I Heart Me (4 page)

The three stages of self-love

Let's look at the three stages in more detail.

What qualifies me to write this book is that I spent most of the first 42 years of my life living in this state. Given you're reading this book, I'm guessing you spend a fair amount of time in it too.

This self-love deficit, as I sometimes refer to it, probably isn't at the forefront of your mind. You know it's there on some level, but it doesn't hang around for long in your daily waking consciousness. It's more like a cloaked goblin hiding behind a curtain in the recesses of your mind, ready to leap out and run the show whenever something potentially good looks to be on the horizon.

What's more, the world quite often reflects back to you your own feelings about yourself, usually in how people treat you.

I was bullied at school. It was never physical, more emotional. For years it was just teasing, but it came to a head in my sixth (final) year at high school, when I was 17 years old. The ‘in-crowd', who accounted for about a fifth of the 60 or so people in the year, ran what resembled a campaign throughout the year.

It was cyber bullying in the days preceding the internet. They put up numerous posters around the school making fun of me. One day, for instance, was declared ‘National “We Love Hammy” Day'. Hammy was my nickname, after Hamilton. There was little love on my day, but there was a lot of laughter.

Once, when the bullies were drunk (this occasionally happened, especially when they turned 18, and as sixth-year students we had our own common room), they tried to throw a bucket of water
over me. As I approached the common room, one of the girls saw me coming and then ran excitedly into the room, so I knew something was about to happen. I considered turning around and walking away, but my bag was in there with my books in it and I needed them because it was close to exam time.

I felt nervous as I opened the common-room door. There was one boy standing on a chair, making an attempt to lasso me with a rope. He would probably have succeeded were it not for the fact that he was drunk. So I was able to catch the lasso and hold the rope. In the flurry of activity that happened next, the bucket of water was thrown at me but I was able to step aside and only soak up a few splashes on my trousers and shoes. It probably helped that I was the only person not drunk.

I picked up my bag from the table where I'd left it. Some of my friends were sitting there, but no one said a word. I left the room, bag in hand, and tried to find somewhere I could have a cry.

I felt like crying a lot of the time at school. Either that or I was anxious. I just accepted that that was the way life was. There didn't seem to be anything I could do to change it. When I'd plucked up the courage to ask one boy why they treated me the way they did, it had been met with a shocked, ‘What are you talking about? How dare you!' Those weren't the exact words he used, but it was the sentiment. ‘This is how it is, Hammy.'

The point was, his words resonated with what I felt was the truth about myself. Deep down I had the sense that, no matter what, I
wasn't good enough
.

I wouldn't admit to it, of course. I used to say that I was bullied because I was good at things. Even in the first draft of this book I wrote that. I also wrote that I learned to play myself down to avoid being targeted. In actual fact, I was bullied because I made a point of telling everyone that I was good at things. It wasn't because I was the fastest runner and had won a few trophies, or one of the cleverest students in the school, or that I did karate and had won a trophy for that too, or even that I could do all sorts of stunts on my BMX bike, including a wheelie for almost half a mile and jumping the bike over eight beer barrels at speed. It wasn't even the fact that some of the most popular and attractive girls in the year thought that I was good-looking. It was the fact that I repeatedly told people about my achievements.

Why was I doing it? It was because deep down I believed that I needed to keep giving people reasons to like me. If I stopped, they'd lose interest. And I was scared of being left out, shunned … alone.

When you feel you're
not
enough, it makes it easier for people to take advantage of you. You give off hidden signals, according to the science of victimology.

A group of prison inmates convicted of assault were asked to view videos of people walking along a busy sidewalk in New York City. Then they were asked which of those people they would target to assault or mug. Within seconds, they'd made their selections.

Most people would assume that the victims would be chosen according to size, but the criminals selected some large men
and ignored some petite women. Their choice didn't turn out to have much to do with age, race or gender either. It was the way the passers-by held and moved their body that mattered the most. People whose body language conveyed uncertainty or little confidence – that is,
a feeling of not being good enough
–were almost always the ones targeted. Those who showed more self-confidence were largely ignored.
¹

Of course, this absolutely does
not
mean that people who have been bullied or abused or mugged have somehow brought it on themselves. Many attacks are completely random, plus bullies and abusers merely select someone they believe they can dominate, in order to compensate for their own self-love deficit.

But we all give off all sorts of signals. I'll look at some of them later in this book and, importantly, how to change them.

Quite quickly as you set out on your journey to self-love, you reach the space where you've
had
enough. You've had enough of feeling inferior. You've had enough of being passed over for promotion. You've had enough of being bullied or taken advantage of. You've had enough of feeling small. You've had enough of feeling scared. You've had enough of having no confidence. You've had enough of giving your power away. I could go on. Let's just say you've
had enough
.

This is the place where wee miracles can happen, subtle shifts in the people or environment around you that just weren't happening before.

Once, early in my career as a writer and speaker, I was giving a talk to a group of schoolteachers. It was an in-service training day, where teachers get a day away from teaching and hear talks and receive training. The assistant head of this particular school had invited me to speak after attending one of my lectures a few months earlier. I was to deliver a one-hour talk that fused science with inspiration.

I often start this kind of talk with a few examples of the placebo effect, both to introduce my story of working in the pharmaceutical industry and becoming fascinated by the placebo effect and to introduce the concept that the mind is more powerful than we think. But this time, as I addressed the 100 or so teachers and administrative staff ranged in front of me, the bullying began.

