How to feel good about yourself: the definitive guide 🆙

A reflection on how to finally feel good about yourself, especially aimed at those who are internally tormented.

Some days are better than others. On those less good days, we usually end up being hard on ourselves. With this introspective journey you will (perhaps) solve the question once and for all.

Let's start:

I'm going to tell you a story...

Once upon a time there was a man. He had done terrible things in his life, actions for which he could never be forgiven.

With no family or friends, he decided that killing himself was the best choice he could make.

So he jumped off a bridge.

But he didn't die. Someone realized what had happened and took the man to the hospital.

He woke up a week later. She had been in a coma. She no longer remembered who she was and how she had gotten there.

The person who had saved him decided to keep the secret for fear that the man, remembering everything that had happened, would try again.

Something strange happened. With no memory of the past, the man was totally vulnerable. He was open to people and more present because the past no longer monopolized his thoughts.

The man made friends and went on to live a happy life.

The moral of the story?

What prevents people from feeling good about themselves is their self-criticism.

Why is it so hard to feel comfortable with yourself?

Aahh, if only we could forget the past and focus solely on what we can do now.

Being comfortable with yourself is difficult. When I started thinking about human emotions, what makes people act in a certain way, how the brain and consciousness works, I started to understand several things.

First, I thought that in order to feel comfortable with themselves, a person had to assert themselves:

Say good things about yourself, cheer up, always smile, pretend until it comes true.

This idea soon gradually turned into the belief that if I did the right thing to make up for the mistakes in my life, maybe I could forgive myself.

Forgiveness was the key.

But when I started writing this article, a light bulb went on:

To feel good about yourself, you have to deserve it.

Yes it is true, the ideals and principles were already present in my original answer to the question: "How to feel good about yourself". But, after all, the fact that our thinking evolves does not mean that previous ideas should be discarded.

a difficult road

However, forgiving yourself is a difficult path to take.

Based on the example of the man with amnesia, you can see that forgetting the past is essential to being able to rebuild from scratch. Releasing what has been allows you to get out of that debt of suffering that you carry with you from the past. It's easier to feel good about yourself when there are no bad memories interfering with our judgment of ourselves.

But we can't just "turn off" our past. However, we can learn an important skill: that of Do not judge.

Don't judge your past. Accept it, observe it objectively and learn from it. So go ahead. Don't think of it like an old man on the beach with a metal detector when he finds something buried in the sand.

I teach you a meditation technique:

Let the thoughts flow freely, do not resist.

"I hate myself."

If these words ring in your head, listen more carefully. Don't look for the cause and don't try to fight it. Sooner or later, they will dissolve from your mind by themselves.

Once you manage your inner dialogue, make an effort not to judge yourself. Think that the opinion you have of your past does not have to condition your present, because what has been has been.

Now you are a new person, you decide who to be, with your actions.

To feel good about yourself you have to take control of your life

The transition from feeling useless to feeling invaluable is 100% under your control.

To get there, I stepped out of my comfort zone. I made sacrifices. I'm engaged.

And as always, it's the little things that make the difference. An example? Just always be there.

I was always present at all my friends' birthdays, no matter how far away they were.

I have always gone to the gym.

I have always visited my family.

I'm engaged. I studied a lot, I worked. After whole days of exhaustion, I went to the gym. When someone needed me, I always tried to help them.

I was tired and I didn't feel good about myself, but I didn't give up. I felt that I had to give my best and that only then would I achieve inner peace. But this peace never came. And I was getting more and more tired.

Then one day, watching a series of National Geographic video documentaries, in which animals were fighting for control of resources, I realized something...

An example of the videos I saw a while ago.

I realized that life is brutal

Life is brutal and never stops, it advances inexorably passing even over our remains.

An impressive sculpture by Emeric Chantier

Animals are eaten alive by other animals every day: the jungle is made to eat and be eaten.

Thinking of this, I felt a cold sensation invade my mind.

Life is ruthless. But somehow it had to be faced.

So I developed a strategy to follow in order to feel good about yourself, despite the brutality of life and the madness of human existence.

How to feel good about yourself:
The strategy

train in Do not judge yourself (and neither does anyone else).
bring back the good it is in your past and rules out everything else.
love yourself first of all you must love.
1. Love your family and friends.
2. I love serving people who need your help.
3. Love what you are passionate about in life.
become a better person: The more you grow as an individual, the more you can help those around you.

Don't try to be comfortable with yourself. Instead, work on becoming a better person. Not for you, but for those you love.

It is a simple and ruthless logic..

Lose your soul, only then can you find it again.

Face fire and frost. He will come back tempered, wiser, more aware.

So maybe, after you give it your all, what remains will be a defined and passionate version of you, bringing joy through self-control.

None of this requires "feeling good about yourself" as a premise, but at the end of the day you will be so loved and gratified that no matter how you feel, you will not be able to stop esteeming and appreciating what you have become.