October 21, 2024 • 38 mins
Sometimes the loudest critic, our biggest hater is not someone we know, it is ourselves. We are the ones who are the first to judge ourselves, to shut ourselves and our ambitions down, to say the nastiest things. In today's episode we break down why we are our own worst critic, including:
- How we learn self criticism in childhood
- The evolutionary component to criticism
- The role of the super ego
- The role of comparison
- Why no one is really looking at your that closely
- How to embrace radical self compassion and acceptance
- How to use cognitive diffusion, and much more
This episode is a rerun whilst Jemma is recovering from an illness. We will be back on Friday with a brand new episode.
Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast
For business: psychologyofyour20s@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is great to have
you here. Back for another episode. Today, we are talking
about something I think all of us have struggled with
at some point in our lives, and that is why
we are so hard on ourselves. Like all the time.
(00:49):
It feels like this is the generation of self criticism
as humans, and I think particularly in our twenties, where
often our harshest critics. We tirelessly scrutinize every little decision,
every action, every outcome in our lives. Why am I
such a failure? Why did I say that? Why don't
(01:10):
I look like them? I must be doing something wrong?
And we constantly strive for perfection, expecting ourselves to reach
these impossible standards that we've never really held for anyone
else in our lives. But I think it's really interesting
to examine why we put ourselves through this. What kind
of drives this in a critic, in this relentless pursuit
(01:33):
of being flawless or perfect. The other irony of self
criticism that I find really fascinating but also a bit
disturbing or interesting, is that we speak to ourselves in
a way that we would never dream of doing so
to others. So why do we find it so hard
to give ourselves the same grace, the same love, the
(01:54):
same forgiveness that we give people like our family, like
our friends, like our partners. So today we are going
to peel back the layers of our inner critic and
examine some of the evolutionary, biological, social roots of why
we are so hard on ourselves. A lot of the
theory says that it may actually come down to survival,
(02:19):
whereby we are overly self critical to avoid stepping out
of line or acting against a societal norm so that
we can be accepted, or in the case of things
like self deprecating humor, we use that to make ourselves
feel and seem more agreeable, or to mask our insecurities
(02:41):
and protect ourselves. It all kind of comes down to,
at the end of the day, our existence as social creatures,
and further to that, of course, our childhood. The words
spoken to us as children, either by parents, by peers,
by teachers, they become the words we speak to ourselves
(03:03):
as adults. And a lot of that has to do
with feeling like we need to earn love, we need
to earn support, to earn the good things in our
lives and be absolutely perfect or else we're not worth
that kind of treatment. So let's discuss We're going to
talk about the origins of this nasty in a critic,
(03:26):
but also how we can silence that in a voice.
This episode, it's not about dwelling in the negativity. It's
about gaining awareness, embracing vulnerability, and ultimately, I think, finding
compassion for ourselves amidst all of our imperfections. I also
really want to deep dive into some pretty I would
(03:46):
say innovative new therapeutic practices that have come about recently,
including radical self compassion and cognitive diffusion. These are both
amazing practices and skill that can help us kind of
silence that little mean voice in our head. I'm really
keen for this episode. I hope you are too, So
(04:09):
without further ado, let's get into the psychology behind why
we are so hard on ourselves. I think I've recently
become quite cognizant of the fact that, for the longest time,
maybe the majority of my life, I have always been
(04:30):
my own worst critic, the loudest voice in my head,
constantly drowning out all the positive things in my life
with negative predictions and self doubt, kind of honing that
spotlight in on everything that I'm doing wrong and ignoring
all the good things. That even got to the point
where I was becoming self critical about how much I
(04:51):
was self critical. I would have these thoughts about how
I was so stupid or I'd messed up, and then
an even louder voice would jump in and and scold
me for being like that, and neither of these voices
was particularly kind or helpful. So I've also become really
fascinated with the why. As someone who is obviously really
(05:14):
interested in psychology, it can be really hard to not
seek an explanation for these kinds of behaviors and know
that there is possibly a very logical, scientific, robust underpinning
or kind of cause. I think it also minimizes I
think some of the shame and the personal blame that
(05:34):
often accompanies self criticism and in this instance. There are
so many explanations that explain why we are so hard
on ourselves. So self criticism. It's this tendency to evaluate
ourselves extremely harshly and to scrutinize our actions, our performance,
(05:56):
our behavior, our body, our relationship, most every aspects of
our lives. It's distinct from self awareness and the occasional
self policing in that it's a very automatic self criticism,
self blame. It often feels like it's beyond our control
(06:17):
and our default in any situation. Our default mental pattern
is to actively blame ourselves and find our faults rather
than see a situation objectively. B it's excessively negative and maladaptive.
