A lot of harm has been done with this verse by people who read denial as contempt.
Deny yourself gets heard as think less of yourself, want less, need less, apologise for taking up room. Some of that has been taught deliberately, and it produces exhausted people who mistake their own erasure for obedience.
That is not the picture. The word is closer to what Peter does later in the same Gospel when he denies knowing Jesus. It means to disown a claim. Not to hate the person, but to stop treating their word as final.
So the instruction is about authority. Your preferences still exist. Your needs are real. They simply stop being the thing that decides.
And notice it comes with a destination. Follow Me. You are not being asked to empty yourself into nothing. You are being asked to hand the wheel to someone going somewhere.
