Compassion and Self-Hate

 

By Theodore I Rubin.  I picked up this book in a friend’s house and took it home to read.  These were the 3 outstanding passages for me.

 

‘In a state of grace with myself, I do not abandon myself when the going is tough or should others find me antithetical in any way to their frames of reference.  Loyalty means care and kindness at all times, and particularly when they are needed to reduce the pain of difficult times.  I never, absolutely never, side with anyone who is against my welfare.  I aid nobody who detracts from my dignity, who makes me feel less than human either through subhuman onslaughts or superhuman demands.  I fight or avoid people whose effect is ultimately destructive to my validity as a person, or who in any way dilute my ability to take myself seriously’.  Page 172

 

‘When I’m a whole and separate complete human being whose world’s center is in myself, I know that I am in the best position to relate fruitfully to others.  I have a real sense of self to relate with and I have no desire to shift responsibility for my life to them, to impose my ideas on them, to be absorbed by them or to absorb them.  I am interested in an exchange and that exchange takes place between people who are whole people unto themselves’. Page 183

 

‘Yes, I do in fact always do my best.  Whatever I do, is an expression of me at any given time.  Therefore, whatever I do is one of my signatures, that is, a particular signature of me, at a particular time.  It is my best because it is me at the time that I do it.  In terms of myself and in my non-judgemental, self-accepting, compassionate frame of reference, my heart is my best heart, my head is my best head, my thought is my best thought, and my action in this now of mine is my best action’.  page 189

 

Basically, the author writes that we are all made up of a complex mix of good and bad feelings and we need to accept those sides of ourselves, acknowledge them and accept them.

 

What it didn’t explore which I guess would be another book is about crossing the line when you act them out.  It said that a lot of society’s standards are not helpful because they drive people to despair.

 

Quite a few people I know talk about self-hate.  I think this book would be constructive.