Self Realized, Shatter Your Limits

How To Eliminate Self-Hate And Embrace Self Acceptance

• Linton Bergsen • Episode 94

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Stuck in a self-hate cycle? This transformative episode unpacks your journey toward self-acceptance and self-love, blending raw vulnerability with actionable strategies.  

Join me, Linton Bergsen, as I dissect how societal pressures, external validation, and internalized criticism fuel self-loathing—not who you are—and reveal how embracing your authentic story becomes the cornerstone of personal growth. Discover introspection techniques, mindfulness, and meditation practices to dismantle negative thought patterns, alongside the power of establishing positive influences that align with your core values.

Reexamine limiting beliefs imposed by cultural norms, family dynamics, or toxic comparisons, and learn to rebuild through radical self-compassion. This episode isn’t just theory: it is also a road map to cultivating an inner sanctuary where self-love thrives, proving liberation from self-hate isn’t just possible—it’s your birthright. Ready to shatter self-doubt, shift towards authenticity and rewrite your narrative? Press play to ignite lasting transformation.

Join me for more episodes on mental wellness and emotional resilience on the Self-Realized, Shatter Your Limits Podcast. Share this lifeline with anyone battling inner criticism, and leave a 5-star review to help others find their path to unshakable self-acceptance. Your journey starts here.

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Welcome to the Self Realized Podcast with Linton Bergsen, where you will shatter your limits. I am not much into the self help industry, as much as I'm into the Self Realized individual, which is you, what matters most to you, how you get there, and the obstacles that may be in your way. If you would like to be part of this podcast and part of that discussion, I welcome you here with an open heart, open mind and open arms. So without further ado, let's get on with the podcast.

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Thank you for joining me on episode number 94 of the Self Realized, Shatter Your Limits Podcast How to Eliminate Self-Hate and Embrace Self-Acceptance. Self hate is a very interesting term, and I will suggest to you why. It means that you've chosen to hate yourself. It's a choice. You weren't born that way. It's a choice, and a lot of times, the reason that people choose to hate themselves is because they are not where they would like to be in their life, or situations and circumstances, either in their control or beyond their control, haven't externally given them the life that they would like. So we have this spiraling effect of external circumstances and who we are because of those circumstances or we have chosen to become, creating this monster of self hate. The beautiful thing about understanding self-hate is that you are in control of how long you take to get over hating yourself. Self-hate and self-acceptance are very closely entwined. That is why this episode is called How to Eliminate Self-Hate and Embrace Self-Acceptance, because the minute you start to accept your life and what has happened, the minute you begin to realize that everything is and was a learning experience, the minute you begin to accept that whatever childhood issues happened, whatever your parents were or are, whatever friends you have had, whatever relationships have shaped you are part of your life journey and life's path. You go into mode of acceptance. The only difference between self-hate and self-acceptance is taking things as a growth experience, forgiving, and forgetting what doesn't serve you, changing your narrative about your life, to yourself and other people, Changing your friends, changing your environment, changing everything around you that is feeding your self-hate, the pity parties, the people and friends that may feed that in your life. For example, you may have friends that say you should have a certain type of relationship, and you go out in the world and you base your relationships on their values. It doesn't work out, and you begin to get very upset about how your life is turning out, not because you're living your own life, it's because you're living the life other people projected onto you, and you're beginning to hate yourself. You're beginning to loathe yourself because you're beginning to understand something fundamental and very important. You can never accept yourself if you're not accepting who you are. You can never love yourself, unless you love and accept who you are, not what other people think you should be, or tell you what you should do, but you know who you are and what you need the minute you begin to externalize the process of well, what if I please other people, you're going to go into a self-hating and self-loathing mindset, because there's no way that you can have self-love and self-acceptance if you haven't accepted yourself for who you are and embracing all the experiences that you've had in your life as part of your very valuable, precious learning experiences to your own personal development and self-discovery, and that is a journey of the self-realized individual. They are always in the mode of self-acceptance, self-realization of the values and the goals of what makes them an individual and not fitting in with what other people would like them to be, look like, sound like on social media, in their relationships, in career choice, self love and self acceptance comes from doing the work in your own personal development to know what serves you and what has happened to you is not anything for you to hold onto, anything for you to feel bad about, anything for you to own so deeply in your own soul that it begins to defile y  our very spirit and erode away your very heart. Ultimately, self-hatred is a lack of connection with your spiritual self, your deepest self love with your heart, allowing you to connect with the very deep spiritual qualities of forgiveness for yourself and others, compassion for yourself and others, and loving yourself and others, these are very deep spiritual qualities that reside deeply within us all. It's a choice to begin to move very strongly towards those particular behaviors understandings in our own personal development, to allow the self hatred to be over ridden by the self acceptance which is given to you by opening up your own heart and your own soul through different practices, whether it is meditation, prayer, spending time in nature, journaling, spending your time with the right people and friends that will lift you up who may have had similar experiences as you process them in a way that you can learn from them how they went through it in a positive way. Comparing yourself to others and the way things need to look or should look is a sure way for you to begin to in the material world have jealousy, have anger about what you should or shouldn't have and how things are turning out. Constantly viewing your life from only an external perspective can cause you to get very upset about how things are looking outwardly, how you feel about external experiences in your life. That may even include you may not like externally, how you look that can be a source of self hatred as well, forgetting that what you are inside is much more important than what you think of yourself outwardly and working on your internal life is going to greatly affect how you feel about yourself externally. Contemplate on this for a moment. Any changes you want to make to your life are going to begin internally, first to manifest externally second, beginning with your own self talk and your own thoughts.

