying message I was given from my own family, and my external reality growing up. Some people just DESERVE to get F'ed up. "Of course I'd be bullied. Look at me, I pretty much deserve it! Everyone knows I won't fight back. I should have made myself harder, like my dad says, and I didn't, so now I get what I deserve." I have been softspoken and overweight my entire life. I knew, and consciously told myself this growing up, that my only defense was to 'look' tough or mean and scowl since I'm tall and big. But that means I can never be called to action, since that would mean risking exposing that I'm actually soft and weak, emotional, vulnerable. Even as I came to see myself in my late 20s and now in early 30's as a proud 'soft man' unafraid to be straight and not tough, a tender man in touch with my emotions and allied with love... I still had this internalized victim-rationalization mindset that allowed me to survive earlier in life lurking inside of me. Bullies can be right. People can deserve unfair treatment. "People get what they deserve". My inner child is MESSED up, I'm coming to realize. I may have built more healthful mindsets on top of that foundation, but it's become clear that it's time to go in and renovate the basement. The trauma healing work that I always find most enlightening for me always revolves around acknowledging that my worldview served me in the past, but I have changed, evolved, and learned, so it's time to re-evalute the entrenched thinking patterns and assumptions and update them if needed. This poster and this video are very helpful for my 'next step' in understanding this. I've been working on healing this, ever since I (laugh if you want, haha) watched a RUclips Tarot reading that drew the self-compassion card as what "I" needed. It got me thinking... I had NO idea what self-compassion is, truely. And I thought I knew what compassion or others was, but now I realize I had an incomplete understanding. I still don't like seeing 'automatic underdog reverence', but I do now see the value in that mindset and why it develops. My therapist and I (and the wife!) are working on helping me build self-esteem and compassion. It's REALLY hard to have to learn basic human wellness at 32 for the first time, lol, but better now than never. I really do recommend everyone out there approach their demons and problems with an open mind. Research and experience and thousands of years of human journeying simply KEEPS proving that open mindedness is almost always the solution, and our souls will guide us to check our survival instinct. Keep up the great work, Dr K! These comment reaction videos are SO good. EXACTLY what the internet needs.
I didn't even finish to see the video, but I must say this is exactly what I need to do... i truly believe I deserve where I am because I screwed everything since my 12y..... I was just a kid, but all of that just made me be a 21y girl that doesn't understand what being an adult is like, no boyfriend (I never had one anyway, but it hurts), I'm a student in a good university but I still feel so stuck, no job, friends far away, no socializing with people of my college... Feeling alone all the time... Maybe one day I can forgive myself for being like that, but god damn... This is so hard....
I'm no moral judge, and I know nothing about the person you were when you were 12, or the person you are now, but you are worth forgiving and helping. Two decades really isn't that long a time to be alive, unless you're a dog or cat. Take it from me, I'm a 20yo male, and a monumental screw-up. We have (hopefully) significantly longer to live to figure things out for ourselves. Don't punish yourself for ending up in whatever situation you're in. If anything, shame and regret are punishment enough. Let yourself be, breath, and find your way in the world from this point. I believe you can do it, friend!
I just realised how i was just learning to be empathic towards my past self when my parents started saying very hurtful things to me and started demotivating me and criticizing me since last year. They became very toxic towards me specifically and even tho i told them how it was hurting me, and my mum did actually stop, those words still reached my mind and the cycle of self hatred started again. I have been very demotivated these past few months, struggling to do basic things like keep myself clean, not wake up very late and it has only made me hate me more.
Start with the smallest possible act of self respect you can without it being overwhelming , if that means stretching for 20 seconds and drinking a glass of water than so be it. Just do it consciously
I don't watch Dr. K's videos until I feel compelled to by its content, this was undoubtedly something I needed to hear. Thanks for the work you and your team are doing, it's greatly appreciated.
I've been on the self-compassion path for maybe 8 years now. It sounds so simple to "talk to yourself like you're your friend instead of your own bully" but so incredibly hard to create that habit. I still have issues, and covid has gotten my social anxiety into a weird place, but I feel surprised how different I feel free to think about myself now, compared to some of my darkest times, when I couldn't sleep because my mind was just determined to beat myself up for something I said that day or several months ago. I said something blasé at a social gathering to semi-strangers after a wedding about a week ago and when it comes up again in my head, I just tell myself "You've already felt bad about it, and that's enough. You're not excusing myself by skipping out on beating number X. But I already admonished myself and I'll be more conscious or whatever next time. And quit coming back to this, it really wasn't that bad. On to the next thing." Honestly it's mind-blowing that I can just continue my day about it. It really does feel kind compared to the constant beat-down I used to have.
I love this post. Dude, embrace your victim mentality for a while. Process the anger. It's a stage of grief, healing from crap. Anger is kind of awesome - it's a breakthrough emotion. Get mad. Process that. Walk right into it (SAFELY). You have every right to be angry. Can't make room for joy, and the motivation doesn't pop up, until the anger gets processed. You deserve to get through this. It's not your fault this stuff happens. It's none of our faults... but it is now our responsibility to act (karma) and the cool thing is, it's in our authority, you own this, and you have the autonomy to do something about it. (Check out the practice of writing fears and resentments on paper then burning/tearing it up, then meditating. It's an AA technique. Could use Dr. K's meditations and think of HG! 💚)
True. I think i need that first part. I always try and run into "No, dont be angry at yourself, thats mean, just love yourself". I didnt realise that's quite invalidating to the part of me thats angry and feels like im my own worst enemy. My mother used to do this when my sisters would annoy me: "They're your sisters, dont be angry at them" - which never helped. Guess i took that on board as an adult.
@eric Spencer It's not really "victim mentality" when you actually _are_ a victim of something - in this case, your own self-loathing. It's easy to say "Well this is just a boy-cried-wolf scenario," especially when you've played the victim card before and hurt others as a result. Which many people do when they get angry. The difference is realizing that, despite that, you ARE a victim of your own suffering and you can and should get help. If you feel guilty about burdening others, then make up for it later. Don't wallow in it now, though.
I've been living with Dysthymia for as long as I can remember. I was in this spot (of hating myself for ruining my life) for a long period in my life. Basically until I finally got therapy in my mid-late twenties. Beyond the therapy I got, what really helped was Ayahuasca. Specifically the depersonalization phase allowed me to look back upon myself from the third person and review myself as a friends instead of 'me'. It made me realize how hard I've always been on myself and how unfair it was to put the weight of 'my world' on my shoulders all the time. I was feeling better for a while after that. Sadly overtime that scar evolved. As I began recognizing more and more how little of it had to do with me and how much of it had to do with the absolute litany of traumatic experiences I had to deal with from my parents, my local culture at the time, my whole family and even my long running 11 year long relationship. This made me feel like I 'deserved' it still. Not literally as if I've done anything wrong, but as if my history has molded me into something so twisted, so broken that for this mess of a person to hope for normality, let alone success in the field of romance/sex/friendship or any kind of validation (not even beginning to step foot in what I want out of life or my dreams of a future), was beyond what I could 'afford'. I was/am built different; Built wrong; Faulty to the core. Effectively I've landed back in the same pattern only with a much more hopeless outlook on life. Now what I see is a world full of demands and a broken mess that has little to nothing to offer. Everything around me is gross and asks everything of me before it allows me to even have a chance at any momentary bliss and I can't offer anything nearly close enough because of how broken I am due to my misadventures of an existence. I feel greedy anytime I wish for a better life, a happy life, a feeling of being worth anything. The mere concept of value is alien to me. I've gone through 3 psychological clinics and at least 8 psychologists/psychiatrists and I'm now waiting for what could potentially be a full looney bin session (My self deprecating way of referring to a very intensive therapy style where I stay at a clinic most of the week and go back home on the weekends). Out of all those sessions what I've learned most is that no matter how much CBT I've mastered, I'm just completely alienated from the concept of self-value and self-esteem. I struggle to identify these things beyond some kind of intellectually built understanding of it. It's like a kind of autism but with anything relating to having any worth. I can only piece together my 'worth' (and thus what I 'deserve') by how useful of a tool I can be to others. I literally don't know how it is to be happy, loved, safe, cared for/taken care of, content or just joyful/optimistic. It makes it hard to even identify when I've had temporary moments of these things since I don't have any intuitive knowledge of how they feel like so it's not just that I've never had them, it's that I've never had the ability to even know if I've had them. I'm turning 31 this year and I can't remember any sense of joy in life since I was at least 10 (and likely before that but my memory is fuzzy prior to that). I can never really tell if I'm getting better or worse 'for real'. I've gone through measurable period where I've analyzed sources of what I think my body needs to aid in that trauma (a feeling of 'family', a feeling of being wanted, etc.) but those faded away when corona started. Though, after all that I've also gone through new traumas that have left me making more concrete plans on how to end it all should that day arrive. So yeah, it's hard to tell if I'm getting better or worse. I've hated my existence for so long and the fact that the 'external' is what caused me to be this broken and how much I depend on that external validation and general sources of external comfort to get by (again, hoping for bliss/joy/peace/safety feels 'beyond my paygrade'). Living is exhausting and I clearly don't meet the requirements to 'deserve' someone trying to pull me out when I can't help but breakdown and lose myself. So in summary: Out of the frying pan (the one discussed in this video); Into the fire.
I feel you in a lot of this, man. Im hoping shrooms might help me get in touch with myself in a better way. They seem to melt down some of our terrible outlook in life and the feeling that nothing is worth it to the point where now i can just fully apreciate the small things and be content by them. Like arranging my life so even a piece of toast with jam is a hard earned price during the weekend when before id eat 60 of those a week to even feel a slight satisfaction... idk, it might sound weird but changing the scale of things sometimes helps people out. And that feeling of wanting to be worth something to someone or to yourself can be helped by trying your very best to be not only good for yourself but for those around you like its a mission. You dont even have to do much. Sometimes its just friday night pasta for your mom, or giving a bag of cookies to your next door neighbor's kid. If you somehow become a vehicle for happiness and kindness then it will become a part of you much like all the darkness. You can still construct parts of yourself that arent tainted by all the toxicity of the rest. A friend of mine used to say things similar to how we feel and when things got severely bad for him (stealing cars and mugging people because he couldnt even get a job anore) the only thing that saved him was doing charity work and getting a no bullshit job that didnt make him feel like he was worth only his salary. Even if all of that means throwing it all away and going to the mountains too, just do it. Dont stop trying because you care about things, and most people don't care at all.
