Tackling a core issue

[TonySG]

Hi
So I had a spiritual awakening at the beginning of the year and so much about my ego is becoming clearer to me. Now I have come to a real sticking point where I have to face a core issue. Which I believe is about self-hatred/not feeling like I am good enough.

I can see how this issue has controlled my whole life. My ego has kept me safe for all this time so I didn't have to face my deep unworthiness. But now as I am trying to move towards it, I feel like the ego defenses I have in place are almost impenetrable.

I am struggling to get to the core of this issue. I wondered if anyone else had some real difficulties getting to a challenging issue but managed to resolve it in the end? I think maybe I should seek out a spiritual teacher or counselor perhaps? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

[Starman]

TonySG, I used to have significant low self-esteem, and maybe still do to a minor extent,
but there was transition in my self-appraisal when I quested my worthiness as it related to spiritual
matters. One of the major components had to do with humility.

My spiritual experience was full and bright when I humbled my ego, done mainly by quieting my thoughts,
and I had to realize that humility had nothing to do with worthiness. Humility was letting go and genuinely
being grateful for simplistic things in life while worthiness was a judgment call.

My transition became complete when I realized that whether I deserved something or not was irrelevant.
Deserving had nothing to do with the spiritual bounty I was receiving. Receiving spiritual bounty had to do
with obeying spiritual principles or laws and not my worthiness. I have since learned not to judge my
spiritual experience or my worthiness.

One way I learned humility was to give credit to my higher self and not my ego. Other spiritual principles
were revealed to me as my spiritual journey deepened over time; its’ not like having a list of things you
have to do, because that is nothing more than “acting” out a list of things, and spiritual principles are something
that comes from our deeper being, our spiritual experience; they become second nature to us as our experience
grows, and they are not an act.

Basically, my philosophy now is that none of us deserved to be born, nor do we deserve not to be born; as well as
none of us deserves to die, nor do we deserve not to die. Life has nothing to do with what we deserve or not deserve.
Religion, and society, instills deserving behavior in us to get us to comply with their tenants, and obey their rules,
but God/the universe, etc., offers us unconditional love regardless of our behavior. However, there are certain
spiritual laws, principles if you will, that make spiritual unfoldment easier than otherwise when those laws or
principles are not practiced.

We need our ego but as the saying goes, “it is better to have a big heart than it is to have a big head.” Selfless
service has always helped me humble my ego. Going to a food bank and helping to serve food or doing volunteer
work at a hospital or nursing home, etc. Before my teacher would show me how to meditate he said I had to do so
many hours and days of volunteer service to prepare me to have a great meditation experience.

The volunteer work he suggested was always dirty and the kind of work my ego did not like. Over time it humbled me,
especially helping people who were worst off than me, and then after so much volunteer work my teacher showed me
some meditation techniques and instructed me in how to meditate; that was back in the 1970‘s.

Today lots of people go straight into meditation without any, or very little, preparation and their experience is less than
it could have otherwise been with preparation, like selfless service, reading spiritual literature, etc. The ego rebels because
what you are attempting to do in meditation is reduce, or humble, your ego and it will rebel against that. One way it rebels
is to take credit for everything; this is one way the ego inflates itself.

I apologize for the long-winded reply.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by TonySG

Hi
So I had a spiritual awakening at the beginning of the year and so much about my ego is becoming clearer to me. Now I have come to a real sticking point where I have to face a core issue. Which I believe is about self-hatred/not feeling like I am good enough.

I can see how this issue has controlled my whole life. My ego has kept me safe for all this time so I didn't have to face my deep unworthiness. But now as I am trying to move towards it, I feel like the ego defenses I have in place are almost impenetrable.

I am struggling to get to the core of this issue. I wondered if anyone else had some real difficulties getting to a challenging issue but managed to resolve it in the end? I think maybe I should seek out a spiritual teacher or counselor perhaps? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Some core issues run deep as your finding out. Fear to face as I have learned is often because we have an association or pact in place that can often say, "I am never going there again, its way too painful" I have had a few child hood situations that reflected this for core stuff. I found for one in particular, the impact hit me in a interconnected way, so the fallout became my heaviest load to carry. The other issue was I ended up dealing alone as it was way to painful to even share with others. As a young child dealing with something that "fractured" me deep, all alone, I had no support to manage the fallout and crisis that followed. So I created my world from that point. The fallout of that time also fractured my self esteem and self worth big time, due to the "punishment" mode that came through the adult at the time of that situation. I do know prior to this I was in the early stages of having quite a healthy and confident self esteem. But the experience shattered me in every way of this. Add to holding this in really right,it then became a multi faceted issue. The other issue that would arise was my self sabotage space in myself. What I found was often I would go into this layer by layer and uncover it slowly to find my self sabotage points to open up those, because when your holding in and down so tight with these in place, you wont fully resolve the issue in yourself. You may believe you have, but self worth and self esteem will keep raising its head to show you over and over where we are creating the rift in ourselves.

