Yes. I only have an analogy. How does a plant or a harvest grow? You have to plow the dirt and plant new seeds. You must water the things that give you life. Prune yourself....rid yourself of the dead things and thrive......it is possible.

There has been in my life this vast well of blackness that I cannot seem to overcome and it continues to be fed because it allows the blackness and.dark things to reside...........its a hole.....a pit........why dig a deeper hole? Why not fill it up this pit and plow it and plant a seed that will make you grow toward the light.

How to rid yourself of guilt? You must see guilt as something positive. It means you have a heart and kindness. Guilt is not your enemy. It's something that you can grow from but personally I have to learn when something out of my control in order not to feel guilt for certain things. Best wishes in finding the relief you need in life :-)

Profound thoughts, charliegirl!

Someone wise once told me this and I do know this is the answer....but the darkness wants to thrive so it gives you hell. You must let that part die and bury it so it can be in hell and you can be happy in life. It's so extremely hard ...I do understand the struggle:-)

Charliegirl,
I was raised Catholic & we were TRAINED to feel guilt. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I will NOT go to confession, as I feel I can tell God my sins directly in prayer & gain forgiveness. I love my religion, dont get me wrong, but there are a few ideas of thiers that I dont agree with, confession being one. I dont know how to see something that makes me lose sleep & feel badly about myself to be a positive thing. I do like your analogy of the plant/sewing thing.

I am with you. I do understand the concept of the confession in the catholic church. Guilt is a positive thing to me because I know I don't want to feel it so therefore it keeps me from doing a lot of things that will produce guilt. This is how it is a positive thing to me but I do understand how it is troubling because I have guilt for not being able to do certain things:-)

Charlie said it so perfectly. I couldn't have said it better myself. And always know that you are not useless, worthless, or any of those negative words that we either hear all the time, or we start believing in ourselves. It's not true, it's just the devil doing what he does best. Causing a lot of depression and mayhem. GB

How did you get in my head and write exactally what I am going through? I sooo understand. Trying to find answers myself! I am going to meet with a doc tomorrow for the first time to try to get help to like me and find happiness. I wish I had words to help...all I can say is I feel your pain and you are not alone...You hit the nail on the head to descripe my issues. I hope we both find answers and learn to love ourselves. I'm sure we are worth loving!

Ditto, ditto, ditto, and ditto.

I have nothing to improve on these replies.

Best Wishes, and Good Luck!!

You got the right mindset for nurturing yourself!!! Keep going!!!!


(((Hugs)))

>>Any suggestions?

I think the hardest part of learning to love one's self is realizing it is BOUNDLESS. We have a hard time understanding things that have no limit. We need boundaries in order to comprehend.

Loving yourself IS the beginning of loving anything ... so the more you do .. the more you do. You are sacred .. the most 'lovable' thing in your world. Treat yourself as you would a newborn puppy, or anything that could be 'precious'. You are precious. You are a child of the GREATEST POWER. You deserve happiness .. so create it .. by loving yourself. You will THEN love everything good.

I think, in order to love ourselves, we have to DEFINE ourselves. I've found humor is the best way to diffuse old negative patterns of thinking. Once we find ourselves funny, we can easily love ourselves.

Therapy. Really. You need a lot of therapy to change your thought patterns. Therapy helped me. Also learning to accept that you are not your thoughts/emotions is a good way to understand that the guilt you are feeling is self perceived rather than actually real.

If you did something wrong. Don't feel guilty about it. Accept that you are going to make mistakes. Because people need to realize that no one is going to be perfect. We may get mad that they didn't do what we expected. But, we get over it and move on. If you've done something wrong, apologize and move forward. That's all you can do and that is all that can really be expected. Everyone is just trying to get through this life. Don't think you're the only one.

I agree about the therapy. I'm in an intensive daily therapy program that focuses a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy to change negative and distorted thought patterns. It's a lot of work and can be exhausting but it's starting to help me out of a very dark place.

I've heard advices of it many times before: to love yourself

But it's really hard to do so when you have spent almost you're entire life feeling inferior and hating yourself.

I want to know how to love myself

I guess a lot of us who deal with depression and anxiety struggle with how we feel about ourselves. It is comforting to know that we aren't the only people who feel this way. Makes you feel a little less abnormal, I suppose.
I know how you feel, gordos4. Like cypressmoon, I went through a lot of therapy and I made progress there for a while. You have to really follow through with that, though, for long term results.
I hope you can learn that you are wonderful and worth love from yourself and others. Maybe you can make a New Year's Resolution out of that?

Thank you all for your replies! I will tell you that God is my therapist. I pray to Him daily, but recently changed the WAY I pray. It has helped immensely. The guilt/worrying thing is hereditary in my family LOL! I have been trying to have more faith that God will handle things for me.
I have also found that the music I listen to, the shows I watch on TV, have a great affect on my mood. I am very careful about what I watch on TV. No violence, no blood. Anyone else noticing how many new shows there are on murder? Wives with knives, Pretty bad girls, Bad men, Fatal vows,,,the list goes on & on. I will not watch them.