Man, this is exactly my issue. I feel like i've known i need self compassion for years now, but just can't do it. I was in a similar position to this guy when i was younger, 31 now, and have a lot of things done i wanted when i was younger - but there's a catch. Im still behind, always behind, so no matter what i achieve its not enough, because im only as good as i could've been 5 years ago. Sometimes this shit really comes through the back door in the form of "Why cant you just be kind to yourself you idiot".
I never really thought of it like this before. When you said 15 year old me having social anxiety and life being terrifying really hit home for me. I still remember that feeling whenever I apply for a new job, or have to take my car to the garage and speak to mechanics. It's like an almost tangible link to those hard times
*_Despite pandemic, I almost feel like a black sheep, the odd one in society._* *_I was once pressured before. But it comes back biting me again. These overwhelming thoughts of trying to help my people and then help myself almost feels like a tug of war. It made me question once, "Should I start caring for myself?"_* *_Maybe I gave myself too much... And it feels like my success makes someone else fall. Because of what I grew up being taught with, it made me almost unable to voice my own feelings, and just go blind with whatever they say. I really hate it... a lot. But self-hatred is as much of a deadly poison like being backlashed by those whom you care for._* *_The only place I can socialize and try to be... well, me, is the Internet. And yet I'm forced to shut them out... It just angers me when I see people going through this kind of situation. Never blame yourself, that's the only rule._*
I’ve been watching for a few months, and I’ve felt a connection with a lot of things you’ve said, but this… it hits so close to home it’s surreal. I’m going to take your advice here and apply it as much as I’m able. Thank you for the work you’re doing, it really is helping so many of us in ways that can’t be truly quantified.
I want to be helped as well, at times I am angry with that person, but I can't waste time wanting myself to suffer when there is growth to be had. I am more focused on what I can do now to improve my life, and that's what I will do now going forward.
Great to hear you are improving your life and living the best life you can, I wish you the best of luck on your way of being the best of yourself, keep being awesome :)
My first step to climbing out of that hole was first: recognizing that I was punishing myself, second: If I deserved punishment I could use that punishment to my advantage. I changed my life sentence of doing nothing in the hole, to giving myself community service to climb out of the hole. My punishment became helping myself, making myself better. Yes I failed a lot of times and still blamed myself, but instead of then doing nothing I punished myself by trying again and again. Eventually I got to a better place. In this better place I was finally able to truly forgive myself because I payed my price and it was okay because my life was better and it was all worth it now.
Most people suffer with trauma it can be small not big and it make you not be your auntetic self it make you be your emotions and the emotions are bad enotinal pain from past trauma happen inside you and make you feel different it very painful
This is something I've really been struggling with recently, and I absolutely loved the way you presented the problem in this video. I like the concept of "what if it was some other person who was ruining your life?" I innately have a strong sense of justice, but I didn't realize how much I was actually blaming myself and beating myself up for being the cause of my own problems. The point about empathy was also great, because a lot of times I forget now what it was like to be a younger version of myself. I'll have regrets like "I should have said this" or "I shouldn't have done that" but for me a few years ago, I was walking in completely different shoes. I didn't have all the knowledge and time to reflect that I do now. And so dissolving that sort of self-hatred is easier for me now that I've put this into the proper perspective. There's no reason to go beat up the me that screwed up in the past, because that me was doing the best he could while still experiencing some tough situations. I think I'm starting to understand how to forgive myself now, so really, thank you Dr. K!
It’s easier for me to be compassionate and have empathy for others because I don’t know what path they took in their life that lead them to the point where they do disappointing things. I don’t have control over their upbringing or why they do the things they do, but I have complete control over why I do the shit that I do.
Damn. A lot of this was about me. I can add that part of my resistance to help is that I feel like I've gotten so much already, and I want to repay people...if I continue to get help it just piles on how much I owe everybody. That may be a selfish thought but it's how I feel.
Hmm, I think the issue I‘m struggling with is very similar to this one but yet still distinctly different. I‘ve been unsuccessfully trying to help myself for years because my parents neglected me emotionally, so I likely learned that the issues of others are more important than my own. But I think now that I‘ve failed at helping myself for so many years, I‘ve been cultivating that same sense of deserving a terrible life for being unable to fix it myself. That might explain why I‘ve been stuck trying to get myself to talk to a therapist for half a year now, without really making any meaningful progress towards that goal.
For me I feel like I rather stay in the pain I know than go out of my comfort zone and risk failure and end up feeling even worse pain. People don't actually like to be in pain for the most part, the self sabotaging things we do actually protect us from the pain of the unknown.
i had this for naive, quiet, scared 16 year old me and my younger sister going through depression. being so hard on myself for that time period, of me being a kid having to help another kid like that (and failing/ignoring), it's only something i've truly allowed myself to be sad about _for me_ and realised that that was only something that happened, not something i am. be kind to yourself guys, don't dwell inside your head on mistakes
9:18 - 10:30 This harkens back to things Dr. K has said about karma. When you recognize that everything affects everything, you start to realize what you do and don't have control over. Given your situation, you really were doing your best. Recognizing that a lot of your experience is due to seeds planted out of view or before you arrived or otherwise beyond your control is a step towards self-forgiveness. I would say to this person that while it may feel like tons of wasted time, your struggles give you a unique perspective on life that can evolve into unique strength. Many people who have never seen such a rock bottom will consequently never reach such great heights. Suffering begets wisdom.
In wanna express my extreme gratitude towards Dr K's work because due his guidance and knowledge I have come really far in my journey of self exploration, which have lead me to overcome my painful state of emotions to a great extent. I also watch Jordan Peterson's content and according to me the comno of these two guys is is incredible, one is a bit harsh but practical another is self explanatory and compassionate, so they balance out each other. A great thanks to both of them.
I love this so much. I know the channel is geared mostly towards young guys, but this absolutely applies to older people who have struggled their entire lives to gain any kind of stability in life. Even when offered help they resist and just wind up worse and worse. This is how people wind up homeless and addicted.
Then how do you differentiate between wanting to be helped and wanting to be saved ? Like I can't really remember how it felt to be me at 15 or 18 and from the memories I have it seems like nothing has changed since then even though I did quite a lot of stuff when I think about it, but even with all that I don't just want to be helped, I really just want someone to come and save me from this because I can't do it on my own and even when people try to offer help it always seems to me to be too little too late and from too far away. Like I'm a mess and I don't know how to sort it out and I have been trying to figure it out on my own for a decade so at this point just swiping one or two pieces isn't really helping. At this point I don't know if I can remember what it's like to be confident and not just riding a high, what it's like to feel like there are people having my back, what it's like having people rely on me and trust me (I know there probably is quite a bit of projection on this one) or even what it's like to not struggle just sleeping or getting out of bed.
I used to think "forcing" myself to practice forgiveness or compassion when I am not feeling it is being inauthentic to my feelings. But what Dr K said makes so much sense! It's definitely something new I learned today. I will be on a lookout for an annoying moment so that I can practice this
@@joeyondakeys sometimes I find it hard to show forgiveness and compassion when I am feeling angry or hurt. And in those times, forcing myself to feel and act in another way kinda feels unauthentic? It feels as if I don't have the energy for doing that. Doesn't mean it is okay to be mean to other people. But your question makes me think. It feels more meaningful to think of showing or sometimes, forcing compassion as trying to be a decent human being
Thanks, Dr. K! In last time I see a thread between your videos. When you begin to love, to help other people, when you understand, that they might have not the best time, you are actually begin to love and understand yourself as well. It really does a lot. Thank you very much for publishing such content!
I've gotten pretty good at compassion for other people, but I never really considered it for myself. Thank you, I feel like this video came to me at the best moment it could.
I did not do this to myself. Do not try to convince me that the abuse that happened in my family was my own fault. I am constantly fighting against that gaslighting that my entire dads family put me through. They’re the ones I have to forgive. And by extension myself for not doing anything. But they told me that’s just feeling sorry for myself and nobody is allowed to do that according to them.
My case is like, Im not sure if want to be helped, i feel i dont deserve the help at all, that i should handle it myself, It was how my parents raised me anyway, terrible terrible communication and support that lead me to have to not have any idea onto how to engage with any of my problems and try to solve it all myself. I Want to become a better person, i want to be there for people who need me, but i can't do this unless i work on my issues wich i don't know how to do or even start to engage with, I regularly self reflect a lot, i am aware of many of my issues but it wont help if i dont do anything about them.
Been waking up angry after snoozing 10 times on my free days, hitting the walls and breaking stuff around my house and even ended up at the ER cause I hit my foot too hard on the wall the other day When I wake up like this I don't want to feel better, I'm punishing myself for not having woken up and not having fought my bad feelings. I haven't been able to help myself and I'm punishing myself further for it. This is all backwards, I need to be nice with myself and compassionate cause even if others are it is not going to do anything as long as I blame myself that hard. Just needed to vent, I broke the light switch in the bathroom and my father just went to buy a new one and fix it and I had such a resentful morning.. I'll apologize to him but to myself first and foremost Take care of yourselves people, you deserve to be happy and not punish yourselves further
I am currently 1 year out of High School. I have many problems, but no one really seems to want to help me. I never really had friends growing up, just “friends.” I joined the soccer team for my school and played all four years in hopes of gaining a friend, no. I’ve even went as far as doing assignments/projects for classes I wasn’t even taking, so someone could talk to me, I know it was wrong and they were just using me, but it felt nice to have someone to talk to even if they were just pretending to care. I was never in any drama, people would describe me as really nice or even too nice sometimes. I talked to everyone, but never seemed to fit in enough to become anyone’s friend. I was never invited to hang out with my “friends” and have little to no memories of my high school career, I didn’t get invited to anyone’s graduation party too. I don’t get why I was not able to form any friendships with people despite me trying so hard. I also did not have the best family experience growing up either. It really does hurt to be lonely, I really do feel that having a true friend would help me a lot but I can’t seem to make any even though I try.