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My strong suggestion in this episode for you as a self-realized individual is to begin to look internally, turn inward, begin to spend less time around people. Spend less time comparing yourself externally to this world, forget the social media likes and dislikes, forget who said what to you and why. Begin this deep internal journey of intuitive acceptance. I talk about intuition a lot in all the episodes I do on this podcast, because the intuitive sense that is guiding you, is going to lead you to your self acceptance, because it's going to give you an intuitive understanding about what's going on in your life and what you need to do going forward. It's called that still inner voice. When you meet people, you know you'll have that moment, as we all do. Oh, I've been down this road before. I am not going down this road again. And your intuitive sense won't be that of anger, resentment that you want to get upset about and hate people that may look like certain people that have been in your life before or act like them. It'll be a quiet stillness within you. You don't run, you sidestep, you don't get out of breath, you breathe gently. It's a quiet recognition of what's gone before that you are not going to allow to go ahead of you again, be part of your life again, you will become a very aware individual as to what serves you and what doesn't, living your own true authenticity and accepting your own uniqueness, that is a very integral part of self acceptance, which I talk more about in episode 19, unlocking happiness and success through self acceptance. Self acceptance means that you accept yourself and what's right for you, your values and who you are. Self hatred is that you hate what it is that your life is about, and what you have accepted and who you are. There is no negotiating how you switch those two around. You have to begin to look at life through a different lens in order for you to receive a different view and different vistas. So contemplate on this for a moment. Would common sense say to you that if you continue just relying on your outer experiences to get rid of self hatred, then that probably is going to be a very long journey for you to ever overcome what people are saying to you and suggesting what it is that you may need to have in your life and what needs to happen to help you overcome what it is that many of those voices and people may well have talked you into as a good idea, and now maybe part of your anger is it wasn't such a good idea. How did I get talked into that? Now that anger can obviously get worse and become self hatred, everything starts in a small way. Y ou know anger is heat starts as a fire, which can then turn into an inferno, which, you know, can fuel a lot of hatred. Be careful who you listen to. Be careful who you're around, because fire is a fuel. You don't want to fuel your life with a lot of heat from a lot of people that blow a lot of hot air, that can lead you into a lot of situations and circumstances that fuel your self hatred with these constant feelings of self hatred because you're not meeting other people's expectations, which could, in turn, cause you to feel that you're not good enough. And there is nothing further from the truth. Looking at remedies for self hatred, looking for the root cause of what is fueling self hatred. Is it you not liking you? Is it you not loving you? Is it you not taking the time to understand you, if you don't take the time to love you, understand you, like you, who else is going to love, like and understand you? More importantly, if you haven't taken the time to love like and understand yourself, where do you have the wherewithal to be around other people and even care, to like, love or understand them? Because when you arrive in a situation, unless you've done the personal development to get to the core of what are your values, you need to write these things down. What are your goals based on your values? What's really important to you, what's your vision, what's your mission in life? And really articulate those clearly at the deepest, again, soul level, because that's where true happiness and self acceptance begins at a soul level, at the sole acceptance of your values what's important to you, you have to begin to quantify that in a realistic, meaningful way, your happiness, your acceptance of yourself is based upon some very basic, self aware self realizations. It's not complicated. When you begin to build a relationship with yourself, and you begin to enjoy some quiet time and ask yourself some deeper questions before you get involved in situations, before you listen to other people, and the operative word there is before you will find that the decisions that you make, the places that you go, the people that you're involved with, are based upon what matters most to you, which is the title of the very first podcast of all of these episodes, what really does matter most to you, and if you begin to understand that, listening to that still small voice is going to guide you in every situation and circumstance that you find yourself in, if you've put the time into honing it and listening to it, through quiet time, through meditation, through stillness, when you begin to work from and design your life from the place what matters most to me and why you will find that your decisions, because that's really what self hatred is. Is just bad decisions, bad choices, bad narrative, bad self talk. That's all self hatred. It's choices that you're making to behave a certain way towards yourself. Sometimes people do it and they continue to do it, because it's a lot easier than changing and owning their life and the responsibilities for the decisions that they have made and the life that they have, and having the willingness to do the personal development, to change their own narrative and their own self talk so they can move into this place of self acceptance and enjoying their Life from the powerful place and existence of I accept responsibility for my own decisions and my own life, because I have made them on my own terms, and I know that if things don't work out, I could always go back to that inner place, the inner sanctuary that I have, not from anger, not being upset about what I've done, but from a place of quiet, reflective contemplation upon what it is that I can learn how I can develop myself from the experiences that I am having, because you love yourself enough to know that you're going to make mistakes. You're going to go through situations that don't work out quite as you thought they would, but you're going to find out that as you go forward in this place of inner development, inner awareness, this

