My friends, welcome to the Sheep Get Sheared podcast. I'm your host, Austin Creed. My friends this. Episode will come out after the 500. Anniversary special, the 500th episode special that we're going to be doing with the Q&A. So I wanted to discuss. The dangers of self loathing and how to stop it? You might think this is coming out of nowhere. But you know I've been feeling convicted recently to do this show #1 because I can tell somebody has to hear it #1 and #2 because it's unavoidable to go through phases of self loathing, whether it's after a divorce. After a breakup, whether it's a quarter made or even third quarter of life crisis, it's unavoidable to go through these phases of self loathing if not live. And an almost non-stop era of self loathing. And so I think it's important for us. To discuss how. We can avoid self loathing strategies that can keep us from being stuck in this vortex of constant self loathing. So that's we're going to do today well. Let me get some water real quick. You know, separate. No, it's really hot. Where I where I'm at right now, and I'm probably gonna be moving again pretty soon here, so it's nice to. Enjoy different parts of the world and. One of the things. I've found that compete with self loathing is to not be complacent. It's very easy when someone is depressed or unhappy or unfulfilled to create a sense of self loathing. To say that well, because you are the problem. That therefore you can't be the one to find the solution. You can't possibly be the cultivator of change. Somebody else has to do that, and that without a doubt is one of the most damaging things you could ever believe. That will lead you to self load. One of the best ways. To get past self. Loathing is to understand what it is about yourself that you hate. Because make no mistake about it, a lot of us we hate ourselves because we don't understand what is making us unhappy in our lives. All too often. We find ourselves completely consumed. With oh, I can't do this, Sir. Oh, I'm not good enough to do thou. Or if only I could do XY or Z. The reason that we feel powerless and almost like a passenger in our own life. Is because a lot of us don't have the courage. To step. Out of our comfort zone. His step out of the boxes we've established for ourselves or other, we've permitted others to. Put on us. I won't repeat that in case you missed it, we can't allow ourselves to put restrictions on ourselves that are only going. To hurt us. We cannot simply sit back and say ohh, don't worry, it'll go away. Or if only I whether it's you go to the bottle, you go to the joint, you go to the cigarette or you go to women or like there's any number of escapes. We will try so hard to. Avoid the issues in our alliance and I've been there, my friend. Let me tell you. Something. When I was in the military. 

I. 

I want him so hard to be thought of as ohh you're. I'm a tough guy. I'm a respectable guy. I wanted so badly for other people. To look at me. Respect me. To look at me as a role model for me to be a guy of high rapport, that's. What I wanted? And I thought by being in the military, I thought that by being a so-called tough guy or a hero or whatever that I could achieve that. But the hardest thing you'll ever prove. Is to yourself that you're worth it, my friends. I know it might sound like. Oh, it's so whimsical. Ohh though it's even. It's been within you the whole time. Harry. Your wizard, Harry. The same garbage, right? You know, forgive my poor attempt at a British accent to mimic Harry Potter, but. Look, I'll be honest with you guys for throwing a lot of my life. I've been very upset with myself. I've been very upset with. How? My body has developed how I think about things. I've always kind of been on the fringe. I've never been the typical guy. The typical mice, and it's part of the reason why. I. I believe in I developed biblical bachelors them and why I preach it. Because if finding what works for you while religion is important, it's only a pillar of your life. It is not the only way through which life can be understood and I know some of you might find that to be sacrilege, but I'm sorry I don't know what else to tell you other than the truth. As is. Is a pillar upon which you build your life, but know house or structure that has stood. Past. The ages past the past, the the passing of time has had only one pillar and the same thing can be said for you. I remember something my military training instructor told me when I was in the Air Force in basic training. I used to have a Bible in my. Tucker. Because I would read it all the time when I was feeling. Stressed and whatnot. And it did help. But