This is my problem as well. I have little enjoyment, don't socialise, and aren't productive. While sometimes I get lonely or feel sad, I would be perfectly content with wasting my life away without seeking help that I should logically do. Although contradictorily I wish I didn't waste so many years that have already passed.
I’ve noticed a lot of people are very hard on themselves. Please, be compassionate to yourselves. Remind yourself you are not perfect and it’s OK to fail.
This video called me out so hard. I will try to be more forgiving towards myself. To the person who made the post; thank you for sharing. To Dr. K, thanks for taking the time to talk about it.
I think this post was really helpful. The part that mentions how you would feel about your 15 year old self really hit home for me. I can't imagine feeling anything other than hatred towards him. I often try to push myself harder when things don't work, and after a long time of doing this I feel pretty burnt out. I'm glad this topic was adressed because it was clearly a big blindspot for me. Tldr; Feel the same as poster. Didn't realise I was doing this. Thanks :)
If you want to punish yourself, it is because you are not in line with your own standards. Forgiveness and compassion is one route - relax your standards. The other route is to put into words what your standards are and explore what actions you can take to align yourself with them. You didn't make friends like others as a teenager? Can't change the past - choose compassion there. But do you want friends now? How do other people find friends? What even is a friend to you? You may find your definition is very different from other people's. One you know what your goal is you can figure out how to train for it. Training for other people's goals (possibly what you did all thru school) keeps you occupied and unable to live your values. Note: Your values may change/develop/evolve as you explore them. Maybe. But what is for certain is keep doing what you've always done and you will be stuck with what you've always had.
"Who is responsible for your situation?" I hate being asked this because I know my therapist is gonna scold me for just "pointing fingers at other people instead of having accountability" instead of actually looking at the perspective of someone that got fucked over by another person(s). I get it, that there are people who are scared of being proven wrong, but you know... at least be honest about it, so that I could have something to appreciate about you to an extent. I know I am not the only one responsible for my situation, and I'm tired of taking all the blame. I'm tired of others getting away with all the evil they've committed, and somehow ended up becoming successful for some goddamn reason, while I'm rotting away in this shit hole where they threw me. I'm tired of them hypocrite, undeserving eyes staring at me with pity while telling me that "holding on to vengeance won't make me successful". It's easy to tell someone they need to let go to heal, but some don't even need healing. Some need fairness, some need justice. I need both.
Thank you Dr.K, I don't have access to any reliable psychiatrist and after I almost screwed up my whole life before it even started I was in a terrible mental state for a long time. I can't afford to watch live streams and your videos have helped me learn a lot about mental health and the dangerous ways we treat ourselves. I don't belong in the community that I'm in, and I'm hoping to get out of it in the near future; your advice will be a great help to achieve that goal.
That therapist's advice to "see the positivity in the situation" is extremely toxic and counterproductive. One of the first steps should be to make contact with your negative feelings, not to feel even more negative for having them.
The biggest problem I have is that so much time is wasted now, what's even the point? If I somehow fix things now I've already wasted what is meant to be the best time of your life. Even the best case scenario from here is miserable. That's why I'm just holding on for my mother's sake, once she passes I can get it over with.
i have this exact problem but honestly it's just so hard. because having the compassion to forgive yourself means you also gotta forgive everything else that happened to you and i don't know if i'll ever be ready for that.
I'm in a small constellation at the moment, & I'm having a little imposter syndrome. Your video is great at speaking to a lot of problems in general enough terms that I can filter it into my own actions & thoughts about how to come out of this hiccup healthily. Thanks HealthyGamer.
I'm hella jealous of 15 yo me, because he *immediately started crying here* didn't feel hopeless, this kid was the dopest. that kid didn't know where he belonged, but he didn't give two shits, he did it all, and he did it out of kindness. i pity 25 yo me because he'd had his heart broken, and was starting to grow cold, forgetting how to live in the moment. he'd tried his best to be there for others, and was always walked all over and given the cold shoulder, and so he started to pull away from the world. 30 yo me is nothing but a shadow of that kid who went and did it all back as a child. alone, so tired, an emotional wreck who just couldn't seem to get his shit together yet. He's just sitting around, not really there, thinking someone's magic words are what he needed to hear, but what he doesn't know is all it takes is asking for help, to start to turn your life around and do good for yourself. So this is me, trying so hard to break free from the sad little fuck that i never thought i'd be, about 5 weeks til i'm 32, i'm just wondering will i be okay soon? i hope when you read this, you heard the beat too.
I blamed alot for my grown up self at my parents for not giving me the skills to be socially adapt. But then as an adult they are no longer stopping me from doing activities and learning skills so why cant I do those things? Because I'm use to being how I am now in a miserable depressed state that is has become a part of that I dont want to leave behind.
Perhaps it's important to recognize that it's not the dreadfulness of the situation that's keeping you down, but rather your inability to forgive yourself for being in it. Recently I've been trying to practice allowing myself to exist exactly how I am--since I've spent almost all of my life thinking about how I can be in the next moment different from how I am. You have no friends, you have no romantic history, you have no motivation, you have little money, you have poor habits, etc. and even given all of that, it's okay to be where you're at. It's okay to be you.
The best thing that has worked for me in this situation is to think of myself as if it were a friend. If it would hurt to let them down it should hurt to let me down. Hell, in the beginning I completely replaced the image of me in the future with a friend, I want to set myself up for success by not wanting to let myself down
2:00 true: not doing well, gotta dig deep & find inspo, wanting to be someone who can overcome, but: 3:00 'i deserve this': responsibility for situation? 4:20 how do u feel abt them? whats justice? pain? 5:30 blaming yourself, ofc u cant want help 6:10 what u never notice bc of self blame: positive environment enforcing those behaviours 7:50 u want to sentence them, but what ur doing is sentencing yourself 8:27 recognise ur justifiably angry at yourself 8:50 turn the other cheek, not an eye for an eye 9:05 forgiveness is the healthy way to live life why cant u forgive yourself? how do u practice compassion? are u angry at them? but what was it like being younger u? 10:10 u did the best u could at the given time dont just forgive, use observation, could u give them any kinda break? what would u say to them? 11:20 give yourself a little capacity for compassion, taking a step towards forgiving yourself
12:00 let go of the judgement u put on yourself for back then; the motivation goes into not changing, it goes into making the prophecy come true (& placing that sentence against yourself) 13:45 *recognise there is a part of u wishing to punish yourself* incomplete thinking; u dont deserve a life of constant pain. give younger u that pep talk recognise it wasnt easy to be *them* 14:30 even some time from now, could u emphathise with the current u? 14:40 your responsibility, but could u use some TLC? 15:05 meditation: practicing gratutude when annoyed 'we'll get em next time' Empathy, through practice.
This two pieces of advice on how to view your past self in a more fair light and that becoming more compassionate really just boils down to practice beginning with small steps, they sound so simple and once I hear them from Dr k I can't lp be like why didn't I ever think of that, it's so obvious xD but really it's not. But it's potentially life-changing advice which I've never heard anywhere especially in the way Dr k makes it click. Thanks a lot for these videos. No exaggeration my life would be in a different place without them.
Another side of this is, you want to be helped but you can't trust anyone to help you. When people claim they will help you in the past, but never bother to understand you, always assuming the know they "real problem". When they order you to do things that work for them but not for you, then blame you for not trying. When being "helped" hurts more than being left alone. And they often use labels like "victim mentality" and "over-reliance" instead of reflecting on themselves for not helping properly. Is a skydiver over-reliant on his parachute? Yes, thats what the parachute is for. It becomes good to not want "help". When you get out and find genuine, responsible and caring people, that is when you must open up and allow them to help you. Don't fault yourself for adapting to survive. But don't lose hope neither.
Sustaining relationships with others requires a good relationship to ourselves. Healthy self-esteem is an internal sense of worth, that pulls one neither into “better than” grandiosity nor “less than” shame…. Contempt is why so many men have such trouble staying connected. Since healthy self-esteem-being neither one up nor down-is not yet a real option, and since riding in the one-down position elicits disdain, in oneself and in others, most men learn to hide the chronic shame that dogs them…running from their own humanity and from closeness to anyone else along with it. - bell hooks (quoting Terrence Real), "The Will to Change"
the help i need is mostly financial and environmental. as far as like, my quality of life. i've come a realllly long way since i started looking into therapy etc. a few years ago and have never understood myself this well before in my life. not that i am ever done working on my personality but actual improvement to my life is going to have to come from my financial and environmental situation changing to something more symbiotic and nurturing to my personality and desires. i spend too much time having to hold back my true self to really make any more big strides in progress of my personality i think. i've been getting a lot better at forgiving myself and telling myself that i deserve the things i want and need in life lately. but i feel like people deserve a better me than i can supply them with still lol.
The advice on self compassion, for those interested. Is to repeat a mantra, something like "You are worthy of love" "You are a fantastic human being". Even though you might be unfamiliar with the reaction you'll get, eventually it will reprogram your subconscious mind. There is a saying 'fake it till you make it' which does have some power to it.
This, learning to forgive yourself and others is the key. Don't go around feeling angry towards none of them. Gain control over the voice in your head!