For most of my core issues I had support, it made sense when I went through something deeply scaring alone, that support was the way out for me. To have another be the facilitator of what I was missing back then, was definitely the means to build a more loving, caring awareness of myself and the whole experience, and reconnect to myself in new light.

Often now I am conscious of my own fear space arising, but the clarity of work done to clear it all in myself often leads me now aware and not contained. Sometimes it scares me how open and clear I am now in my old core wounds aware of myself. When you get to know yourself as deep as your core issues and core of self empty of them, its quite the ride into the unknown of yourself yet to be known beyond that point of containment. Then of course, you are getting to know the person you were becoming but lost rather quickly through difficult experiences in your life that altered the way you saw yourself and the world around you.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by TonySG

Hi
So I had a spiritual awakening at the beginning of the year and so much about my ego is becoming clearer to me. Now I have come to a real sticking point where I have to face a core issue. Which I believe is about self-hatred/not feeling like I am good enough.

I can see how this issue has controlled my whole life. My ego has kept me safe for all this time so I didn't have to face my deep unworthiness. But now as I am trying to move towards it, I feel like the ego defenses I have in place are almost impenetrable.

I am struggling to get to the core of this issue. I wondered if anyone else had some real difficulties getting to a challenging issue but managed to resolve it in the end? I think maybe I should seek out a spiritual teacher or counselor perhaps? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Some core issues run deep as your finding out. Fear to face as I have learned is often because we have an association or pact in place that can often say, "I am never going there again, its way too painful" I have had a few child hood situations that reflected this for core stuff. I found for one in particular, the impact hit me in a interconnected way, so the fallout became my heaviest load to carry. The other issue was I ended up dealing alone as it was way to painful to even share with others. As a young child dealing with something that "fractured" me deep, all alone, I had no support to manage the fallout and crisis that followed. So I created my world from that point. The fallout of that time also fractured my self esteem and self worth big time, and I do know prior to this I was in the early stages of having quite a healthy and confident self esteem. But the experience shattered me in every way of this. Add to holding this in really right,it then became a multi faceted issue. The other issue that would arise was my self sabotage space in myself. What I found was often I would go into this layer by layer and uncover it slowly to find my self sabotage points to open up those, because when your holding in and down so tight with these in place, you wont fully resolve the issue in yourself. You may believe you have, but self worth and self esteem will keep raising its head to show you over and over where we are creating the rift in ourselves.

For most of my core issues I had support, it made sense when I went through something deeply scaring alone, that support was the way out for me. To have another be the facilitator of what I was missing back then, was definitely the means to build a more loving, caring awareness of myself and the whole experience

I would look at your own life and early situations that even as it may seem minor in your adult view right now, for your inner child it could have well been a very deep and difficult disconnect to you in this way your feeling right now. Ego protects us from letting go into pain, the deeper the disconnect the more the ego will hold onto protect itself. The way you deal with your core stuff is really in you already. Your body will decide how and when it will face things. Our body never lies. And when it wants the truth to open and clear out old stuff, it will activate us in any way we our bodies call to us to notice. If your aware you need support as you open, its important to listen, if you can manage alone or here then listen and do what you need. The key is letting go and opening will show you the process for you anyway. Just listen to yourself as you need.

[TonySG]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

When you get to know yourself as deep as your core issues and core of self empty of them, its quite the ride into the unknown of yourself yet to be known beyond that point of containment. Then of course, you are getting to know the person you were becoming but lost rather quickly through difficult experiences in your life that altered the way you saw yourself and the world around you.

Love this thank you!

I think this particular issue I am facing may be intergenerational. I see the same patterns in family members. I have been trying to deal with it for a number of years now. I would always feel like I had worked through it but for it to rear its head again. My problem is I can't pinpoint a specific traumatic event or situation which created the issue.

Support from someone else may be what I need from reading your story. I have always tried to manage my healing on my own but this is might be too big to face on my own. Thanks again for your input.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by TonySG

Love this thank you!

I think this particular issue I am facing may be intergenerational. I see the same patterns in family members. I have been trying to deal with it for a number of years now. I would always feel like I had worked through it but for it to rear its head again. My problem is I can't pinpoint a specific traumatic event or situation which created the issue.

Support from someone else may be what I need from reading your story. I have always tried to manage my healing on my own but this is might be too big to face on my own. Thanks again for your input.

No worries.