It goes against our best interests, and it actually undermines
(06:39):
some of that helpful productive behavior and coping mechanisms. Because
this voice is so unnecessarily cruel. C is that we
believe it, Unlike I think the occasional bad thought about
others that we can dismiss or call ourselves out for.
When we are hard on ourselves, the only person who
(07:03):
can validate that belief is us, and so we tend
to believe these negative thoughts. We tend to really take
them on board because they voice the opinion that is
with us the most in our lives is our own,
so it's the one that we trust the most as well.
And finally, d it negatively impacts our lives. We may
(07:26):
find ourselves skipping social events or going out, not putting
ourselves out there dating people who treat us poorly, or
ruminating on our failures to a point where we can't
move on, and we do become stuck in that moment
and stuck in that thought spiral. All of these things,
I think really detract from the now but also from
(07:48):
our reality, and they make it incredibly hard to be
gentle and to have a kind mind and a really
soft internal space for us to thrive. All of their
stems from what we call in pop psychology, the inner critic,
this sub personality, this almost separate, unconscious entity that judges
(08:10):
and demeans us. The inner critic is the voice in
our head telling us that we are worthless or shaming us.
And it's been theorized that it's actually a manifestation of
our ego, more specifically what Freud called our super ego.
So this super ego is something that we all kind
(08:30):
of develop in early childhood, and it's that part of
us that internalizes all the things that society wants us
to do, or the lessons from our parents, or the scolding,
and it automatically censors our behavior. It's this kind of
unconscious mechanism for regulating our actions, and that's basically where
(08:52):
the inner critic comes from. It's natural to have this
impulse control right, to have our ego over ride some
of those extreme impulses. Otherwise our society would kind of
fall into anarchy. But when that inner critic is given
too much control, instead of moderating certain behaviors, it absolutely
(09:14):
paralyzes us. And I think one of the major ironies
of self criticism is that whilst we are constantly putting
ourselves down and very carefully self monitoring every little behavior
for some perceived fault, we rarely level that same amount
or severity of criticism against others. We have no problem
(09:39):
celebrating our friends, accepting their failures, overlooking small things, hyping
them up, but we cannot treat ourselves in the same way.
There's actually a very rational scientific explanation behind why this
may be. Some researchers have proposed that we actually use
(10:01):
different areas of our brain for judging others and judging ourselves,
because we are more attuned to our own behavior for
survival a lot less than the behavior of others. In
one study conducted in the US, they actually examined this
and what they did was they got participants to respond
to a series of situations either from a place of
(10:24):
self criticism or self reassurance. For example, they may have
been told that they just received a rejection letter for
a job, and they were instructed to either speak kindly
to themselves or to self criticize. Whilst they were doing this,
they had them hooked up to an fMRI machine. This
(10:45):
basically examines where blood is kind of flowing in the brain,
and the logic is that when an area of the
brain is active, it needs more blood. So therefore we
can link the current behavior with the specific cortex or region,
and the results reveals this very significant association between self
(11:08):
criticism and the prefrontal cortext the part of our brain
that is involved in regulating our thoughts and our emotions,
but also in error detection and resolution, as well as
behavioral response inhibition, preventing us from doing things that are
life threatening or maybe embarrassing. And what this essentially concluded
(11:32):
is that self criticism, as demeaning and awful as it is,
may actually have an evolutionary role in keeping us safe
from things like dangerous, repetitive behaviors and possibly life threatening errors. However,
when it gets out of control, the opposite is also true.