I guess the issue for me on not wanting to be helped is that I’ve always had to “fend for myself” being fatherless and whatnot... There was also a time my brother was kind enough to help me out for one week when I didn’t have a ride to work because I got into a car accident and the car was totalled, and I did give him gas money of course. My uncle intervened and said, “Why are you helping your sister out?? It’s /HER/ problem she doesn’t have a car!” and that will stick with me throughout my entire life... I fear I am just a burden to others and weak when I ask for help or whatever..
And the weird thing is even after knowing that a part of me thinks that i dont deserve hence i dont ask for help, i cant seem to tell myself otherwise. Doesn't matter how much i try to tell myself that no you deserve it and it works but then i become like kinda overconfident and then everything just reverts back to where it was.
I’ve always said that people like to suffer. It’s not like they enjoy it, it’s just that they’d rather be comfortable in the pain than take a chance at happiness. This is why change is uncomfortable, yet necessary.
i do not think that the key thing is to forgive (though of course that definitely can also be ONE way) but to notice that BY CHANGING you step out of the identity that deserves to be blamed for it. what deserves blame is always a set of traits of a person that did something wrong - it might in principle sometimes be the whole set, every single trait a person has - though that would be a strange thing, even hitler shares/d many traits with normal people - usually, this is a pretty small, relativiely easy to specify set of traits: for example a mere lack of knowledge could have made you do those things to your life. or fear anger, a mental illness lack of friends to begin with to learn more about how to socialice and to have an easier way of meeting more people etc. etc. the thing is: by changing THIS exact set of trait, you become someone different from the person that has all those blame-worthy traits, and therefore all you need to do is to embrace the necessary change of yourself, that is enough for you to get rid of all need to blame "yourself", since then it is not yourself that ever did this to you, it is jut a former subset of traits you once had. a set of traits you got rid off, or that you are at least right now fighting against.
I treat others with great care and patience, but with myself I'm such a b***. Like if I treated anyone at work the way I used to treat myself I would get fired. I'm getting better, though, but it's very hard to change your mind.
It happens quite often that people start creating an identity out of their misfortune/bad situation and are quite afraid of leaving that behind
so true and hard to see if you are the one having this identification, i managed it with meditation. specificly dzogchen, zazen
romanticising your depression moment
@@jays5002 well, sometimes if you can't see yourself as the main character of your life, you try to be the villain tearing it down. Because at least then you're something
@@sollertia_ damn
@@sollertia_ yo that's a cool ass quote. Where did you get it?
My therapist has been telling me for almost a year to "have empathy for myself" and I think this video has clicked a light to what that actually means. Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos!
I know right, I have heard the saying so many times yet only through these examples I understood what it actually means.
Yeah. These things are really hard to understand, especially when you haven't felt them before. A lot of "common sense" advice doesn't make sense to people with deep emotional wounds.
Good point. "Common sense tips" without any instructions or examples wont make any sense to someone who clearly missed out on the "common" part of everyone else's life
When your therapist says something like that and you’re having trouble understanding what it means, get them to explain exactly what they mean, most will happily do so
@@Talladarr I feel like the person who needs therapy is exactly the person who is least likely to be asking inquisitive questions like this. Sure there are outliers but I feel like the therapist needs to take initiative here, like Dr.K does. I guess being a streamer/content creator kind of helps to develop that skill.
To be entirely fair, yes, no teenager knows how to make relationships and it's a messy process of trial and error for everyone involved. However, a person's upbringing (or lack of) can feed into making it all the more difficult, and feed into the sense of needing to self-punish oneself for "messing up" their own life. When a child is isolated from peers and is constantly blamed by the parent(s) for things out of their control, they are conditioned to both isolate themselves and blame themselves for being lonely, a catch 22 that makes them fall deeper and deeper into this pit. What people need to do when they find themselves in this situation is not blame themselves/"the person who screwed them over", but be empathetic as if they are someone under their own care who they want to see heal and succeed.
I shot the gun, Dr. K effectively says this but more eloquently.
That last sentence actually hit home for me. Just like if I have a friend who is struggling, I want to see them get better. Thinking about myself like that in the third person is an interesting perspective.
So I think your comment did add some value!
@@Nik.No.K Yeah, the part that isn't made explicit in the video is that the consequence of forgiveness is patience and acceptance. At the core of all self-improvement is the acceptance that when things go wrong, being pissed at it is the least productive thing you can do to get out of the situation you deplore. And while you can't let that conclusion weigh on you with too much stress to perform, what you have to learn in the end is still always "Yes, I did it for two weeks and then I didn't do it for a month. **Time to do it again,** until I've returned so often that returning to activity becomes the natural response to noticing distraction."
OP extremely likely hasn't *never* formed *any* relationships. They just haven't made any that left them wholly satisfied with themselves and their social life. But that doesn't mean you don't have a good understanding of what it is you're looking for, and how you want to interact with other people. You just have to treat it like any other endeavour in life and **value** the little successes as little parts of the eventual fundamental progress.
With relationships it's extra complicated, because
1) you have to learn to accept that people have their own motivations in life, and many times you'll simply not be the right match, **no matter how amazing your behaviour is**
(And when you're not the right match for them, you shouldn't want to fundamentally change yourself for that one specific person - because then they very likely wouldn't be the right match for you either. They wouldn't like to hang out at the times & places you'd want to hang out, let alone do or talk about the things you'd enjoy.) , and
2) it's absolutely essential to accept that not every social encounter you have needs to result in a deeply satisfying bond in order for you to consider it a successful encounter. You have to enjoy time you spend with other people for its own sake. **Not just because it will make you appreciate your social life more,** and you'll feel more successful - **but also because you'll grow extremely repellent, unkind, and impatient, if you are only willing to care about other people when they are suitable and interested to turn into your (mutual) support beacon, or lifelong romantic partner.**
And the best way to reach the patience and appreciation for those things is to quit chasing external validation in the first place, by instead truly starting to be satisfied with one's own company, praise and touch, before going to look for deep connections with other people. Instead, when the social itch hits and you haven't reached self-love yet, try helping out a stranger with a project (could be work, something creative, or a sport), or do something charitable, and just let that fill your social need. Then you'll have the patience to go into future meetings with acquaintances and strangers without expecting something big to come from it, and just enjoy it for each individual experience in the moment.
@@Nik.No.K Agreed! The last line really clicked for me, now let's just hope it sticks and I remember it :D
There may be other factors beyond someone's control.
I have a very good life. A degree in pedagogy, a job I love, good people that have my back. But I have no idea how to behave socially most of the time. And even when I'm talking to my students or friends, I feel like I'm fucking up, and bothering them, while being unaware of what I should do.
That's partially due to a fucked up upbringing, but I found that I have dyspraxia through my studies, and my brain just can't process social interaction properly.
For better or worse, I've been telling myself that "the last ten years don't count". I, like a lot of us, was robbed of what we think constitutes a normal upbringing, and we have to do a lot of re-parenting in our adult lives. Right now, I'm 32. I started telling myself this when I was 28 and gave myself permission to feel like an 18-year-old all over again. To start learning everything - social skills, career skills, taxes, whatever - from scratch. I'm still mad as heck about a lot of things, and still, I can counter it with compassion for myself. Hopefully this helps somebody else too
thank you for sharing this.. really
@@bubble313 You're welcome :)
This is really good advice… thank you so much :>
@@itoko2243 You're welcome too :)
As a recent 30 year old, hoh boy, I needed to see something like this.
I want to be helped. But what I have learned, there are a lot of people that are willing to help, however they only want to help make me the person they think I should be. I don’t want help being a better dog. I don’t want help being a servant. I don’t want help being a cat. I don’t want help being you. I want help being the best me, free, loving, compassionate, forgiving, kind, capable, and pleasant.
Then who DO you want to be?
i think they try to help in the best way that they themselves know
You can only learn the best of you by experimentation. And be aware that we all have our ugly side, it's totally normal. You could set some pratical goals and boundaries and just think about how it feels like to you. There's no secret recipe for life, you can't just hack it. And we all change in the course of our lives, because we are shaped by our own experiences and, why not, hormones. Start asking yourself "why do I like the stuff I like" and "why do I feel the way I feel about things/people." Allow yourself to know yourself, if that makes any sense 😂
So... you want to be a real-life Mary Sue who shoulders the weight of the world and doesn't demand anything in return? Sounds hard.
i feel this way too for the most part. i dont want to be helped just to be in a cycle of abuse somewhere else.. i just want to spend whatever time i have left doing things that create positive situations for me and others
I often procrastinate watching Dr.K’s videos, but this one really resonated with me. I really appreciate what he does because I didn’t even know I felt this way- I especially love the compassion exercise :)
Same for me man, feels good knowing other people can relate to your same problems c:
This is actually a key part of trauma healing. It's basically having compassion for your inner child and the trauma it has been through
There is no inner child, at what point do you get encased in something else and become a dual personage?, is it the same time for everyone else? can a 10 year old have an inner child? or will they become one in the future? what percentage of you is it? etc, all questions which are asked as if it exists and don't sound like they make sense because it doesn't. Realising it's a myth is actually a good step to healing because you aren't perceiving it as being some part of you inside of yourself being healed but our viewing it as yourself being healed instead which is much more healthy.
@@Mr.Goodkat From what I understand, the inner child is a name for the part of the mind that stores emotional experiences from childhood. From the time of birth to about age 7-8, children are in an egocentric state. This means that they view everything that happens to them (especially from their parents) as their fault.
For example, a mother is in a bad mood and loses her patience with her child. The child can interpret that as loss of love and feels unworthy of their mother's love. The child cannot interpret why their mother is in a bad mood, it just assumes it is to blame.
This experience is now stored in the mind and shows up as childhood trauma later on in life. The way I see it, the concept of 'the inner child' is just a handy way of accessing that part of the mind and releasing those repressed emotions.