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inner sanctuary that you're creating for yourself, that no matter what happens, there is a peace, there is an understanding within yourself that is available to you 24/7, 365 days a year, it's your inner sanctuary. It is your soul. It is your ownership of your own indwelling spirit that allows you to understand at a very deep level. That no matter what happens, and you can't control what happens. I can't control what happens. You don't go into a place of being upset or angry about outcomes. I'm not saying that you won't go there and it won't ever happen. What I'm suggesting to you is that when it does happen, and it will continue to happen, but less and less, as you get more in touch with your own inner sanctuary, in your own soul, your own spirit, that you acknowledge and realize as a self realized individual, that you do have a wellspring, a resource within you that you can go to by choice, by free will, that is going to be something that you begin to develop and hone and work with and understand the ability to access that at a very deep level, always, as you begin to use it as a habit, and you're going to have to make it a habit to begin to get into the habit of stillness, quietness, solitude, thoughtfulness, reflection, when things happen to you, and it doesn't have to be for hours on end. It could be five minutes, 10 minutes, three minutes. Write down what it is you're going through. Begin to look at the values that you have and how what you're going through is maybe not in alignment. Make some different notes about the different decision making processes that you went through to get where you are now be introspective. Introspection is a big tool. Calm, collective. introspection allows you to have better results in your life about what is going on every single day, day in, day out, year in, year out, and to formulate decisions about how you're going to deal with what's going on. If you use introspection as a important go to tool in your toolbox, one of the tools that you use to help you decipher and design your life. Life is going to be challenging. You and I we're going to get upset we deal with people all day long. It's not Nirvana, owning the sanctuary of self acceptance, of self awareness that you're living life and embracing life and embracing your own self acceptance on who you are and what you represent and what's important to you and why. When you begin to live your life from that place, from ownership authenticity of yourself and who you are, because you're willing to do the personal development, you're willing to do the introspection, you're willing to do the self ownership of your own outcomes. You're willing to take charge of your life. You're willing to become the boss of you, good, bad or indifferent. You're your own boss. You always will be. You always have been, and that's not going to change, because ultimately, the outcome of your life is what you did with it, not anybody else. And when you go into that loving embrace of quiet acceptance, as the episode is titled, How to Eliminate Self-Hate and Embrace Self Acceptance, putting your arms lovingly around yourself and embracing who you are, letting go the past and any self hatred that may have been attached to it, and going forward, embracing your future with positive expectancies, loving quiet acceptance of two things, a universal consciousness, God, Spirit, whatever you want to call it, working with you in your life, wanting to assist you through the power of intuition, and you willing and able to develop it and work with it yourself in a quiet, introspective way, you begin to feel something that most people never feel. It's not something you can put into words, but it's something that you feel that when things begin to get tough, when you look at your life, when you look at your childhood, when you look at your partnerships, when you look at what has worked and what hasn't worked. There's not hatred, there's not anger about it. There's an embracing of self acceptance that says, this is my life. These are the cards that I was dealt. I can play those cards any way I want. I was dealt a hand, and in this life, I've also been given a hand, a hand that reaches out to me, to help me and my own hands that I hold the cards that I have in them, the way to your true self acceptance is to use your hands and your will to put the cards on the table and play them to the very best of your ability, which I know you will and can do. And then look up, reach out for the hand that is outstretched to you also, take that hand and put that hand into play in your life as well. And then you will see that there are more hands than just yours involved in the very powerful outcome of you playing your cards right to feel very good about yourself and the life that you are living and accepting everything that comes along as a loving, living unfoldment of opportunities for you to grow and develop into the incredible human and spiritual being that you are. I talk more about integrating the human and spiritual parts of you in episode number 65 Five Practical Keys for Human and Spiritual Success Every Day. I sincerely appreciate you listening to the podcast. Please subscribe so you do not miss any upcoming episodes. Whatever platform you're on, please leave a rating and review I would greatly appreciate it. Any additional information on me, Linton Bergsen and my five star reviewed book, Purposeful Vision is available@selfrealized.com which is all one word. You can also leave any comments or suggestions on the website. I look forward to connecting with you very soon and take good care of yourself.