(11:52):
That's just one kind of biological possibility amongst many. The
other one has to do with temperament and personality. The
leading theory around why we are so hard on ourselves
is that self criticism is a negative personality trait that
we all innately possess. But this trait exists on a
(12:15):
spectrum or a continuum, and those of us who possess
this very loud inner critic a measuring higher on self
criticism as a personality trait. Some of that comes from
our temperament, maybe our DNA, you know, the mystery of
where personality comes from. It's still a bit of a
black box in psychology, but we do know that personality
(12:37):
traits like self criticism are a combination of nature, that
being our genetics and nurture, how we were raised, and
that really leads into what I think is one of
the biggest determining factors and reasons why some of us
are so deeply self critical adverse childhood experiences and childhood upbringing.
(13:02):
We know so much more now about the kind of environment,
that kind of reassurance and love that children need to grow,
especially compared to a few generations ago. Studies have continuously
shown across so many different areas that persistent parental criticism,
(13:23):
being constantly put down, even childhood bullying, instills what we
would call a negative self image and feelings of inherent
inadequacy that continue into childhood. I think it used to
be a very common belief that excessive criticism made a
child stronger, and we know now that it doesn't. It
(13:45):
just doesn't. And the reason some of us are so
hard on ourselves likely originates from those early relationships with
caregivers and also with peers. So as children, we really
internalize the words spoken to the language used against us,
the treatment, and how we incorporate those things as truth
(14:07):
because we've never been told any differently. Our only source
of self esteem is those around us. And when we're
told that we're just not that smart, that we're ugly,
that we're embarrassing, that we're worthless, these things become part
of our belief system and part of our self concept.
Those early years are just so formative because it's during
(14:30):
that time that our brains are laying those important neural pathways.
They're understanding our relationship to others, and we really need
the validation of our caregivers. We need a loving environment
to feel good about ourselves, or when we don't receive that,
the consequences are lifelong. And it's not just this kind
(14:50):
of emotional neglect or verbal scolding that's influential. When we
face really high expectations from our family, you know, the
need for perfect grades, to do a few sports, play
a couple of musical instruments, to be excellent at all
of them. Our standards for ourselves are incredibly out of
(15:10):
proportion to what we're sustainably able to accomplish. But yet
our sense of self has been hijacked for this need
for approval and to be perfect, and we begin to
internalize these expectations and self police through excessive criticism. It's
also influenced by how our parents or caregivers treat praise
(15:33):
and love. In psychology, there is this important distinction between
conditional and unconditional positive regards. So conditional positive regard means
only giving someone love, giving them support, praise, warmth when
they meet certain expectations or a set of conditions. Love
(15:54):
is conditional on our ability to meet some standard. It's
not freely given. In contrast, we have unconditional positive regard,
and that means loving someone supporting them regardless of whether
they meet our expectations. We can see why conditional positive
regard might be especially harmful as a child, and also
(16:18):
contribute to that self criticism later in adulthood. If you
learnt that love and warmth and support, all of which
are basic human needs, were something to be earned, we
become exceptionally good at blaming ourselves when we fail, and
we're found on deserving. This kind of attitude teaches us
(16:39):
that it is our actions that caused us to be neglected,
our actions that caused love and praise to be withheld.
Something about us is wrong, something about us is bad,
and we carry that with us for a long long time.
Like I always say, the words spoken to us in
childhood become the words we speak to ourselves in adulthood.
(17:02):
And I found that over and over again to be true,
especially when we dive further into the psychology behind negative
self talk that in a critic we were speaking of before.