@@alleras46 Nobody should experience anger at others when 7-8 under approx. because they view everything that happens to them to be their fault but I had experiences younger than 7 that I was pissed off at others for because I felt they were unjust and I mean I was pissed off at the time not retroactively and I know of other's who were back then too. Also if you google mortality experiences "puppet play" you'll see toddler's were studied and had moral senses/instincts and a thirst for justice when observing villains winning in entertainment. Now I know you said everything happens to THEM and the character in the fiction isn't them but if they wanted justice against the character for a wrong that means they recognise it was a wrong/unjust if someone does the same thing to them that was done in the play then they will not see it as their fault, they know it's wrong, we all have that sense, it's innate.
And I know there is a change in brain waves at approx. 7 (some say at 5 for stronger dispositions) but the experiences from before then aren't stored in another part of the brain as other experiences although maybe you just mean it as a metaphor sort of.
What if you havent gone through trauma but are just fundamentally worthless? What if your inner child never went through trauma and yet still ended so fucked up?
@@Zedzilliot You definitely have gone through trauma. You just don't know it because it could have happened as early as when you were a baby. Everyone experiences childhood trauma in some form or another. It's a natural mechanism we still have from prehistoric times.
My issue with not wanting to be helped is that I want to do things myself.
Exactly. "If I got myself into this mess, I can get myself out."
Maybe that's a terrible fallacy, but I've been trying my darndest for 12 years now and I can't quit now.
maybe try looking at it differently. when you go to school, your teacher gives you the information, but you do all the work on your own. an athletic coach can show you how to do a workout, but it's up to you to show up everyday and get the reps in.
it's the same with a therapist or coach. they give you support & info, but they can't make any actual changes. you have to do that yourself.
@@danidisco284
I was meaning more in the way of “you can’t make me happy for motivated. I have to.”
I guess you are doing something yourself by watching these videos and learning
@@bigtimbolim would you take that approach if you broke your leg? you "get yourself out of that mess" by seeking out the best expert you can find and working with them to meet your specific needs.
The feeling of deserving a sh*t life situation feels so real to me. The idea that all you'll ever know is failure and frustration is all too real, and inspires a level of dread many understand, but others somehow can't fathom. I think it doesn't help in the least bit that the "just world fallacy" - that is, the idea that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people - seems to resonate so much with the general population. Look at how when somebody is a victim of anything, others are so expedient at playing devil's advocate and finding the reasons why they "deserved it". What helps me is by looking at others misfortune and saying that they don't deserve it, despite their flaws, and that the same is true for me. Nobody is perfect, yet imperfect people can lead seemingly "perfect", blissful lives. Look around, and you'll see it too.
Damn that bit about seeing yourself as another person and that person being someone you have negative emotion/thoughts about hit home
Whenever I feel like I don't want to be helped, it's more like I cant deal with the short term pain/uncomfortability of change or self improvement.
Or, I feel like I am incapable of improvement in a specific area/my self image is poor.
I was having a nervous, anxious breakdown and my wife was trying to help. She basically did this (Somehow she knows therapy by instinct, lol) to me. She asked me to imagine a poor, small weak person being kicked. (This is what I was doing to myself) She said "How does that make you feel?" I said "Sad". She said "What would you do if you saw this? Like IRL?" And I said "Call the cops". She said there are no cops. I said then yell for help. She said it's just us three here. No one is coming. I said.... well then IDK. Yell at the attacker? She said he's not stopping. The weak guy is crying for help. The attacker is definitely going to kill him at this point. What do you do?
I sat for a LOOOOOOONG time, thinking about this and the metaphor that was being presented to me. I was able to figure out what she wants me to say, but I never realized before that actually HELPING the weak person myself was basically NEVER something that would come to mind. This was a little shocking, and I wanted to play my own thoughts out rather than just giving her what she was asking. (Hooray, safe people!) I was asking her: Well does he deserve it? We can't tell. What if that supposedly weak guy had just pulled a knife or gun or some other aggressive equalizer on the other guy? What if he had started it?
I just came across this scene, I don't have enough information to determine if this is just or not, so I can't find a reason to risk my own well being to intervene and then turn out to be WRONG! Or get hurt/die myself defending a person that could DESERVE this! If anything, I relate more to the weak guy, and if I tried to stop the attacker, there's a pretty good chance that all I'd do is disrupt and possibly escalate the situation. I realized my instinct was, effectively, to just watch, maybe hide, and hope the attacker got tired or decided to stop before killing the victim. At no point did I come to place myself as an equal to the attacker. Only related to the victim and was, probably, just glad the attacker wasn't on ME at that exact moment.
In a way, my own attachment to a value I've always had... rationality and neutrality, was making it so I was failing basic human moral standards. I've always been annoyed how people will just 'automatically' take the perceived underdog's side, even if the underdog was just dominating (games or whatever) recently. I thought I was some enlightened scholar with that opinion, basically. Really, what I was doing, I now realize, was internalizing the bullying message I was given from my own family, and my external reality growing up. Some people just DESERVE to get F'ed up.
"Of course I'd be bullied. Look at me, I pretty much deserve it! Everyone knows I won't fight back. I should have made myself harder, like my dad says, and I didn't, so now I get what I deserve."
I have been softspoken and overweight my entire life. I knew, and consciously told myself this growing up, that my only defense was to 'look' tough or mean and scowl since I'm tall and big. But that means I can never be called to action, since that would mean risking exposing that I'm actually soft and weak, emotional, vulnerable. Even as I came to see myself in my late 20s and now in early 30's as a proud 'soft man' unafraid to be straight and not tough, a tender man in touch with my emotions and allied with love... I still had this internalized victim-rationalization mindset that allowed me to survive earlier in life lurking inside of me.
Bullies can be right. People can deserve unfair treatment. "People get what they deserve". My inner child is MESSED up, I'm coming to realize. I may have built more healthful mindsets on top of that foundation, but it's become clear that it's time to go in and renovate the basement. The trauma healing work that I always find most enlightening for me always revolves around acknowledging that my worldview served me in the past, but I have changed, evolved, and learned, so it's time to re-evalute the entrenched thinking patterns and assumptions and update them if needed.
This poster and this video are very helpful for my 'next step' in understanding this. I've been working on healing this, ever since I (laugh if you want, haha) watched a RUclips Tarot reading that drew the self-compassion card as what "I" needed. It got me thinking... I had NO idea what self-compassion is, truely. And I thought I knew what compassion or others was, but now I realize I had an incomplete understanding. I still don't like seeing 'automatic underdog reverence', but I do now see the value in that mindset and why it develops.
My therapist and I (and the wife!) are working on helping me build self-esteem and compassion. It's REALLY hard to have to learn basic human wellness at 32 for the first time, lol, but better now than never. I really do recommend everyone out there approach their demons and problems with an open mind. Research and experience and thousands of years of human journeying simply KEEPS proving that open mindedness is almost always the solution, and our souls will guide us to check our survival instinct.
Keep up the great work, Dr K! These comment reaction videos are SO good. EXACTLY what the internet needs.
I didn't even finish to see the video, but I must say this is exactly what I need to do... i truly believe I deserve where I am because I screwed everything since my 12y..... I was just a kid, but all of that just made me be a 21y girl that doesn't understand what being an adult is like, no boyfriend (I never had one anyway, but it hurts), I'm a student in a good university but I still feel so stuck, no job, friends far away, no socializing with people of my college... Feeling alone all the time... Maybe one day I can forgive myself for being like that, but god damn... This is so hard....
I'm no moral judge, and I know nothing about the person you were when you were 12, or the person you are now, but you are worth forgiving and helping.
Two decades really isn't that long a time to be alive, unless you're a dog or cat. Take it from me, I'm a 20yo male, and a monumental screw-up. We have (hopefully) significantly longer to live to figure things out for ourselves. Don't punish yourself for ending up in whatever situation you're in. If anything, shame and regret are punishment enough. Let yourself be, breath, and find your way in the world from this point. I believe you can do it, friend!
No 21 year old really knows whats it like to be an adult. From the perspective of a 30yo, youre still children... And love is not a race.
@@penultimania4295 and when your 65 and still learning things and everybody are children, then we share what we have learned!
I just realised how i was just learning to be empathic towards my past self when my parents started saying very hurtful things to me and started demotivating me and criticizing me since last year. They became very toxic towards me specifically and even tho i told them how it was hurting me, and my mum did actually stop, those words still reached my mind and the cycle of self hatred started again. I have been very demotivated these past few months, struggling to do basic things like keep myself clean, not wake up very late and it has only made me hate me more.
Start with the smallest possible act of self respect you can without it being overwhelming , if that means stretching for 20 seconds and drinking a glass of water than so be it. Just do it consciously
I don't watch Dr. K's videos until I feel compelled to by its content, this was undoubtedly something I needed to hear. Thanks for the work you and your team are doing, it's greatly appreciated.
I've been on the self-compassion path for maybe 8 years now. It sounds so simple to "talk to yourself like you're your friend instead of your own bully" but so incredibly hard to create that habit. I still have issues, and covid has gotten my social anxiety into a weird place, but I feel surprised how different I feel free to think about myself now, compared to some of my darkest times, when I couldn't sleep because my mind was just determined to beat myself up for something I said that day or several months ago. I said something blasé at a social gathering to semi-strangers after a wedding about a week ago and when it comes up again in my head, I just tell myself "You've already felt bad about it, and that's enough. You're not excusing myself by skipping out on beating number X. But I already admonished myself and I'll be more conscious or whatever next time. And quit coming back to this, it really wasn't that bad. On to the next thing." Honestly it's mind-blowing that I can just continue my day about it. It really does feel kind compared to the constant beat-down I used to have.
I love this post. Dude, embrace your victim mentality for a while. Process the anger. It's a stage of grief, healing from crap. Anger is kind of awesome - it's a breakthrough emotion. Get mad. Process that. Walk right into it (SAFELY). You have every right to be angry.
