Are you constantly dwelling on the past to find reasons to continue hating yourself? Are you stressed the fck out about your future and also completely miserable right now? Guess what! You’ve come to the right place, and from here on out, things are going to improve. First things first, you have to realize that everything is your fault. I know, that kinda sucks to hear, and you’re probably thinking, ‘The person writing this article is an *sshole,’ and you’re probably right, but I can guarantee that by the end of this, you’ll leave a better person than you came in.
But what if I went through trauma? That’s not my fault
Before reading this article, anyone who has ever wronged you was indeed at fault. If you were bullied or mistreated, violated or harassed growing up, then you have done amazing to get this far. I am not going to discredit the fact that it was difficult for you, and no, you did not deserve any of it. After you finish reading this article, however, you will need to take complete responsibility for all of it. This means that if you have been feeling sorry for yourself or identify as being an anxious, depressed, or cynical person with trust issues that you cannot help, then by the end of this, you are not allowed to be that person anymore. If you are not okay with this outcome and you want to continue as you are, then that’s okay too! If that’s the case, you need to click away now.
Why did they hurt me in the first place?
Great question. And no fair, I know. You’ve probably heard this before, but hurt people hurt people. It’s true. In your mind, you probably can’t help but think, ‘That girl who bullied me in primary school was such a btch, she had no reason to do that apart from the fact that she was pure evil,’ and sure, they were probably evil, at least in that moment, but the thing is, they had to have learned it from somewhere. If it makes you feel better, their parents were probably fighting all the time or divorced, and their older siblings probably treated them like sht. But anyway, there’s your answer. They had human problems and suffered too, in other ways.
Real and true: People who yell at you, inflict pain, or display negative emotions are ALWAYS merely projecting their insecurities. It is NEVER personal.
This might be hard to understand at first, but it is a revelation that will completely change the way you view things for the better. In your mind, you have created a flat image of the people who have hurt you based on the experience you have had of them. If they were in a coma and someone asked their best friend what kind of person they were when they were awake, their best friend would probably say something like ‘So and so was a loyal, caring friend who always stuck up for you no matter what,’ and their mother would probably say something positive about them too. But the reality is, none of us are one-dimensional. What we often don’t consider when we dwell on our own negative experiences is the fact that everyone else’s experience of life is just as complex and multidimensional as ours. Without exception, everyone eventually goes through the whole spectrum of emotions spanning from love to hate, security to jealousy, and joy to depression just to give a few examples. At the core of it all, humans are the same, and that makes us less lonely.
You are choosing to continue feeling upset
“The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.”
– Robin Sharma
Perhaps you aren’t even aware you are choosing to feel this way. Perhaps deep down you know, but you are afraid to change for whatever reason. Perhaps you are thinking, ‘What the fck do you mean? Why would anyone willingly choose to be upset?’ If the latter applies to you, then I’ll let you off just this once. Maybe you aren’t willingly choosing to be upset, and it seems as if you couldn’t possibly feel anything other than guilt, embarrassment, shame, anxiety, or depression since it has been this way for a long time, and you couldn’t possibly remember the last time you were happy. Just be warned that after reading this article, you will acquire the irreversible knowledge to be able to choose whether you continue to be upset or not.
Try to recall a time when you couldn’t hold in your anger or frustration and lashed out at someone or had a panic attack. In the moment it feels as if you have no other choice. You feel trapped and helpless. Perhaps you have had emotions that were so toxic and hard to contain that you felt like inflicting self-harm was the only viable option. Perhaps you wallowed in the attention others gave you when you were at your worst. Perhaps in a way, it was the best you ever felt – after all, being a victim is a surefire way to garner someone’s sympathy. Furthermore, I can one-hundred-percent say with certainty that if you happened to receive a phone call for a job interview you applied for or if your boss knocked on the door at that very moment you were going through emotional anguish, you would regain composure almost immediately and behave as if nothing ever happened. You would be far too embarrassed to show that side of you to someone you hardly know, meanwhile having no trouble worrying your significant other or parents or anyone not knowing better and willing to put up with your show of insecurities. Unfortunately, it is most often those who do not know any better or lack the self-respect to walk away from a situation like that who consequently become inflicted themselves.