That voice can often sound a lot like the voice
of our parents, or a judgmental friend, a bad ex
partner who put us down. Sometimes we don't realize how
(17:24):
much we take on that apparent feedback of others, and
they don't even need to be there or be saying
those things for you to still think about them, for
you to still believe them. I remember back in like
I don't know, a couple of years ago, I was
dating this guy right when I started this podcast. I
think I was like six months into recording, and he
(17:47):
said to me one day, he was like, your podcast
is so generic, I don't think anyone is ever going
to relate to it. And his voice runs through my
head almost every time I publish an episode, every time
I do something different, every time I take a risk,
no one's ever going to listen, no one's going to relate.
But it's not his voice anymore, right, It's my voice now,
(18:09):
because even though you know I tried to shake it
off at the time, I loved that person. I unfortunately
trusted his opinion, and some part of me truly did
believe him and took that so deeply and so to heart,
and I think it was in the aftermath of that
situation that I became particularly negative towards myself and quite
(18:32):
self deprecating. Self deprecation is an element of this that
I think is really important to discuss because it has
so many nuanced, hidden links to self criticism that are
rarely spoken about. I think a lot of us like
to use self deprecating jokes and humor at our expense,
and we think it's funny, right, it keeps us humble,
(18:55):
and it might seem fairly harmless to call ourselves stupid
in front of our friends, to kind of downgrade our achievements.
But really that's actually just out in a critic, masking
as being humorous or being humble. At the end of
the day, it's still a negative self evaluation, even if
you're joking. There's another explanation proposed by researchers that we
(19:18):
adopt self deprecation in an attempt to appear more modest
and seem really agreeable. But I also find that we
use this kind of language, these kinds of jokes, to
protect our self esteem and our ego. If I already
think that about myself, no one can use it against me.
If I tear myself down first in a social situation,
(19:42):
no one else can do it for me. It's an armor.
It's a protective coping mechanism against the judgment of others.
Sometimes I think we can even use it in some
ways as a form of motivation, if you naturally have
a negative self perception, telling yourself you're awful, that you're
going to fail. For some people, I think it can
(20:04):
compel them to perform, to do better, to be better.
That's not a particularly sustainable way of motivating ourselves, though,
because when we fail, we just reinforce that belief system,
and when we succeed, it's a fluke. That voice isn't
going anywhere. That's the cycle, right. It's like drinking more
(20:25):
alcohol and expecting it to help you become sober. Using
self criticism to push yourself or to eliminate your negative
self appraisal is not going to make you love yourself anymore.
I want to discuss two other reasons why we are
so hard on ourselves after this break, as well as
(20:47):
some of the best ways to kind of break out
of this habit, to liberate us from that really nasty
inner voice telling us will never be good enough, will
never succeed. So all of that and more in just
a second. There are two final psychological explanations that I
(21:08):
want to discuss super briefly. The first is overthinking and
over analyzing, and the second is the power of social
comparison as a fuel for our inner critic. If you
listened to my episode on overthinking, it's an absolute favorite
of mine, you'll know that it's sometimes possible to almost
(21:30):
be too self aware, and one of the consequences of
that is being way too hard on ourselves, especially in
relation to how we think others perceive us. Our brain
tricks us into thinking that overthinking a scenario, examining every
possible way we've messed up or done something wrong, will
(21:51):
prepare us for the future. It will allow us to
prepare for the judgment of others. It links to the
sphere of uncertainty firstly, but also our innate, evolutionary fear
of the opinions of others, And I think that's really crucial.
Other's opinions, they are important. Let's not discredit that entirely. Historically,
(22:15):
we needed the approval of others to remain in the
in group, to be accepted and therefore protected by the herd.
And it's been proposed that our tendency for negative self
talk evolved from this instinct. This fascinating article, I'll leave
it in the description. It summed it up perfectly. Negative
self talk has served an evolutionary purpose. It comes from
(22:40):
this evolutionary brain circuit in our brain. It's called the
default mode network, and it helped people survive by aligning
their interests with the group norms. We needed to follow
the standards of the group. We need to constantly monitor
our behavior so that if we step out of line,
we can correct ourselves before we're ostracized. That is why
(23:01):
the default mode is self directed and critical. It's trying
to keep you alive. There's also that element of social comparison.