Can't make room for joy, and the motivation doesn't pop up, until the anger gets processed. You deserve to get through this. It's not your fault this stuff happens. It's none of our faults... but it is now our responsibility to act (karma) and the cool thing is, it's in our authority, you own this, and you have the autonomy to do something about it. (Check out the practice of writing fears and resentments on paper then burning/tearing it up, then meditating. It's an AA technique. Could use Dr. K's meditations and think of HG! 💚)
True. I think i need that first part. I always try and run into "No, dont be angry at yourself, thats mean, just love yourself". I didnt realise that's quite invalidating to the part of me thats angry and feels like im my own worst enemy. My mother used to do this when my sisters would annoy me: "They're your sisters, dont be angry at them" - which never helped. Guess i took that on board as an adult.
@eric Spencer there are different perceptions of that term
@eric Spencer It's not really "victim mentality" when you actually _are_ a victim of something - in this case, your own self-loathing. It's easy to say "Well this is just a boy-cried-wolf scenario," especially when you've played the victim card before and hurt others as a result. Which many people do when they get angry.
The difference is realizing that, despite that, you ARE a victim of your own suffering and you can and should get help. If you feel guilty about burdening others, then make up for it later. Don't wallow in it now, though.
I've been living with Dysthymia for as long as I can remember. I was in this spot (of hating myself for ruining my life) for a long period in my life. Basically until I finally got therapy in my mid-late twenties. Beyond the therapy I got, what really helped was Ayahuasca. Specifically the depersonalization phase allowed me to look back upon myself from the third person and review myself as a friends instead of 'me'. It made me realize how hard I've always been on myself and how unfair it was to put the weight of 'my world' on my shoulders all the time.
I was feeling better for a while after that. Sadly overtime that scar evolved. As I began recognizing more and more how little of it had to do with me and how much of it had to do with the absolute litany of traumatic experiences I had to deal with from my parents, my local culture at the time, my whole family and even my long running 11 year long relationship.
This made me feel like I 'deserved' it still. Not literally as if I've done anything wrong, but as if my history has molded me into something so twisted, so broken that for this mess of a person to hope for normality, let alone success in the field of romance/sex/friendship or any kind of validation (not even beginning to step foot in what I want out of life or my dreams of a future), was beyond what I could 'afford'. I was/am built different; Built wrong; Faulty to the core. Effectively I've landed back in the same pattern only with a much more hopeless outlook on life.
Now what I see is a world full of demands and a broken mess that has little to nothing to offer. Everything around me is gross and asks everything of me before it allows me to even have a chance at any momentary bliss and I can't offer anything nearly close enough because of how broken I am due to my misadventures of an existence. I feel greedy anytime I wish for a better life, a happy life, a feeling of being worth anything. The mere concept of value is alien to me.
I've gone through 3 psychological clinics and at least 8 psychologists/psychiatrists and I'm now waiting for what could potentially be a full looney bin session (My self deprecating way of referring to a very intensive therapy style where I stay at a clinic most of the week and go back home on the weekends). Out of all those sessions what I've learned most is that no matter how much CBT I've mastered, I'm just completely alienated from the concept of self-value and self-esteem. I struggle to identify these things beyond some kind of intellectually built understanding of it. It's like a kind of autism but with anything relating to having any worth. I can only piece together my 'worth' (and thus what I 'deserve') by how useful of a tool I can be to others.
I literally don't know how it is to be happy, loved, safe, cared for/taken care of, content or just joyful/optimistic. It makes it hard to even identify when I've had temporary moments of these things since I don't have any intuitive knowledge of how they feel like so it's not just that I've never had them, it's that I've never had the ability to even know if I've had them.
I'm turning 31 this year and I can't remember any sense of joy in life since I was at least 10 (and likely before that but my memory is fuzzy prior to that). I can never really tell if I'm getting better or worse 'for real'. I've gone through measurable period where I've analyzed sources of what I think my body needs to aid in that trauma (a feeling of 'family', a feeling of being wanted, etc.) but those faded away when corona started. Though, after all that I've also gone through new traumas that have left me making more concrete plans on how to end it all should that day arrive. So yeah, it's hard to tell if I'm getting better or worse.
I've hated my existence for so long and the fact that the 'external' is what caused me to be this broken and how much I depend on that external validation and general sources of external comfort to get by (again, hoping for bliss/joy/peace/safety feels 'beyond my paygrade'). Living is exhausting and I clearly don't meet the requirements to 'deserve' someone trying to pull me out when I can't help but breakdown and lose myself.
So in summary: Out of the frying pan (the one discussed in this video); Into the fire.
I feel you in a lot of this, man. Im hoping shrooms might help me get in touch with myself in a better way. They seem to melt down some of our terrible outlook in life and the feeling that nothing is worth it to the point where now i can just fully apreciate the small things and be content by them. Like arranging my life so even a piece of toast with jam is a hard earned price during the weekend when before id eat 60 of those a week to even feel a slight satisfaction... idk, it might sound weird but changing the scale of things sometimes helps people out. And that feeling of wanting to be worth something to someone or to yourself can be helped by trying your very best to be not only good for yourself but for those around you like its a mission. You dont even have to do much. Sometimes its just friday night pasta for your mom, or giving a bag of cookies to your next door neighbor's kid. If you somehow become a vehicle for happiness and kindness then it will become a part of you much like all the darkness. You can still construct parts of yourself that arent tainted by all the toxicity of the rest. A friend of mine used to say things similar to how we feel and when things got severely bad for him (stealing cars and mugging people because he couldnt even get a job anore) the only thing that saved him was doing charity work and getting a no bullshit job that didnt make him feel like he was worth only his salary. Even if all of that means throwing it all away and going to the mountains too, just do it. Dont stop trying because you care about things, and most people don't care at all.
So saddd😔
Must be hell to be living in such a reality.
It is.
Eh, could be worse. Psychological suffering is a pretty first world problem. Honestly I feel blessed that my biggest problem is my own brain.
Man, this is exactly my issue. I feel like i've known i need self compassion for years now, but just can't do it. I was in a similar position to this guy when i was younger, 31 now, and have a lot of things done i wanted when i was younger - but there's a catch. Im still behind, always behind, so no matter what i achieve its not enough, because im only as good as i could've been 5 years ago. Sometimes this shit really comes through the back door in the form of "Why cant you just be kind to yourself you idiot".
1. Have empathy for my younger self and the mistakes I made.
2. Practice compassion.
---...--- Message received.
I never really thought of it like this before. When you said 15 year old me having social anxiety and life being terrifying really hit home for me. I still remember that feeling whenever I apply for a new job, or have to take my car to the garage and speak to mechanics. It's like an almost tangible link to those hard times
*_Despite pandemic, I almost feel like a black sheep, the odd one in society._*
*_I was once pressured before. But it comes back biting me again. These overwhelming thoughts of trying to help my people and then help myself almost feels like a tug of war. It made me question once, "Should I start caring for myself?"_*
*_Maybe I gave myself too much... And it feels like my success makes someone else fall. Because of what I grew up being taught with, it made me almost unable to voice my own feelings, and just go blind with whatever they say. I really hate it... a lot. But self-hatred is as much of a deadly poison like being backlashed by those whom you care for._*
*_The only place I can socialize and try to be... well, me, is the Internet. And yet I'm forced to shut them out... It just angers me when I see people going through this kind of situation. Never blame yourself, that's the only rule._*
If you feel overwhelmed its okay to ask professional help. Even emergency help if needed
I’ve been watching for a few months, and I’ve felt a connection with a lot of things you’ve said, but this… it hits so close to home it’s surreal. I’m going to take your advice here and apply it as much as I’m able.
Thank you for the work you’re doing, it really is helping so many of us in ways that can’t be truly quantified.
I want to be helped as well, at times I am angry with that person, but I can't waste time wanting myself to suffer when there is growth to be had. I am more focused on what I can do now to improve my life, and that's what I will do now going forward.
Great to hear you are improving your life and living the best life you can, I wish you the best of luck on your way of being the best of yourself, keep being awesome :)
Be careful not to beat yourself up if you're not improving at the rate you feel you should, just do the best u can 👸
My first step to climbing out of that hole was first: recognizing that I was punishing myself, second: If I deserved punishment I could use that punishment to my advantage. I changed my life sentence of doing nothing in the hole, to giving myself community service to climb out of the hole. My punishment became helping myself, making myself better. Yes I failed a lot of times and still blamed myself, but instead of then doing nothing I punished myself by trying again and again. Eventually I got to a better place. In this better place I was finally able to truly forgive myself because I payed my price and it was okay because my life was better and it was all worth it now.
Most people suffer with trauma it can be small not big and it make you not be your auntetic self it make you be your emotions and the emotions are bad enotinal pain from past trauma happen inside you and make you feel different it very painful
I really really needed this video.
Dr. K has been making video after video that were just right for where I was.
This is something I've really been struggling with recently, and I absolutely loved the way you presented the problem in this video. I like the concept of "what if it was some other person who was ruining your life?" I innately have a strong sense of justice, but I didn't realize how much I was actually blaming myself and beating myself up for being the cause of my own problems. The point about empathy was also great, because a lot of times I forget now what it was like to be a younger version of myself. I'll have regrets like "I should have said this" or "I shouldn't have done that" but for me a few years ago, I was walking in completely different shoes. I didn't have all the knowledge and time to reflect that I do now. And so dissolving that sort of self-hatred is easier for me now that I've put this into the proper perspective. There's no reason to go beat up the me that screwed up in the past, because that me was doing the best he could while still experiencing some tough situations. I think I'm starting to understand how to forgive myself now, so really, thank you Dr. K!
It’s easier for me to be compassionate and have empathy for others because I don’t know what path they took in their life that lead them to the point where they do disappointing things. I don’t have control over their upbringing or why they do the things they do, but I have complete control over why I do the shit that I do.
Oh hey I found me again, and everything’s worse now :)
Wondering if there’s a similar reason people can’t allow themselves to accept gifts. I’ve struggled with that for the majority of adulthood.
