Hello and in today's

the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Muscarra,

and in today's episode we're going to talk about the concept of self-loathing and I'll give you some thoughts on it.

More to come on that in a bit.

First, let's settle in together with the sound of self-loathing is quite interesting because it

requires a self to be loathed. It begs a question then,

then, who is doing the loathing and who is being loathed?

So there's this great story by the meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg who writes about when she once asked the Dalai Lama what his thoughts were on self-hatred, acknowledging that this was a pervasive thing in the West and he didn't understand the

question.

His translator tried to explain it but he was still confused. He didn't get the meaning.

Finally they saw that he didn't actually understand what self-hatred meant and she

explained it to him and then he just looked confused asking how could a person think of themselves

that way and the Sharon found it fascinating and somewhat freeing to see how far in this negative way of relating to oneself was to the Dalai Lama.

And yet self-loathing is very common in our culture.

And I think it's much more pervasive around the world now.

It's a form of tyranny against oneself

and leads to great anxiety, depression, and overall suffering.

And in my work as a mindfulness teacher, I see this all the time on retreats and workshops through emails and then feedback from people.

So if you notice this arising for yourself, this quality of self-hatred, self-loathing, in addition to continuing

to practice self-compassion, which we've talked a lot about in this podcast, it may also be helpful to ask the question, who is loathing whom?

When the thought arises of, you're an idiot. Who's the idiot?

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