Our inner critic loves, absolutely loves using others as fuel
for our own insecurities. How do I know that I'm
a terrible person, Well, look at her. She's obviously incredible
(23:24):
and kind, and since I'm not like her, I must
be awful. How do I know I'm a failure? Well,
look at all of that they've achieved. Look at them.
How do I know that I'm unattractive? Well, she is beautiful.
I don't look like her, so I must be unattractive,
I must be ugly. I think that the important thing
is to realize that the existence of someone else's value
(23:46):
and success is not evidence of our inadequacy. Those two
things are completely separate. Our value and their value are
not mutually exclusive. No one is living the same way.
And beyond that, I think an important thing to remember
is that no one is looking at you as closely
(24:06):
or judging you as closely as you are judging yourself.
Our in a critic benefits from us feeling like we're
at the center of the universe, because that just adds
weight to how important our actions and behaviors are, and
therefore how perfect they need to be. That's not true.
No one is looking at you. I promise we are
(24:28):
all just as self obsessed as the next person. And
there's this thought experiment I always like to do when
I start to really worry and overthink about the opinions
of others, and that is, when was the last time
you noticed a mistake someone else made? When was the
(24:48):
last time that you cringed at someone else? And what
was that person's name, what were they wearing? What does
that say? About them, and how often do you actually
think about it genuinely? How often? Because if you're thinking
about someone else's mistakes a lot, that's really not their problem.
(25:09):
That's a you problem. And the saying goes for other
people who are spending their hours judging you, that is
not your problem. And exacerbating or heightening those opinions in
your mind is only going to increase your susceptibility. And
I guess the frequency by which you're hard on yourself?
(25:31):
So how do we stop doing this? How do we
rain in that pesky inner voice that can feel especially hard?
I want to give credit to people who are like,
I don't know if I can do that, because you know,
when we understand the childhood roots and the roots in
so many historical events, childhood bullying, things that we cannot change,
(25:53):
it's really hard to feel like we have agency or
control over this thought pattern. But I do believe that
we can change our negative self perception. Those are our thoughts.
We should feel empowered and able to control them. Additionally,
I think when we think good things about ourselves, it
(26:14):
kind of makes us this like amazing person, Like I
don't know if there is a theory behind this, like
I haven't really looked into it, so take it with
a grain of salt. But I think anecdotally, I've found
that when I think better things about myself, I think
better things about others. I just kind of have this
like this glow, this energy to me that I find
(26:36):
really attractive and that I would hope others do as well.
Because you already see yourself in a better light, you
feel more respect for yourself, and you demand that respect
from others. So I do think it's really critical that
we step through exactly how we can stop judging ourselves,
being mean to ourselves, and putting ourselves down. I think
(26:56):
our initial instinct when we initially recognize our selves in
a negative thought sparrel, is to ironically be more self critical,
to shame ourselves, criticizing our self criticism comes from that
misguided belief that you have to do something in response
to it, and since we've formed a habit around judgment,
(27:18):
our knee jerk reaction to counteract the self criticism is
to just amp it up, to just add more fuel
to the fire. I think you can either treat your
inner critic as an enemy. You can treat them as
an ally or as neither as just a thing. It's
just something that exists, and I think that taking away
its power, by detaching it from our identity, we regain
(27:42):
the most control. So you need to create kind of
a psychological distance from your self criticism by personifying it.
Give it a name, give it, give it a feature,
give it a face. Maybe call it the little devil.