Generational stuff is something I went through. The roots run deep into a greater interconnected space of who we think we are and what makes you, you, as you only know. Its kind of like the "whole self" is trapped in this. So it is quite a big task to offload this more complete when the whole self is wanting to commit to itself without all that. I had spiritual intervention through this time of healing. Looking back now in hindsight, I couldn't have done this alone. This kind of deeper inner work houses some really difficult points of letting go of the mind completely and entering the "feeling" mode more rapidly to let go fast and not control myself. Its like a deeper shedding of self and often it changes the way you process and believe things should be. You literally letting go of your identity as you know it.

Support is a wonderful thing. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. You can message me also.

[Rah nam]

It is the job of the ego to keep you save, and the difficult part will be, to get the ego to trust you.
Once you get to this part, life will be a breeze.

[OEN34]

Originally Posted by TonySG

My problem is I can't pinpoint a specific traumatic event or situation which created the issue.

This doesn't matter right now, IMO. We can exert far too much energy trying to dig deep to find out which specific event/situation an emotion is linked to, but IME, forcing this is creating more resistance, so it's best to put your attention on the emotion, really feel it, be present with it, and IME, the event or situation that the emotion is linked to comes to your consciousness after you have given it your attention.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by TonySG

Hi
So I had a spiritual awakening at the beginning of the year and so much about my ego is becoming clearer to me. Now I have come to a real sticking point where I have to face a core issue. Which I believe is about self-hatred/not feeling like I am good enough.

I can see how this issue has controlled my whole life. My ego has kept me safe for all this time so I didn't have to face my deep unworthiness. But now as I am trying to move towards it, I feel like the ego defenses I have in place are almost impenetrable.

I am struggling to get to the core of this issue. I wondered if anyone else had some real difficulties getting to a challenging issue but managed to resolve it in the end? I think maybe I should seek out a spiritual teacher or counselor perhaps? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Self doubt, self limitation, low self-esteem with self sabotage all stems from the personal expectations which you hold yourself accountable to/for in your own world-view, according to the biases, conditioning and upbringing by others of a similar nature!

You may have had caregivers or significant others convey to you that you were 'not good enough' or you failed to meet their personal expectations as realistic or unrealistic as they may have been...when it all boils down to two facts:

1. They wanted you to be something you simply were not and thus lacked the ability to accept and appreciate you for who you really are inside &

2. They believed you 'could do better' or 'change' to meet an agenda or imagined scenario they created in their own mind and this is usually done for their own selfish needs or personal gain and not your own spiritual progress if you study it in full retrospect.

In both of these cases, who you 'appear' to be to another person, becomes their concern/problem and not yours.

So, you also begin to realise that other people with a lower vibration will like to keep you down and hold you there, at their level because it makes them feel better about themselves...like the very first thing an obese person will tell another who wants to lose weight "you don't need to do that...you are fine, just as you are...you just need to accept yourself...so here, have another piece of chocolate cake...it won't make you gain weight..."

When you review your life like this, you will see that those who instilled these personality issues in yourself, had similar problems and never led by example anyway....so why should you continue to replay their words in your head and let it ruin your life, if they are bitter and resentful at ruining theirs, so all they can do is project their insecurities upon others, often using 'guilt' or 'tolerance/acceptance' or 'apathy' or 'fear' to do so and each of these are very powerful methods which act at the level of the subconscious mind.

Once realised and fully worked through, you can finally be free of such negative influence.

All the best.

[Torgo]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

Self doubt, self limitation, low self-esteem with self sabotage all stems from the personal expectations which you hold yourself accountable to/for in your own world-view, according to the biases, conditioning and upbringing by others of a similar nature!

You may have had caregivers or significant others convey to you that you were 'not good enough' or you failed to meet their personal expectations as realistic or unrealistic as they may have been...when it all boils down to two facts:

1. They wanted you to be something you simply were not and thus lacked the ability to accept and appreciate you for who you really are inside &

2. They believed you 'could do better' or 'change' to meet an agenda or imagined scenario they created in their own mind and this is usually done for their own selfish needs or personal gain and not your own spiritual progress if you study it in full retrospect.

In both of these cases, who you 'appear' to be to another person, becomes their concern/problem and not yours.

So, you also begin to realise that other people with a lower vibration will like to keep you down and hold you there, at their level because it makes them feel better about themselves...like the very first thing an obese person will tell another who wants to lose weight "you don't need to do that...you are fine, just as you are...you just need to accept yourself...so here, have another piece of chocolate cake...it won't make you gain weight..."

When you review your life like this, you will see that those who instilled these personality issues in yourself, had similar problems and never led by example anyway....so why should you continue to replay their words in your head and let it ruin your life, if they are bitter and resentful at ruining theirs, so all they can do is project their insecurities upon others, often using 'guilt' or 'tolerance/acceptance' or 'apathy' or 'fear' to do so and each of these are very powerful methods which act at the level of the subconscious mind.

Once realised and fully worked through, you can finally be free of such negative influence.

All the best.

Great thread and great post. Thanks for sharing this.