Great, so how do I stop feeling this way?
Good question. Explanations aside, now we are getting somewhere:
- Get the hell away from everything else – Turn your phone off, get off social media, pull your eyes away from the TV, stop binge eating or vaping or whatever coping mechanism you turn to. Anything other than sitting still and addressing the bad thoughts you have are just distractions, and you will never do anything productive or head in the right life direction until you sort it out. It is simple enough – This is ALL you need to do right now. Pull away from all of that and sit down somewhere nice and quiet.
- Close your eyes while you are sitting down and think about why you are upset – Think deeply, long and hard until you get to the sole reason for the problem. It’s not as complicated as your mind makes it out to be. Yes, you might start thinking about how unjustly you were treated during childhood and think about every single time you have felt embarrassed or guilty, but if you start thinking along the victim rabbit hole, just bring yourself back to the focus; your goal is to figure out the sole reason for this bad feeling.
- Hint: It will always lead back to an insecurity you have
Hint: Sometimes after thinking through all of it, you might forget what you were trying to find or notice you aren’t even upset anymore
Revelation: You just meditated
- Hint: It will always lead back to an insecurity you have
- Notice that all your anxieties or bad thoughts are either things from the past you are reminding yourself of or things in the future you are worried about. Right now – unless you are being hunted by a tiger or there is a bus full speeding towards you, and if that was the case, you would be running and not wallowing in self-pity at all – there is nothing threatening you. You are making all that rubbish up in your head.
- You are not your thoughts. Watch your thoughts from a third person perspective as they come and go. Once you are observing your thoughts and not engaging or adding more thought and feelings to them, they will simply stop. In this moment you are present and one with time and everything around you. You are at peace.
- You are not your thoughts. Watch your thoughts from a third person perspective as they come and go. Once you are observing your thoughts and not engaging or adding more thought and feelings to them, they will simply stop. In this moment you are present and one with time and everything around you. You are at peace.
- Now that you have learned this technique, you are ultimately more powerful and in control of your life than before. If you find yourself overthinking again or becoming negative rather quickly, that is normal – this is just a repetitive bad habit you have sustained for a long time. Every time you observe your thoughts instead of engaging with them, you will get better and better at this until you will not have any thoughts at all unless you intentionally produce them. It is a fun game, and there is no telling how quickly you will get the hang of it – maybe right away, maybe over days or weeks. But once you become in control of your mind (thoughts) and body, it is a very cool feeling, and the world is free for you to roam.
You are not your thoughts. Watch your thoughts from a third person perspective as they come and go. Once you are observing your thoughts and not engaging or adding more thought and feelings to them, they will simply stop. In this moment you are present and one with time and everything around you. You are at peace.
No, you will not stop being funny or charming just because you aren’t depressed anymore
It’s a very valid concern and one that I hear often. Especially if you have identified as being depressed or anxious or ‘ADHD’ or troubled for so long that you have developed an entire personality around it. I’m sure you are found charming and funny with your self-deprecating humor and to a large amount of people, very relatable. Maybe in some of your friendships, the foundation lies in sharing trauma, maybe there is even a sick little circle-jerk of ‘Who is more fcked up and done more fcked up things’ or whatever deep (dumb) you-wouldn’t-understand-what-I’ve-been-through kinda thing that makes someone different/troubled/mysterious.
Like I said, whatever someone has been through in the past – wasn’t their fault. Their actions are rooted in not knowing any better, and their feelings and reactions valid at the time due to a lack of a better coping mechanism. For you, dear reader, I am saying these things with a detached tone because we do not engage with self-pity nor entertain a victim mentality for ourselves anymore. I know it seems hard to let go of something that has influenced your personality for so long, and maybe you feel a little embarrassed to suddenly stop being the person you were before, but we will go through reasons on why it is in your best interest:
- You will be happier – this is probably the only reason you need, to be honest
- Who cares about anyone else? They don’t care about you.
You’re probably thinking, ‘Nnnnnnggghhh but what if the people around me start treating me differently or think it was all an act and that I was being over-dramatic when in fact my feelings were valid and I did go through all that.’
