A 20-Day Quick-Growth Plan

Any misery or any practice of an addiction is self-destructive.  The only insane reason that anyone would do anything destructive to his or her body, knowing that it is harmful, is if that person is experiencing self-hatred.  Self-hatred can exist on a subconscious level, but it is obviously there for any objective observer to witness who can see people doing anything harmful to their bodies.  Wouldn’t a person have to hate himself to put tar into his lungs?  To eat foods with a high fat content that clogs arteries or with toxins that creates colon cancer?  To drink alcohol that kills hundreds of thousands of brain cells and destroys the pancreas and liver?  To have potentially fatal sex?  All “death wish” stuff, done by people who, deep inside, truly hate themselves.

Where does self-hatred come from?  First, expectations that we behave perfectly when we were being raised.  We were corrected hundreds of thousands of times as it was pointed out over and over how wrong we were and how far short we were of the ideal, perfect behavior.  That became our standard for us in adulthood.  Secondly, falling short of our own expectations and those of others, we stay frustrated and then liabilities show up in our conduct.  Then, self-hatred results because we are doing hateful things when we use the 20 liabilities (such as being angry, resentful, hateful, dishonest, greedy, etc.) which also inspire others to hate us — or at least detest our behavior.

What is the answer to stopping self-destructive behavior? This is so easy to answer: Eliminating self-hatred.  And eliminating self-hatred is a three-stage process, generally speaking.  First, seeing the truth.  (In 12-step programs, this amounts to Steps 1-6.)  We’ve all been programmed to do insane things in this culture.  Other people do insane things because of their programming.  All the things we think they did TO us were really never personal.  They were programmed, living on autopilot.  Nuts — totally nuts. Doing things without even thinking about them or about their hurtful consequences.  Being driven by things in the subconscious, which they aren’t even aware of.  Same with us.

So, secondly, we can forgive them for what we thought was a slight or harm that they did while they were insane or asleep or operating on autopilot.  They know not what they did.  We knew not what we did.  We did the same to them or to others, the things that we hated most when they were done to us.  Asleep or insane, we’ve done crazy things, but we can forgive ourselves when we see our truth: we have been responding to programming, going through life in a fog, also operating solely on auto-pilot.  (This process is accomplished in 7-9 in step work.)

After forgiving them and ourselves, we are prepared to move to the third stage of recovery: we are prepared to love ourselves, our Real Self–the Self that never materialized because of the crazy ways we were raised.  But we cannot love what is unlovable.  So just being prepared to love us, wanting to love ourselves, will not make it happen.  What will make it happen is new behavior, new action, using 20 assets that will replace the 20 liabilities. (This behavior reflects the intent of steps 10-12 in step programs.)

Putting the Plan into Action

Take each one of the numbered items below and for the next 20 days, do one all day.  At the end of 20 days, you will be different.  You will be emitting a positive energy that will attract positive energy to you, and that energy will replace the negatives that your negative liabilities have attracted.  At that point, in 20 days, if you really practice each of the 20 asset-behaviors, you will be a new person and you will love your new self.  Why?  You’ll be behaving in a lovable manner, for a change.

In a state of Self-Love, you will not be able to do insane, self-destructive things to yourself.  It’s automatic!  Call it a spiritual gift or spiritual wellness or a return to sanity as a result of 20 days’ worth of action, but it will happen.  No one can hurt himself if he loves himself.  That only happens from a state of hating himself.  From a state of seeing your truth and seeing the truth of others; from a state of forgiving yourself and others because you all knew not what you were doing; and then from a state of being in Self-Love, all past behaviors that were a manifestation of your dissatisfaction with yourself and the judging of yourself will disappear.

And when you stop being dissatisfied with yourself and stop hating yourself and stop judging yourself, you’ll stop being dissatisfied with others, you’ll stop hating others, and you’ll stop judging others.  It’s automatic, after taking the action.  You’ll see that no one has ever done as much to harm you as you have done to harm you.  You have been your own worst enemy, and deep inside you knew that.  And because deep inside you knew that you were being your own worst enemy, you have tried to destroy the one hurting you and your efforts to get ahead the most: yourself.  You have tried much more to destroy yourself than others have tried to destroy you, and you have even tried to destroy yourself more than you have tried to destroy others.  (Sure, your self-hatred did manifest in a desire to hate others, to consider them the enemy, and to get revenge against so many that you thought were your enemies.  But no one has ever been as harmful an enemy to you as you, yourself.)