Same with compliments in some cases. If you feel unworthy, you feel you don't deserve good things.
It ties in with not deserving love or worth. So yes its a giant snowball of issues. But the big umbrella is the same, trauma.
Damn. A lot of this was about me. I can add that part of my resistance to help is that I feel like I've gotten so much already, and I want to repay people...if I continue to get help it just piles on how much I owe everybody. That may be a selfish thought but it's how I feel.
Hmm, I think the issue I‘m struggling with is very similar to this one but yet still distinctly different. I‘ve been unsuccessfully trying to help myself for years because my parents neglected me emotionally, so I likely learned that the issues of others are more important than my own. But I think now that I‘ve failed at helping myself for so many years, I‘ve been cultivating that same sense of deserving a terrible life for being unable to fix it myself. That might explain why I‘ve been stuck trying to get myself to talk to a therapist for half a year now, without really making any meaningful progress towards that goal.
Dr. K always makes me doubt myself and gives me something to think about. Thanks for that!
For me I feel like I rather stay in the pain I know than go out of my comfort zone and risk failure and end up feeling even worse pain. People don't actually like to be in pain for the most part, the self sabotaging things we do actually protect us from the pain of the unknown.
i had this for naive, quiet, scared 16 year old me and my younger sister going through depression. being so hard on myself for that time period, of me being a kid having to help another kid like that (and failing/ignoring), it's only something i've truly allowed myself to be sad about _for me_ and realised that that was only something that happened, not something i am. be kind to yourself guys, don't dwell inside your head on mistakes
this actually opened my eyes to the reason why I've been sabotaging myself towards death
9:18 - 10:30 This harkens back to things Dr. K has said about karma. When you recognize that everything affects everything, you start to realize what you do and don't have control over. Given your situation, you really were doing your best. Recognizing that a lot of your experience is due to seeds planted out of view or before you arrived or otherwise beyond your control is a step towards self-forgiveness.
I would say to this person that while it may feel like tons of wasted time, your struggles give you a unique perspective on life that can evolve into unique strength. Many people who have never seen such a rock bottom will consequently never reach such great heights. Suffering begets wisdom.
In wanna express my extreme gratitude towards Dr K's work because due his guidance and knowledge I have come really far in my journey of self exploration, which have lead me to overcome my painful state of emotions to a great extent.
I also watch Jordan Peterson's content and according to me the comno of these two guys is is incredible, one is a bit harsh but practical another is self explanatory and compassionate, so they balance out each other.
A great thanks to both of them.
"This is really tricky because this person is you"
*_confused screaming_*
Most reactions are valid, but few reactions are actually helpful to the situation. Sorting this out is a huge help :) great talk Dr. K
I love this so much. I know the channel is geared mostly towards young guys, but this absolutely applies to older people who have struggled their entire lives to gain any kind of stability in life. Even when offered help they resist and just wind up worse and worse. This is how people wind up homeless and addicted.
Then how do you differentiate between wanting to be helped and wanting to be saved ?
Like I can't really remember how it felt to be me at 15 or 18 and from the memories I have it seems like nothing has changed since then even though I did quite a lot of stuff when I think about it, but even with all that I don't just want to be helped, I really just want someone to come and save me from this because I can't do it on my own and even when people try to offer help it always seems to me to be too little too late and from too far away. Like I'm a mess and I don't know how to sort it out and I have been trying to figure it out on my own for a decade so at this point just swiping one or two pieces isn't really helping.
At this point I don't know if I can remember what it's like to be confident and not just riding a high, what it's like to feel like there are people having my back, what it's like having people rely on me and trust me (I know there probably is quite a bit of projection on this one) or even what it's like to not struggle just sleeping or getting out of bed.
I used to think "forcing" myself to practice forgiveness or compassion when I am not feeling it is being inauthentic to my feelings. But what Dr K said makes so much sense! It's definitely something new I learned today. I will be on a lookout for an annoying moment so that I can practice this
@@joeyondakeys sometimes I find it hard to show forgiveness and compassion when I am feeling angry or hurt. And in those times, forcing myself to feel and act in another way kinda feels unauthentic? It feels as if I don't have the energy for doing that. Doesn't mean it is okay to be mean to other people.
But your question makes me think. It feels more meaningful to think of showing or sometimes, forcing compassion as trying to be a decent human being
Thanks, Dr. K!
In last time I see a thread between your videos.
When you begin to love, to help other people, when you understand, that they might have not the best time, you are actually begin to love and understand yourself as well.
It really does a lot. Thank you very much for publishing such content!
I've gotten pretty good at compassion for other people, but I never really considered it for myself. Thank you, I feel like this video came to me at the best moment it could.
what I've learnt today is compassion and forgiveness is the path to emotional grounding or control which ultimately leads to control over yourself
I did not do this to myself. Do not try to convince me that the abuse that happened in my family was my own fault. I am constantly fighting against that gaslighting that my entire dads family put me through. They’re the ones I have to forgive. And by extension myself for not doing anything. But they told me that’s just feeling sorry for myself and nobody is allowed to do that according to them.
My case is like, Im not sure if want to be helped, i feel i dont deserve the help at all, that i should handle it myself, It was how my parents raised me anyway, terrible terrible communication and support that lead me to have to not have any idea onto how to engage with any of my problems and try to solve it all myself.
I Want to become a better person, i want to be there for people who need me, but i can't do this unless i work on my issues wich i don't know how to do or even start to engage with, I regularly self reflect a lot, i am aware of many of my issues but it wont help if i dont do anything about them.
Been waking up angry after snoozing 10 times on my free days, hitting the walls and breaking stuff around my house and even ended up at the ER cause I hit my foot too hard on the wall the other day
When I wake up like this I don't want to feel better, I'm punishing myself for not having woken up and not having fought my bad feelings. I haven't been able to help myself and I'm punishing myself further for it.
This is all backwards, I need to be nice with myself and compassionate cause even if others are it is not going to do anything as long as I blame myself that hard.
Just needed to vent, I broke the light switch in the bathroom and my father just went to buy a new one and fix it and I had such a resentful morning.. I'll apologize to him but to myself first and foremost
Take care of yourselves people, you deserve to be happy and not punish yourselves further
I am currently 1 year out of High School. I have many problems, but no one really seems to want to help me. I never really had friends growing up, just “friends.” I joined the soccer team for my school and played all four years in hopes of gaining a friend, no. I’ve even went as far as doing assignments/projects for classes I wasn’t even taking, so someone could talk to me, I know it was wrong and they were just using me, but it felt nice to have someone to talk to even if they were just pretending to care. I was never in any drama, people would describe me as really nice or even too nice sometimes. I talked to everyone, but never seemed to fit in enough to become anyone’s friend. I was never invited to hang out with my “friends” and have little to no memories of my high school career, I didn’t get invited to anyone’s graduation party too. I don’t get why I was not able to form any friendships with people despite me trying so hard. I also did not have the best family experience growing up either. It really does hurt to be lonely, I really do feel that having a true friend would help me a lot but I can’t seem to make any even though I try.
This is weirdly applicable, even the age ranges. Good video thanks 👍
Thank you. From all of my heart.
This is my problem as well. I have little enjoyment, don't socialise, and aren't productive. While sometimes I get lonely or feel sad, I would be perfectly content with wasting my life away without seeking help that I should logically do. Although contradictorily I wish I didn't waste so many years that have already passed.
I’ve noticed a lot of people are very hard on themselves.
Please, be compassionate to yourselves. Remind yourself you are not perfect and it’s OK to fail.
This video called me out so hard. I will try to be more forgiving towards myself. To the person who made the post; thank you for sharing. To Dr. K, thanks for taking the time to talk about it.
Very insightful. You've helped me come closer to a true understanding of the nature of forgiveness and why it is so necessary. Thank you.
This youtube channel is more impactful than any therapy I've ever gone to.. and I've been going to therapy off and on since I was 8. I'm 33 now.
I think this post was really helpful. The part that mentions how you would feel about your 15 year old self really hit home for me. I can't imagine feeling anything other than hatred towards him. I often try to push myself harder when things don't work, and after a long time of doing this I feel pretty burnt out. I'm glad this topic was adressed because it was clearly a big blindspot for me.
Tldr;
Feel the same as poster. Didn't realise I was doing this. Thanks :)
If you want to punish yourself, it is because you are not in line with your own standards. Forgiveness and compassion is one route - relax your standards. The other route is to put into words what your standards are and explore what actions you can take to align yourself with them.
You didn't make friends like others as a teenager? Can't change the past - choose compassion there. But do you want friends now? How do other people find friends? What even is a friend to you? You may find your definition is very different from other people's. One you know what your goal is you can figure out how to train for it. Training for other people's goals (possibly what you did all thru school) keeps you occupied and unable to live your values.
Note: Your values may change/develop/evolve as you explore them. Maybe. But what is for certain is keep doing what you've always done and you will be stuck with what you've always had.
"Who is responsible for your situation?"
I hate being asked this because I know my therapist is gonna scold me for just "pointing fingers at other people instead of having accountability" instead of actually looking at the perspective of someone that got fucked over by another person(s). I get it, that there are people who are scared of being proven wrong, but you know... at least be honest about it, so that I could have something to appreciate about you to an extent. I know I am not the only one responsible for my situation, and I'm tired of taking all the blame. I'm tired of others getting away with all the evil they've committed, and somehow ended up becoming successful for some goddamn reason, while I'm rotting away in this shit hole where they threw me. I'm tired of them hypocrite, undeserving eyes staring at me with pity while telling me that "holding on to vengeance won't make me successful".
It's easy to tell someone they need to let go to heal, but some don't even need healing. Some need fairness, some need justice. I need both.
Yeah...