one time during inspection my MTI, my military training instructor, he came, he said. Creed. And he said, I said proceeding Sir. I walked up and he said I said yes, Sir. What can I do for you, Sir? And he said, what is this? And he pointed out my Bible. And I was like, it's a Bible, Sir. He said, I know what it is. Well, why is it here? And I told him both, Sir. He comforts me, brings me hope and all other stuff. And he looked at me and he said. That is great. But number one, it's not supposed to be here in this locker and #2. You have you. It is a pillar of your life. You need to focus on the physical, spiritual, the community, the the emotional. And you need to make sure that you balance all of those things. You cannot simply rely on one too much over the other. He drove that home to me, and I never heard someone explain it that way, and it stuck with me. You might ask, what does this have to do with self loathing? I thought you. Were talking about self loathing. Oh, don't worry. We're going to tie it. In because salt loathing is tied to the lack of self. You don't fully understand why you do the things you do. How come you get the outcomes that you get? How you could become the the person that you see on TV or the person that you see in your dreams or on your dream board or the person you want to be. And uh. At times, people around us, they give us garbage device. They want to just give us the Mickey Mouse mentality answer. They want to give us the old fashioned. Ohh, just do this or just do that. But there's no simple. Fix to identifying the sense of self. Because self loathing is tied to you. Don't think you're doing. Enough. You don't think that you are enough? There's a there's some kind of deficiency that is being identified and you're taking it out on yourself. One of the guys I respect the most in my life, who has wrote he's written many books. He's an up and coming indie author. I won't mention his name. I don't know if he wants me to or not. But what I will tell you is he's encountered a lot of adversity and he's going through a lot of self loathing as of I and one of his greatest Nuggets of advice he's given to me. Was to not take things out on yourself because the world will do a good enough job of doing that it. The world, your opponents, your competitors, your haters, all of them will be around to tell you you're no good. You're not doing enough. You could do more. You're not this. You're not that. So why would you say it? To yourself. I think I would tie it in to Napoleon Bonaparte and what he said is one should not fear a competent out a competent enemy, but an incompetent ally. My friends, a lot of us, we see ourselves. As an incompetent ally, or worse yet. As and appalling. The man in the mirror is our biggest enemy. You can't be your own best ally and your own worst enemy at the same time. But yet so many of us are so many of us are filled with self loathing, or filled with the fear that we can't do something that we're incapable of doing something and. Why would we fight a war on two fronts? Historically, fighting a war on two fronts has only led to defeat, and while I could easily sit here and pretend like I have mastered this and I know everything and you should just listen to me and everything will be fine, I'm not going to tell you that. Because I don't know everything. I have not mastered this. I am actively still working towards mastering it. But I don't think you need to be a master at something to preach it. I don't think you can even master it. Something to understand what it is you face. Because as much as I like to be a, you know, do my own thing, be a loner to an extent. One cannot live on bread alone. It was once written in the Bible. And what that means is 1 cannot simply live off of one thing. You can't live. You can't be an island. You can't simply figure everything out yourself all the time, and for that's why this biblical bachelor community is so important to me, and I know it's important to some of you. You've told me as much as how important it is to you. And my friends, we need to really be honest with ourselves and be honest with others. It was Confucius who said. That. And was part of explaining our own weaknesses, our own shortcomings. Once we talked about that and we aired our aired our own shortcomings out in public. That was part of the healing process. And I think it's incredibly important for you as well As for me to be honest with ourselves as to where we're at and I'll be honest with you, my friends, I still suffer from some self loathing. I am not perfect. I have a lot of shortcomings. Anybody who knows me personally. They know this. 

Yes. 