A biology teacher spoke up first, stating, with a hint of aggression in his tone, that the placebo effect wasn't real, that there was no mind–body effect and that some people just got better. That was it.

Despite the fact that at the time I was probably one of the UK's foremost experts on the placebo effect, had written several chapters and articles on it, had delivered about 500 lectures on the mind–body connection, was consulted by TV production companies and had been invited to present a prime-time documentary on the subject, had a PhD and had worked as a scientist, learning, first-hand, how a person's expectation of recovery affected the outcome, the only words I could find in reply were: ‘Oh, I've never thought of it like that. You might be right.'

I was scared. He was aggressive. I was no longer an adult; I was a child being spoken to by a stern schoolteacher.

My voice changed. I spoke more quietly. It wasn't intentional – my throat was constricted. I was now afraid of everyone in the lecture theatre.

And it got progressively worse. I was soon unable to say more than a few words without someone answering back. All I could do to stop from crying and embarrassing myself in front of a room full of adults was to breathe deeply and slow my speech right down.

It's funny what people see. Afterwards, the headmaster invited me into his office. He asked how I'd been able to refrain from getting angry and raising my voice. He thought my self-control was astonishing, a deeply inspiring lesson for everyone in the room, one that he would remember for a very long time. He applauded how I'd slowed my speech and taken deep breaths to control my emotions. He wanted to know how I'd done it, because he wanted to learn.

Of course, I didn't admit that there had come a point, about half an hour into the lecture, when I really was about to cry. I just couldn't take it any more. There were about five bullies who were speaking more than I was. Every sentence I uttered was met with attack. Then I had a strange moment of insight and clarity. I didn't actually
need
to stay there – I could just
walk away
. I was barely being paid anyway, once I'd covered my expenses. I was really doing this as a favour to the assistant head.

I suddenly felt an inner strength that was more relief than anything else. My parting gift would be a few choice words of my own.

The lectern was behind me. I had some notes on it and a bottle of water. I turned my back on my audience and picked them up. When I turned back around, I was going to tell them precisely where they could stick their in-service training. I'd
had
enough!

But just as I was about to speak, a young Australian girl stood up. She was in one of the front rows, over to my right.

‘Dr Hamilton,' she said, ‘can I just say how embarrassed I am to be in this audience right now. This is schoolyard bullying and these teachers should know better. I'm a student teacher from Australia, here for a year to gain experience. I can tell you now that this kind of behaviour would never happen in Australia. I want you to know that I am not part of this.'

There was a burst of applause. It was incredible. I felt washed with gratitude and relief.

When the applause ended, the teacher who was the ringleader of the bullies got up, shouted that he could give the same talk ‘with a cross around my bloody neck' and stormed out of the door. The other four were without their leader.

People can behave out of character when they're in a group, especially if the group is a bullying one. Some people (and I count the remaining four teachers in this) have such low self-worth that they'll do almost anything to be accepted, including be mean and unkind. We're all driven by a need to belong.

Now their figurehead was gone, the four teachers were the most agreeable people in the room. They hung on my every word, leaning forward and nodding furiously. I could have said anything. I could have professed that the world was flat and these intelligent men would have seen my point.

Now I have real compassion for them because I see how much they wanted to make up for their earlier behaviour. I see them through the eyes of a person who can spot low self-worth. People who bully, dominate or control others have some of the lowest. Why else do you think they need to dominate? When they do, their secret feelings of
not enough
are temporarily replaced with
enough
.

Some people bully, too, because they're frustrated by their life, work or relationships. They dreamed of doing other things and weren't able to do them. Dominating others is the only sense of control they have. In those fleeting moments, the feeling of being
enough
acts as a sticking plaster over the wound of their low self-esteem.

Several years ago, my friend Ailsa and I were talking about self-help books. This was in the days before I had written any books at all. She was at the point of self-help fatigue, tired of constantly viewing the problems in her life as manifestations of her thoughts and emotions.

I shared a metaphor I was working on, one that I later included in
Is Your Life Mapped Out?
‘Life,' I suggested, ‘is a bit like being in a small canoe on a wide river. Our mind is like an oar. We can use it to paddle left or right, forwards or backwards, or even do what many people do and paddle around in a wee circle. The
river also has a current and sometimes, through no conscious choice or fault of our own, that current pulls us to the left or right, towards people, environments and circumstances.'

‘Ha!' said Ailsa. ‘It's OK for people who write self-help books and how-to-get-what-you-want-type books. Their rivers are calm. Me, I'm always in the rapids! And if one more person tells me to look within, I'm going to punch them!'

She always was the peacemaker.

Ailsa had
had
enough!

As I mentioned earlier, this stage is often characterized by passion and sometimes by bursts of anger. When we've
had
enough, we've had enough of things being the way they've been. We've had enough of feeling the way we've been feeling. We're going to step up and take control of our own life. And if anyone has a problem with that, tough!

This is why this is quite a healthy space to be in. At this point, we no longer feel that we have no control over our life. Even though we may not like our current circumstances, we realize that the one thing we do have control over is ourselves, and once we start exerting that control, we realize that we have more power to shape our personal reality than we thought.

This is the space where decisions are made, relationships are formed, strengthened or broken, promotions are obtained, new jobs sought, new respect found. This is the place where we decide to make changes to how and where we live. This is the place where we start to feel free.

Given enough time, many of us reach the stage of ‘I
am
enough.' It's where we no longer have any need to show the world that we're the master of our own life. We feel it inside.