It could be anything. Just give it a name, treat
it like it's neither an enemy or a friend. It's
(28:02):
just this little creature that exists in your mind who
wanders from room to room. You know, occasionally it pops up,
but you know what's around, and it's not scary, and
you can acknowledge it and say, hi, be like high
little creature, high, little devil, whatever you want to call it,
and then ignore it. It's just like a little critter
that lives in your house. This article in the Harvard
(28:24):
Business Review, which is one of my go to places
for finding some of these studies, an amazing resource if
you are a psychology student, I will say, but it
explains why this personification is so powerful. When we name
our inner critic. This leverages a concept called cognitive diffusion,
(28:44):
and it's a process by which we separate ourselves and
our identity from our thoughts. So diffusion is shown to
reduce discomfort, It reduces stress, It reduces particularly stress around
negative thoughts, and it also promotes psychological flexibility, or the
capacity to be aware and open and to adapt to
(29:08):
your changing emotional circumstances. You know, it's not your thoughts,
do not own you. That's what cognitive diffusion says. Your
thoughts are just a thought. There's also this incredible theory
in psychology called radical self compassion. I could talk about
this idea for ours. It's possibly my new favorite theory,
(29:29):
and it initially arose as just radical compassion, and it
was used to describe a specific type of empathy towards
other people that this philosopher can lamp it. He suggested
that loving others unconditionally kind of has a healing element
to it. When we love others deeply, we can heal them,
(29:51):
We can alleviate what they're going through. And when we
direct that compassion and love towards ourselves, we can heal
ourselves and stop being so hard on ourselves. We do
this by emulating the kind of love we would typically
receive from others and giving that love to ourselves, redirecting it.
(30:11):
We don't need to earn it our self. Compassion is
radical and freely given. Think about it in terms of
the five love languages to kind of structure our thinking.
So those are words of affirmation, quality, time, receiving gifts,
acts of service, and physical touch. You need to adapt
and adopt those love languages and direct them towards yourself.
(30:34):
Speak kind words. Say two things to yourself every day
that are positive. Tell yourself that you are proud of
how far you've come. Tell others that you are proud
of yourself, as you would say that you are proud
of your friends or your family members. I would also
say make time to spend with your thoughts. My favorite
(30:55):
activity is solo dates. And one of my friends, claud
who is on the show so recently shared this amazing
practice that they have where once a month they go
to a different Italian restaurant in Sydney and get a
glass of wine a pasta and they journal about how
they're feeling and where they see the next month going.
(31:16):
That is self love, that is self compassion, and it
counteracts that negative self image. You know. That's adapt those
further by yourself a little trait every now and again,
not because you've worked hard for it, not because you've
been quote unquote good, but because you deserve to have
nice things. You deserve to feel happy. Make your bed
(31:38):
in the morning, clean your room in the evening because
you know that your future self will thank you the
same way that you would want others to do upon you.
With acts of service you can do upon to yourself,
and finally, give yourself physical touch. This sounds really strange
sometimes when I explain it to people, but which actually
(32:00):
activates our parasympathetic nervous system. That is what helps us
exit flight or flight mode, and it helps us feel
safe and calm. And we can physically self sooth and
create that same reaction by doing things like placing one
hand over our heart and the other hand over our
shoulder and just giving a tight squeeze or caressing our
(32:22):
own face. That is radical self compassion. It's saying you
don't need to earn the love that you give yourself.
It is freely given, It is yours. If you don't
see how this relates to minimizing your inner critic, I
want to explain a little bit further. We know that
one of the root causes of being hard on ourselves
(32:43):
is feeling like you are undeserving of love or empathy,
or seeking validation from others because you're of childhood deprivation,
or an intense pressure to prove yourself, or bullying. But
when you institute radical self compassion, you give yourself the
permission that maybe others haven't given you to feel good,
(33:05):
to celebrate yourself, to be loved. And before we ask
others to do that for us, we need to find
a way to reach that conclusion and deliver that feeling
on an individual level. And there have been so many
experiments that have shown self compassion reduces the negative effects
of shame and self criticism, and it's even created its
(33:29):
own type of therapeutic practice called compassion focused therapy. So
there you go look into that as well. I find
that is so fascinating. Some other strategies are to do
a bit of a mental and social detox. Sometimes it's
the things in our environment that are causing us to
be excessively negative, maybe a particularly strained toxic friendship or
(33:56):
a bad habit that is bringing forward a lot of guilt.