To which I say, more likely than not you probably know someone who’s changed for the better and what did you think of them? You probably thought ‘They seem different, good for them,’ or you didn’t really give a fck at all. Good news, no one actually gives a sht. Even if you won the Nobel prize people would be like ‘Wow, cool!’ for a month or so tops before the reaction dies down. Plus a bunch of these high-achieving people usually have some relatable backstory of being pathetic or doing lots of coke before their ‘miraculous’ rise to stardom. - Your friends right now are temporary, and they will move on with their lives. I know you feel kinda hardstuck and comfortable where you are, and probably quite attached to your friends and feeling sentimental at the thought of becoming distant from them, but this is good for them too. Think about it logically: if you and your group of friends continue to bond over negative past experiences and talk about the same things and repeat the same habits over and over again – you are both essentially wasting time and energy that could be used to discover and pursue the things you actually want in life, the things that will make both of you happy.
- You have nothing to lose, and on the upside, maybe you could actually accomplish your dreams. For many people, this good news is something that actually holds them back for fear of success. After all, if you don’t try then you can’t ‘fail,’ and you can always delay trying by using excuses such as ‘I have a full-time job right now’ or ”I have to prioritize the kids’ or ‘I’m too young’ or later on, ‘I’m too old’. I’m saying all this because I’ve been there, felt that.
- Here are some remedies to this sort of thinking:
- Failure is not a step backward. Failure is a checkpoint along the linear path to success. In fact, failure and success are just opposite points on the same spectrum and you cannot have one without the other; the definition of a ‘failure’ or ‘success’ is subjective and something only the individual can define.
- If your excuse is ‘It’s too late to start, maybe in the next life’ then I am going to assure you there is no guarantee of a ‘next life’ where you will be in any different of a circumstance. I will also assure you that you will die. Whether you die later today or in 60 years I cannot say, but I WILL also guarantee you that you will feel experience regret if you don’t follow your path and the things you want to in this life. You will feel regret either in the next few days, weeks, months or years if you don’t do something about your desires NOW.
- ‘People will judge me’ – This is actually the reason why lots of people commit to studying a degree or working jobs they dislike and perform soul-draining work for decades. That is, they do it to meet the expectations of others and seek external approval (again, I’ve been there, done that). Guess what? If anyone disses what you are doing, has anything negative to say or expresses concern such as ‘Shouldn’t you do something more realistic?’, they are PROJECTING. DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY!!
- Failure is not a step backward. Failure is a checkpoint along the linear path to success. In fact, failure and success are just opposite points on the same spectrum and you cannot have one without the other; the definition of a ‘failure’ or ‘success’ is subjective and something only the individual can define.
Because how can they possibly know what is best for you in life, or what is going through your head, or whether things will turn out well for you or not? Stop listening to these people. It could be your mum or dad or siblings or grandmother or friends, I don’t care. Put yourself in a different environment, put some noise-canceling earphones in and IGNORE THEM. Listen to your intuition instead; don’t bother asking anyone else’s opinion because these will just distract you, YOU already know what you need to do. TRUST YOURSELF RIGHT NOW – It will save you from regret.
What, so now I just… Be happy all the time?
Yep. Despite what the media, your parents, or society have portrayed your whole life, it is normal to be happy all the time. In fact, it is the default. Like I said, we are only sad or upset or wronged because we are choosing to feel this way. ‘Isn’t it boring if I’m just happy all the time?’ You might ask, to which I say NO. There is no other outcome other than becoming the best version of yourself when you are feeling your best. Think about the last time you interacted with someone who was happy. Can you honestly say anything bad about them? No. Imagine you went to the supermarket, and the cashier was genuinely beaming at you, smiling and telling you to have a nice day. Happy people are uplifting to be around!! On the other hand, imagine the last time someone (maybe mum or dad perhaps) got angry and yelled at you, or imagine someone who is negative and complains about everything. They say misery loves company, and being around low-vibrational people is going to bring you down to their level if you can’t emotionally distance yourself from it.
