In part one we looked at our dignity and how it is our initial shield from pessimism, serving as a protective case for our powerful yet vulnerable insides. In part two, I want to discuss the figurative anti-virus software we need when we find ourselves encoded with the virus us self-hatred.
Our outsides are so much easier to protect and fortify. Our insides are so fragile. So utterly breakable and tender. Caring for the external is truly easier than the internal. So as we embrace our dignity during trying times – reminding ourselves that our worth is not a result of our misfortunes or missteps – we must then also look at who we think we truly are.
This is to say that if I believe that my base identity is one of incompetence, laziness, or some type of inadequacy; then no amount of external work will ever fix the problem. Knowing this it is easy to see how we become revisionists about our own histories to fit this failure narrative. All of a sudden I cannot see all of the past, where I have actually succeeded and made progress, because my take on the past is skewed by the perception that I am nothing but my own shortcomings.
This is where changing our core concept becomes not an individual goal, but a collective endeavor. Your view of yourself is wrong or at least missing some pretty important stuff. You must bring in people who you know and trust and hear their perspective (particularly their perspective about your failures). Strengths, weaknesses and everything in between must be laid out. And actively accept what they have to say with as little judgement as possible. To put this another way: their collective knowledge about you and what they enjoy about you is worth more than your own knowledge of you, because your knowledge is stained in self-contempt. If you don’t feel like they know the real you then let them in to know the real you. These are people you should be able to trust.
There is more to this than I can write here but a fantastic start to change is embracing your dignity, accepting that your perspective of yourself is flawed, allowing others you know well to help rewrite your script, and choosing to believe the words of friends over the words of yourself. You are not powerless and you can change.