They know that I I suffer still. With with women not like getting sex from women per se, but the desire to be a good man mixed with the desire of pursuing the truth and knowing what I know needs to be done because a lot of people are out there to take from me to. Exploit me, extort. And they are here to extort you too. I know it because you told me as much. I know it because I walk around every day and I see it with my own eyes. The illusions, the lies, the half truths. All of it is on broad display for all of us. The question is, are you going to be honest with yourself, where you're at, what you're up against, whether it be from yourself or from the the forces that we are trying to counter you? Or are you going to live in Mickey Mouse Disneyland? You live in this fake reality of total synthetic, surreal reality that's going to only lead you down the path of finding a the right solution for the wrong problem. That is a question you will have to answer. To combat and to stop self loathing, we must first understand why. What is it about ourselves we don't like? Do we not live up to the image ourselves? We think we should have. Do we feel like we're behind? Do we feel as though we are lacking something? And if there, if there, if that is true? How do we fix it? I've never understood women with why they want to just air out their grievances and not fix the problem. We should fix the problem. You don't go into the doctor's office until the doctors want to talk about the pain you're going through. No. You want the doctor to help fix the pain, right? So why in the world wouldn't you go with to somebody else with any other intention other than to say, here's the problem? Here's what I'm going through. What's your advice? But my friends, a lot of us, we wear a mask, so it's hard for others to give us good feedback because all they see is an illusion. You've given them a fake version of yourself. This is a lot of us might obtain our phones. I know I'm guilty of that. We don't update the people around us on what we're going through because either a, we don't think they'll understand or B we don't want them to judge us or C, we just we don't want to burden them with it. I know I've been there too, if that's you, you're not alone. My friends, when it comes to self loathing, it robs you of your joy. It robs you of the ability to be prolific and productive in your life. If you are trying to recreate yourself, whether it's you're going through a divorce, whether it's you're going through the sufferings of young Arthur Phase where you're trying to find out who you are or reinvent. Who you are self loathing is going to be part of the game, but you must understand that if you hate yourself, there is no way you will be able to overcome and be the harbinger of this new promised land you are trying to build for yourself this new era. Of peace and prosperity, you are tempting to cultivate. You can't be the bringer of good and evil in your own life. You must get past your shortcomings through accepting them for what they are. I have plenty of shortcomings, my friends, and I'll be the 1st to tell you. I am very upset with a lot of times my own appearance because I suffer from acne. I suffer from not having the Super muscular build that I want. I suffer from oftentimes not being mentally paralyzed and not getting enough done that I want to get done in. Good day. And it's very easy to get down on yourself because you don't think you're doing enough. You don't think you are enough. You think you should be doing more. You think that you could have done this better or you could have said that in a more productive or better manner. You could have salvage that relationship. You could have done this or you could. Have done that. Stop living in the past. The past is only important. If it helps you avoid the future. Problems you may face. My friends, I'm not here to be a preacher. I'm not your pastor. I'm not some life coach. At least I don't think I am. Maybe I am and I don't realize it. I I don't think I have enough influence to or enough wisdom to have such a mentality. But my friends, if you suffer from self loathing, you're not alone. I I am right there with you and I can guarantee you other men are with there right there with you in the trenches fighting against the man in the mirror every single day. But they don't want to talk about it cause they're afraid that they'll be judged, that they won't be a a real man if that is even a thing. I think that's a gigantic fraud. My friends let me know, do you suffer from self loathing? How have you overcome it? Or how would you actively fight it? Or are you paralyzed by it and you don't know how to get over it? All of these are important because what works for you but work for others, or maybe there's a strategy out there you haven't tried? Because as men. We have so many opponents in front of us. So many people who are going to try to take from us, we're going to try to con us. We're going to try to come back like a boomerang and try to hit us in the back of. The head. When we turn our backs, we can't let that happen. But it's hard to avoid it when we're fighting a war on two fronts. So my friends remember that you must be your own competent ally, not an incompetent 1 to fight the competent allies, to fight the competent enemies you will face, and you will. Face many of them. My friends. Let me know what you think. Let me know what stood out to you and what strategies you have to overcome this adversity. Whether it be from yourselves or from other people. Take care of yourselves and let me know if you have any strategies you'd like to share. Cause I'm openly listening to it. I know a lot of other men are opening and listening to it. But in the meantime, my friends think for. Yourself. Be aware of the dangers you are facing from internal and external foes. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing from you. Take care of yourselves. I'm out. Peace.