So if you want a better life, and you can’t change all those others out there, then the only option left is for you to change your behavior so you’ll stop harming yourself so much.  You can stop being your worst enemy.  Once you stop that, then dealing with all those others out there (the ones you thought were enemies) will be a piece of cake to deal with in comparison to the monkey you remove from your back — namely, the monkey called “yourself.”  “But how?”  you ask.  If you use the 20-day plan, your behavior will change and you will honor yourself for that change. And when you honor yourself, you cannot harm yourself.  You cannot risk death-by-sex for a few moments of unprotected pleasure; you cannot put things in your body that you know are killing brain cells; you cannot put things into your body that are causing cancer.  So here’s the 20-day schedule that will automatically lead you away from self-hatred and to Self-Love.  THIS is the HOW:

1. Practice forgiving others, all day long.
2. Consciously catch yourself each time you start to judge someone, and stop.
3. Every time today you start to think about yourself, stop.
4. Today — be humble.  Say “I don’t know”  and, “I have no opinion about that”  and, “You may be right.”
5. Be modest.  Do not talk about yourself even once today.  Turn all conversation toward others.
6. Look at yourself honestly and see the improvement already occurring. Like yourself for the progress.  Forgive yourself where you haven’t done the deal perfectly.  No one can.
7. Be honest, all day long, but do not injure others in the process.
8. Be patient.  Let others go ahead of you all day.
9. Be plain today.  Buy nothing as a luxury.  Eat modestly.
10. Take a chance with someone–trust them.
11. All day today, feel satisfied.  Sense that what you have is enough. Say it: “I really have enough.”
12. Work diligently today.  Put in a full day’s effort.
13. Be early.  Leave the house early.  Leave extra time for everything.  Do not try to put 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5-pound bag.
14. Be direct with people.  Tell them what you are feeling, in a pleasant way.  Be honest.  Try being intimate in a conversation with someone.
15. Create positive thoughts today.  Each time something negative comes to mind, picture something positive.  Think of a favorite, isolated scene and see yourself there.  Replace negative thoughts with positive mental pictures and images.
16. Test every thought and word and deed today to see how sane it is, asking: “Is this thought, word or deed self-constructive or self-destructive?” 
17. Do not try to control anyone today.  Leave everyone alone to have his or her own growth experience, even if you think it’s crazy.  Tell no one anything that they should do.
18. Praise everyone you talk to today.  Comment on something positive you see in them or their work or their attitude.  Find something good to say to them.  Anything positive.
19. Today, be calm and silent.
20. Today, be generous.  Give away things all day: your time, your attention, something you value.  Your place in line.  Help someone.

Do these, and in less than three weeks, you’ll not feel the way you have felt about yourself in the past.  Then, you’ll be restored to sanity, and you will want to help yourself and not hurt yourself.  You will be lovable because you are acting in a lovable manner.  Then and only then can you practice Self-Love and then and only then will you stop–automatically–doing the crazy, insane, self-destructive things you’ve done to yourself in the past.

Now, a final point.  Some ask: “Isn’t false pride, ego, the downfall of humanity?”  Yes.  “So shouldn’t we avoid Self-Love?”  some have asked.  No! Ego has been our problem all along, but Self-Love is the opposite of ego.  Ego loves the false self-images we had of ourselves in the past.  Self-Love is love of the Real Self, the Real Us that was nothing more than a potentiality that never matured.  The Real Self is what we had the potential to be all along but was not, because of the influence of being raised in an insane culture.  The Real Self, which is lovable, will now come into being after 20 days of practicing asset-behaviors rather than liability-behaviors.  Some will look at these 20 asset-behaviors and call their use “spiritual living.”  Others will see that it is just sane living.  Forget all labels and all analysis.  Just enjoy the New, Real You.  The world will.