Stop Hating Yourself for Feeling Too Much

Self-loathing feels like honesty. It's actually just an old habit repeating itself. If you were criticised for every small mistake as a child, you keep criticising yourself as an adult. You never learned to sort a real mistake from a normal need. So wanting love becomes a mistake too. You decide love isn't for you, and you stop asking. Self-loathing is good at one thing: keeping you small. It keeps you from ever admitting you get hurt. It looks like discipline because it comes from the same training that shaped you as a child. But discipline and punishment are not the same thing. Try talking to yourself the way a friend would. Tell yourself it's fine to feel too much. You're sensitive because you never got enough love, and now you notice how much you want it. That's not weakness. Sensitivity also means you know which words hurt, so you're careful with them. It means you notice pain in other people before they say anything. You never gave yourself the warmth you kept looking for in the…