If the thought of being happy all the time makes you feel uncomfortable and doubtful at the moment, that’s okay. It is normal, and I still feel this way myself. After all, if there wasn’t something changing inside you at an atomic level, then you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable at all. It is the embracing and acceptance of change that is ‘happiness’ or that will bring you peace. You’ll still experience the beauty and richness that the full spectrum of human emotions has to offer – but you are going to see these emotions in a different light. Now that you have the ability to consciously choose your reaction to these feelings, you have the power to make the following transmutations:
| ‘Negative’ Emotion | Positive attribution |
| Discomfort | Change, growth, adaptation |
| Sadness | Empathy, introspection |
| Embarrassment | Courage, humility |
| Anxiety | Experience, learning, preparation |
| Guilt | Empathy, self-improvement |
Finishing thoughts
As I warned at the beginning of this article, you are now at fault for any unhappiness you experience moving forward. It is time for you to take responsibility because only once you are able to reflect on a situation and say it was completely your fault, then you will be able to observe how you could have done things differently and learn from your mistakes. When you learn to control your reaction – that is, your feelings, words, and actions in that order, you become the captain of your ship, the master of your soul and gain the ability to direct life according to your own will. Essentially you realize you are God. While in ignorance, you let life happen to you, now you must make the choice – to continue being unhappy in your current state or decide at once to be happy. That is, to let go of the past and practice being still or present because happiness can only be experienced in this state. You can certainly keep putting off happiness as with anything else you might procrastinate for fear of not doing it well, but what kind of way to live is this? To deny what your heart desires is to deny truly living and experiencing the happiness that comes with it. It is to deny your gifts and therefore selfishly withhold what only you yourself can offer to the rest of the world.
It is neither admirable, honorable nor note-worthy to be negative because anyone can judge others while being too afraid to pursue their own experience of life. Anyone who resides in a negative state of mind does so because they do not know any better. They do not have the privilege to be at fault and take responsibility because if they did, they would not consciously choose to be unhappy. If someone projects doubt onto you, it is a reflection of their fears, and now that you are able to help yourself, it is best to have compassion for others who are yet unable to. To love unconditionally, that is, to accept someone as they are without judging nor trying to change them while they continue on their individual journey is the greatest gift you can provide.
Bonus: If I am not the old me anymore, then does my ego die?
Yeah, that was the whole point of this article and pretty much the goal when it comes to spirituality and self-help. If you haven’t been through ego death AKA the dissolution of your false identity AKA no longer identifying with the ‘self’ that includes limiting beliefs based on past experiences AKA finally escaping from the matrix:
Definitions from Oxford Languages
matrix
/ˈmeɪtrɪks/
noun
- 1.the cultural, social, or political environment in which something develops.”Oxbridge was the matrix of the ideology”
Then that’s okay, but I would highly recommend it. Ego death is not something scary like the name suggests but rather the concept of letting go of your old ‘fake’ identity so that you have a clean slate to figure out who you really are; that is, your passions, purpose, and joy in life free from the expectations of other people and what society has said you can and can’t be. It is interchangeable with the experience of enlightenment and entering the state of Nirvana or the Kingdom of Heaven. I suggest reading the following books, which will help you get there if you want to explore further:
- Reality Transurfing – Book by Vadim Zeland
- Note: Also available as an audiobook on Youtube
- Personal note: this book played a big factor in inducing my ego death, the strategies mentioned as methods to ‘control your reality’ all work 100% upon being tried and tested.
- The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment – Book by Eckhart Tolle
- Note: This book cured my anxiety, the entire concept is about reaching spiritual enlightenment through letting go of the past and ceasing to worry about the future AKA being present.
Disclaimer:
The article, “Good News! Everything is Your Fault – How to Stop Hating Yourself and Fix your Life,” expresses the author’s views on personal responsibility, self-improvement, and happiness. These views are personal and may not represent official positions. The content is informational and not professional advice.
While the article discusses taking responsibility for one’s actions and emotions, individual experiences vary, and seeking professional advice is recommended. It acknowledges the complexity of personal struggles, including trauma, and does not replace professional intervention.
The article explores the concepts of ego death, spirituality, and self-help. Readers are reminded that these are subjective matters with diverse perspectives.
Practical suggestions for improving mental well-being are provided. However, mental health is complex, and those facing persistent challenges should consult mental health professionals for personalized support.
