Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal.
When we went against the rules we were punished; when we went along with the rules we got a reward. We were punished many times a day, and we were also rewarded many times a day. Soon we became afraid of being punished and also afraid of not receiving the reward. The reward is the attention that we got from our parents or form other people like siblings, teachers, and friends. We soon develop a need to hook other people’s attention in order to get the reward.
The relationship you have with yourself is reflected in your relationships with others. If you reject your own body, when you are sharing your love with your partner, you become shy. You think, “Look at my body. How can he love me when I have a body like this?” Then you reject yourself and make the assumption that the other person will reject you for the same thing you reject in yourself. And when you reject someone else, you reject him for the same things you reject in yourself.
But it will make a difference to you if you don’t believe you are beautiful and someone tells you that. Then you are going to say, “Am I really?” This opinion can impress you, and, of course, that makes you easy prey. This opinion is what you think you need, because you believe you are not beautiful.
Sometimes the little child inside you comes out – the real you that stays at the age of two or three years old. You are living in the moment and having fun, but there is something pulling you back; something inside feels unworthy of having too much fun. An inner voice tells you that your happiness is too good to be true; it isn’t right to be too happy. All the guilt, all the blame, all the emotional poison in your emotional body keeps pulling you back into the world of drama.
The way humans relate to each other is so emotionally painful that for no apparent reason we get angry, jealous, envious, sad. To even say “I love you” can be frightening. But even if it’s painful and fearful to have an emotional interaction, still we keep going, we enter into a relationship, we get married, and we have children. In order to protect our emotional wounds, and because of our fear of being hurt, humans create something very sophisticated in the mind: a big denial system.
The denial system is like a wall of fog in front of our eyes that blinds us from seeing the truth. We wear a social mask because it’s too painful to see ourselves or to let others see us as we really are. And the denial system lets us pretend that everyone believes what we want them to believe about us. We put up these barriers for protection, to keep other people away, but those barriers also keep us inside, restricting our freedom.
The normal frequency of humans before domestication is to explore and to enjoy life; we are tuned to love. As children, we don’t have any definition of love as an abstract concept; we just live love. It’s the way we are.
Humans use fear to domesticate humans, and our fear increases with each experience of injustice. The sense of injustice is the knife that opens a wound in our emotional body. Emotional poison is created by our reaction to what we consider injustice.
The people of power abuse the people who have less power because they need to release their emotional poison. We have the need to release the poison, and sometimes we don’t want justice; we just want to release, we want peace. That is why humans are hunting power all the time, because the more powerful we are, the easier it is to release the poison to the ones who cannot defend themselves.
Happiness never comes from outside of us. He was happy because of the love coming out of him; she was happy because of the love coming out of her. But as soon as he made her responsible for his happiness, she broke the star because she could not be responsible for his happiness.
Just consider what you believe about yourself and what your Mother believes about you. She can say she knows you very well, but she has no idea who you really are. You know that she doesn’t. You can believe that you know your Mother very well, but you don’t have any idea who she really is. She has all those fantasies in her mind that she never shared with anyone else. You have no idea what is inside her mind.
We don’t have the right to change anyone else, and no one else has the right to change us. If we are going to change, it is because we want to change, because we don’t want to suffer any longer.
If others say one thing, but do another, you are lying to yourself if you don’t listen to their actions.
Si alguien no te trata con amor ni respeto, que se aleje de ti es un regalo.
Forgiveness. There is no other way but forgiveness to clean the wounds of all the poison.
You have practiced all of your life to be what you are, and you do it so well that you master what you believe you are. You master your own personality, your own beliefs; you master every action, every reaction. You practice for years and years, and you achieve the level of mastery to be what you believe you are.
Truth or fiction, you don’t have to believe anyone’s story. You don’t have to form an opinion about what someone says. You don’t have to express your own opinion. You don’t have to agree.
Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant. We become selfish when we believe that maybe tomorrow we won’t have any pizza but when we know that our heart is a magical kitchen, we are always generous, and our love is completely unconditional.
But as soon as we are alone, the Judge becomes so strong, the guilt is so strong, and we feel so stupid, or so bad, or so unworthy.