Stop Hating Yourself A Buddhist Way to Heal After Mistakes

No matter how good we are, no matter how talented we are, there are certain times in life we are going to make mistakes. We are going to mess things up in life. In such times, one of the most common things that we do is we hate ourselves. And this self-hatred can end up in serious situations like suicide. See, how many times we say I love you to someone? How often do we say? We say it often, right? But how often do we say I love myself? I appreciate who I am. This is something that we don't do often. See, in Buddhist practice, the first step of spreading love and kindness is to practice love and kindness or spread love and kindness to yourself. So the Buddha saw that without being filled with self-love and self-kindness, you cannot be kind to someone else. So that is why we have to learn how to be kind and how to love ourselves without hating ourselves. So from this video, I'm going to be sharing with you few things that we have to understand and we have to practice to stop hating ourselves and to start appreciating and loving our life. Number one, do not believe in labels. See, there are lots of labels that we have put on ourselves. For an example, your name. Your name is a label that was given by maybe your parents and everyone started to call from that name and it became your personality. It became who you are, OK? Same like that, we are so good at labeling ourselves with our imperfections, with our mistakes or with our incapabilities. But here's the thing, the more we label ourselves with our incapabilities, for an example, people say to themselves like I am a person who is being angry all the time. OK, I'm a person who is who has having a weak mindset. I'm a person who is lazy all the time. OK, I don't have any friends. I don't I'm not getting in with friends. OK, I cannot be with these people. So the more you label like that yourself, it becomes your personality. And that is why we should not believe in the labels that we put on ourselves. Why? Because a label or your incapabilities or your weaknesses or your mistakes are just a thought pattern and it is always can be changed. OK, you can always improve. And that is why we should not label ourselves with our incapabilities and our mistakes or from our weaknesses. We always have the chance to improve and to evolve. Number two, learn to accept mistakes. Mistakes are the proof that says that we are trying in life and we are not willing to give up on ourself. Every great person in this world has made mistakes and they have learned from their mistakes. And that is how they evolved. And that is how they achieved the greatness. Always remember, the mistakes will never define your character unless you define your character with your mistakes. So do not let your mistakes to define your character. Always you have the chance to improve and move on and make yourself a good person and improve yourself. Believe in it. Number three, stop criticism. This is something that is very important that we have to focus on in loving ourself. Stop criticizing yourself. Stop criticizing others. Now, here I'm not talking about the constructive criticism. I'm talking about the negative criticism. OK, do not criticize others and also do not criticize yourself. OK, why we should not criticize others to put others down? In each and every time when we criticize someone, we give the message to our mind that we are better than them. OK, I am perfect than them. And you set standards to yourself. Most of the time, these are not realistic standard. OK, and when we cannot live up to our own standards, what happens to us? We hate ourselves. And that is how criticism steals the self-love and the self-value. And that is why we should not criticize anyone. And number four, believe that imperfection is beautiful. Just take a deep breath and look into this nature. Everything has that one nature that is the imperfection. From the little plant to the great mountain, everything is imperfect, right? There is no perfectly symmetrical plant in this world. There is no perfectly symmetrical mountain in this world. Everything has the imperfection. And as humans, we also imperfect human beings. OK, and also that gives the chance. It gives the chance for us to evolve. It gives the chance for us to be more productive and be more successful. See, becoming successful and becoming happy is not a destination. It is not a perfection, right? It is always a journey. We have to keep improving ourselves. We have to keep becoming successful, becoming happy. There's a journey that we go through in this life. So when you accept the imperfections, no matter how good we are, no matter how talented we are, no matter how great we are, there will be always imperfections in life. When we accept it, we can focus our kindness and our love towards ourselves. And also every single day, this is something that you can practice. When you wake up in the morning, just sit on the bed and think, no matter how imperfect I am, no matter what mistake that I do in my life, I'm not going to give up on myself, right? I keep improving myself. I keep making myself a good person, a happier person, and I will never let go of myself. This is not something that is called selfishness. Selfishness is expecting many unrealistic things from yourself, right? And then when you're not up to your standards, you start to hate yourself. And that is why when you truly love yourself, truly love your imperfections, and truly love who you are and accept who you are, you get the chance to improve and you get the chance to evolve. And these are the things that we have to keep in mind in order to practice the self-love and improve the self-value. So keep practicing these things and make your life happier and healthier.