So do a bit of a stock of your life
what feels good, what doesn't? What is creating a negative
thought spiral? And is it possible to eliminate this from
your life. One of the things that my therapist actually
said to me as well is like, and what days
do you feel the best about yourself? And what are
(34:17):
you doing on those days? What are you wearing on
those days? And on what days are you feeling bad
about yourself? What do you do on those days? What
are you wearing, who are you interacting with, what are
you eating? All of those little things really do contribute
to our self image on a day to day basis. Also,
further to that idea kind of of not treating self
(34:38):
criticism like an enemy. Another way to bring it under
our control is to almost counterintuitively give ourselves the occasional
permission to be a bit mean. You can't always quit
cold turkey, especially if that negative self talk is a
(35:00):
deeply ingrained thought pattern. So instead, give yourself five minutes
a day to think those negative thoughts. If you really
can't break out of them, contain the habit, and then
you can be like, Okay, I gave myself five minutes.
I did that. I let myself feel bad, I let
myself be cruel, and that part of my day is done.
(35:23):
Those thoughts are going to remain in that moment, and
my life is going to go on. It's also important
to just be neutral towards your thoughts, especially as they
relate to your perceived failures or imperfections. A thought is
just a thought. It's not the truth. You can think it,
and you don't have to believe it. It can just exist.
(35:45):
That was a really powerful realization for me, not just
in relation to my tendency to be hard on myself,
but also how I treat self doubt and anxiety and
even body dysmorphia and insecurity. Just because I think something
about myself does not make it true, and I think
(36:06):
all of those practices are incredibly liberating. We deserve to
have a peaceful mind. I think we can be our
own worst enemy. We can really take on the feedback
of others and make it our own and criticize as
a way to almost protect ourselves, but also to humble
ourselves and to make ourselves feel less than. You are
(36:28):
not the only one, I promise. I think that this
is highly common in this generation, especially because we have
so many points to elicit social comparison. Like I talk
about the prominence of social media all the time. But
you know, it used to be that we could only
really view those in our in our community and in
our surroundings. And then we had the Internet, but it
(36:48):
was always in one corner of the house on the computer.
And now suddenly we can walk around every day with
the phone glued to our hands. And if at any
point we want to feel bad, we want to judge ourselves,
we can find a million ways to do that. We
can look at a million different pictures of other people's
perfect lives and perfect bodies and perfect jobs and just
(37:09):
feel inherently really crappy. So I don't think that that
is forever. I think that's something that we can act
out against and we can push back against. And I
just hope that this episode gave you some valuable insight
firstly and psycho education, but also some tips and some strategies.
Like I said, radical self compassion life changing, so life changing.
(37:32):
Cognitive diffusion also incredible. So this episode was definitely one
that I really enjoyed researching and putting together. As always,
if you enjoyed it and you think someone in your
life might enjoy it as well, please please feel free
to send them a link to this episode. You never
know what they'll take from it. Also, again, I'm going
to plug the Poetreon because I would love to see
(37:54):
more of my loyal listeners. Over there. You get access
to bonus episodes as content and newsletter, all of the
episode transcripts. You can vote on upcoming episodes free merch
and it's as little as one dollar a month, so
it goes a long way when a lot of people contribute.
I'll leave a link in the episode description and please
(38:15):
feel free to leave a five star review on Apple, Spotify,
wherever you're listening right now. If you did enjoy this episode,
we will be back next week. I will see you then.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is great to have
you here. Back for another episode. Today, we are talking
about something I think all of us have struggled with
at some point in our lives, and that is why
we are so hard on ourselves. Like all the time.