Thank you Dr.K, I don't have access to any reliable psychiatrist and after I almost screwed up my whole life before it even started I was in a terrible mental state for a long time. I can't afford to watch live streams and your videos have helped me learn a lot about mental health and the dangerous ways we treat ourselves. I don't belong in the community that I'm in, and I'm hoping to get out of it in the near future; your advice will be a great help to achieve that goal.
That therapist's advice to "see the positivity in the situation" is extremely toxic and counterproductive. One of the first steps should be to make contact with your negative feelings, not to feel even more negative for having them.
thanks doc, and original comment, i really needed this in my current state
The biggest problem I have is that so much time is wasted now, what's even the point? If I somehow fix things now I've already wasted what is meant to be the best time of your life. Even the best case scenario from here is miserable. That's why I'm just holding on for my mother's sake, once she passes I can get it over with.
I feel the exact way especially with the sheer amount of loneliness I have
i have this exact problem but honestly it's just so hard. because having the compassion to forgive yourself means you also gotta forgive everything else that happened to you and i don't know if i'll ever be ready for that.
Just started this video and the post relates to me super heavy
I'm in a small constellation at the moment, & I'm having a little imposter syndrome. Your video is great at speaking to a lot of problems in general enough terms that I can filter it into my own actions & thoughts about how to come out of this hiccup healthily. Thanks HealthyGamer.
I'm hella jealous of 15 yo me, because he *immediately started crying here* didn't feel hopeless, this kid was the dopest. that kid didn't know where he belonged, but he didn't give two shits, he did it all, and he did it out of kindness. i pity 25 yo me because he'd had his heart broken, and was starting to grow cold, forgetting how to live in the moment. he'd tried his best to be there for others, and was always walked all over and given the cold shoulder, and so he started to pull away from the world. 30 yo me is nothing but a shadow of that kid who went and did it all back as a child. alone, so tired, an emotional wreck who just couldn't seem to get his shit together yet. He's just sitting around, not really there, thinking someone's magic words are what he needed to hear, but what he doesn't know is all it takes is asking for help, to start to turn your life around and do good for yourself. So this is me, trying so hard to break free from the sad little fuck that i never thought i'd be, about 5 weeks til i'm 32, i'm just wondering will i be okay soon? i hope when you read this, you heard the beat too.
This was excellent and very clear. TY Dr K
I blamed alot for my grown up self at my parents for not giving me the skills to be socially adapt. But then as an adult they are no longer stopping me from doing activities and learning skills so why cant I do those things? Because I'm use to being how I am now in a miserable depressed state that is has become a part of that I dont want to leave behind.
Perhaps it's important to recognize that it's not the dreadfulness of the situation that's keeping you down, but rather your inability to forgive yourself for being in it. Recently I've been trying to practice allowing myself to exist exactly how I am--since I've spent almost all of my life thinking about how I can be in the next moment different from how I am. You have no friends, you have no romantic history, you have no motivation, you have little money, you have poor habits, etc. and even given all of that, it's okay to be where you're at. It's okay to be you.
I cried. This one hit home so much. I have been so hard on myself.
The best thing that has worked for me in this situation is to think of myself as if it were a friend. If it would hurt to let them down it should hurt to let me down. Hell, in the beginning I completely replaced the image of me in the future with a friend, I want to set myself up for success by not wanting to let myself down
2:00 true: not doing well, gotta dig deep & find inspo, wanting to be someone who can overcome, but:
3:00 'i deserve this': responsibility for situation?
4:20 how do u feel abt them? whats justice? pain?
5:30 blaming yourself, ofc u cant want help
6:10 what u never notice bc of self blame: positive environment enforcing those behaviours
7:50 u want to sentence them, but what ur doing is
sentencing yourself
8:27 recognise ur justifiably angry at yourself 8:50 turn the other cheek, not an eye for an eye
9:05 forgiveness is the healthy way to live life
why cant u forgive yourself?
how do u practice compassion?
are u angry at them? but what was it like being younger u?
10:10 u did the best u could at the given time
dont just forgive, use observation, could u give them any kinda break?
what would u say to them?
11:20 give yourself a little capacity for compassion, taking a step towards forgiving yourself
12:00 let go of the judgement u put on yourself for back then;
the motivation goes into not changing,
it goes into making the prophecy come true (& placing that sentence against yourself)
13:45 *recognise there is a part of u wishing to punish yourself*
incomplete thinking; u dont deserve a life of constant pain.
give younger u that pep talk
recognise it wasnt easy to be *them*
14:30 even some time from now, could u emphathise with the current u?
14:40 your responsibility, but could u use some TLC?
15:05 meditation: practicing gratutude when annoyed
'we'll get em next time'
Empathy, through practice.
There's so much opportunity to practice compassion in League of Legends. better go practice. thanks Dr. K!
This two pieces of advice on how to view your past self in a more fair light and that becoming more compassionate really just boils down to practice beginning with small steps, they sound so simple and once I hear them from Dr k I can't lp be like why didn't I ever think of that, it's so obvious xD but really it's not. But it's potentially life-changing advice which I've never heard anywhere especially in the way Dr k makes it click. Thanks a lot for these videos. No exaggeration my life would be in a different place without them.
Another side of this is, you want to be helped but you can't trust anyone to help you. When people claim they will help you in the past, but never bother to understand you, always assuming the know they "real problem". When they order you to do things that work for them but not for you, then blame you for not trying. When being "helped" hurts more than being left alone. And they often use labels like "victim mentality" and "over-reliance" instead of reflecting on themselves for not helping properly. Is a skydiver over-reliant on his parachute? Yes, thats what the parachute is for. It becomes good to not want "help".
When you get out and find genuine, responsible and caring people, that is when you must open up and allow them to help you. Don't fault yourself for adapting to survive. But don't lose hope neither.
Sustaining relationships with others requires a good relationship to ourselves. Healthy self-esteem is an internal sense of worth, that pulls one neither into “better than” grandiosity nor “less than” shame…. Contempt is why so many men have such trouble staying connected. Since healthy self-esteem-being neither one up nor down-is not yet a real option, and since riding in the one-down position elicits disdain, in oneself and in others, most men learn to hide the chronic shame that dogs them…running from their own humanity and from closeness to anyone else along with it.
- bell hooks (quoting Terrence Real), "The Will to Change"
the help i need is mostly financial and environmental. as far as like, my quality of life. i've come a realllly long way since i started looking into therapy etc. a few years ago and have never understood myself this well before in my life. not that i am ever done working on my personality but actual improvement to my life is going to have to come from my financial and environmental situation changing to something more symbiotic and nurturing to my personality and desires. i spend too much time having to hold back my true self to really make any more big strides in progress of my personality i think. i've been getting a lot better at forgiving myself and telling myself that i deserve the things i want and need in life lately. but i feel like people deserve a better me than i can supply them with still lol.
Man, I need this content
Yeah man, same
This is me. Has been forever.
The advice on self compassion, for those interested. Is to repeat a mantra, something like "You are worthy of love" "You are a fantastic human being". Even though you might be unfamiliar with the reaction you'll get, eventually it will reprogram your subconscious mind. There is a saying 'fake it till you make it' which does have some power to it.
I feel the exact way especially with the sheer amount of loneliness I’m in
i can actually relate so hard to this guy
This, learning to forgive yourself and others is the key. Don't go around feeling angry towards none of them. Gain control over the voice in your head!
I guess the issue for me on not wanting to be helped is that I’ve always had to “fend for myself” being fatherless and whatnot... There was also a time my brother was kind enough to help me out for one week when I didn’t have a ride to work because I got into a car accident and the car was totalled, and I did give him gas money of course. My uncle intervened and said, “Why are you helping your sister out?? It’s /HER/ problem she doesn’t have a car!” and that will stick with me throughout my entire life... I fear I am just a burden to others and weak when I ask for help or whatever..
Did you think about creating your own NFT collection for HealthyGamers community?
And the weird thing is even after knowing that a part of me thinks that i dont deserve hence i dont ask for help, i cant seem to tell myself otherwise. Doesn't matter how much i try to tell myself that no you deserve it and it works but then i become like kinda overconfident and then everything just reverts back to where it was.
@@funkymunky so true its an endless cycle but i guess that's really what life is and there are some good days sometimes
Gotta say this is the topic that should really be covered more often !
in tears, it's wild how sometimes the video i need most dr.k post.
I’ve always said that people like to suffer. It’s not like they enjoy it, it’s just that they’d rather be comfortable in the pain than take a chance at happiness. This is why change is uncomfortable, yet necessary.
i do not think that the key thing is to forgive (though of course that definitely can also be ONE way) but to notice that BY CHANGING you step out of the identity that deserves to be blamed for it.
what deserves blame is always a set of traits of a person that did something wrong - it might in principle sometimes be the whole set, every single trait a person has - though that would be a strange thing, even hitler shares/d many traits with normal people - usually, this is a pretty small, relativiely easy to specify set of traits:
for example a mere lack of knowledge could have made you do those things to your life.
or fear
anger,
a mental illness
lack of friends to begin with to learn more about how to socialice and to have an easier way of meeting more people
etc.
etc.
the thing is:
by changing THIS exact set of trait, you become someone different from the person that has all those blame-worthy traits,
and therefore all you need to do is to embrace the necessary change of yourself, that is enough for you to get rid of all need to blame "yourself", since then it is not yourself that ever did this to you, it is jut a former subset of traits you once had. a set of traits you got rid off, or that you are at least right now fighting against.
I treat others with great care and patience, but with myself I'm such a b***. Like if I treated anyone at work the way I used to treat myself I would get fired. I'm getting better, though, but it's very hard to change your mind.
I was okay till 14/15 year old, one bad experience led me to other bad things and since then nothing was the same. Few years of misery
Oh man I did not expect to get so emotional watching this.
Apparently I really needed this today, but I had no idea until I watched.
I have actually been practicing compassion for the last few months, and I can reassure you that it's effective.
I had to wind back the video to see if this was post that I have actually written and forgotten about. For God's sake, this hits close to home.
this channel changed my life