(00:49):
It feels like this is the generation of self criticism
as humans, and I think particularly in our twenties, where
often our harshest critics. We tirelessly scrutinize every little decision,
every action, every outcome in our lives. Why am I
such a failure? Why did I say that? Why don't
(01:10):
I look like them? I must be doing something wrong?
And we constantly strive for perfection, expecting ourselves to reach
these impossible standards that we've never really held for anyone
else in our lives. But I think it's really interesting
to examine why we put ourselves through this. What kind
of drives this in a critic, in this relentless pursuit
(01:33):
of being flawless or perfect. The other irony of self
criticism that I find really fascinating but also a bit
disturbing or interesting, is that we speak to ourselves in
a way that we would never dream of doing so
to others. So why do we find it so hard
to give ourselves the same grace, the same love, the
(01:54):
same forgiveness that we give people like our family, like
our friends, like our partners. So today we are going
to peel back the layers of our inner critic and
examine some of the evolutionary, biological, social roots of why
we are so hard on ourselves. A lot of the
theory says that it may actually come down to survival,
(02:19):
whereby we are overly self critical to avoid stepping out
of line or acting against a societal norm so that
we can be accepted, or in the case of things
like self deprecating humor, we use that to make ourselves
feel and seem more agreeable, or to mask our insecurities
(02:41):
and protect ourselves. It all kind of comes down to,
at the end of the day, our existence as social creatures,
and further to that, of course, our childhood. The words
spoken to us as children, either by parents, by peers,
by teachers, they become the words we speak to ourselves
(03:03):
as adults. And a lot of that has to do
with feeling like we need to earn love, we need
to earn support, to earn the good things in our
lives and be absolutely perfect or else we're not worth
that kind of treatment. So let's discuss We're going to
talk about the origins of this nasty in a critic,
(03:26):
but also how we can silence that in a voice.
This episode, it's not about dwelling in the negativity. It's
about gaining awareness, embracing vulnerability, and ultimately, I think, finding
compassion for ourselves amidst all of our imperfections. I also
really want to deep dive into some pretty I would
(03:46):
say innovative new therapeutic practices that have come about recently,
including radical self compassion and cognitive diffusion. These are both
amazing practices and skill that can help us kind of
silence that little mean voice in our head. I'm really
keen for this episode. I hope you are too, So
(04:09):
without further ado, let's get into the psychology behind why
we are so hard on ourselves. I think I've recently
become quite cognizant of the fact that, for the longest time,
maybe the majority of my life, I have always been
(04:30):
my own worst critic, the loudest voice in my head,
constantly drowning out all the positive things in my life
with negative predictions and self doubt, kind of honing that
spotlight in on everything that I'm doing wrong and ignoring
all the good things. That even got to the point
where I was becoming self critical about how much I
(04:51):
was self critical. I would have these thoughts about how
I was so stupid or I'd messed up, and then
an even louder voice would jump in and and scold
me for being like that, and neither of these voices
was particularly kind or helpful. So I've also become really
fascinated with the why. As someone who is obviously really
(05:14):
interested in psychology, it can be really hard to not
seek an explanation for these kinds of behaviors and know
that there is possibly a very logical, scientific, robust underpinning
or kind of cause. I think it also minimizes I
think some of the shame and the personal blame that
(05:34):
often accompanies self criticism and in this instance. There are
so many explanations that explain why we are so hard
on ourselves. So self criticism. It's this tendency to evaluate
ourselves extremely harshly and to scrutinize our actions, our performance,
(05:56):
our behavior, our body, our relationship, most every aspects of
our lives. It's distinct from self awareness and the occasional
self policing in that it's a very automatic self criticism,
self blame. It often feels like it's beyond our control
(06:17):
and our default in any situation. Our default mental pattern
is to actively blame ourselves and find our faults rather
than see a situation objectively. B it's excessively negative and maladaptive.
It goes against our best interests, and it actually undermines
(06:39):
some of that helpful productive behavior and coping mechanisms. Because
this voice is so unnecessarily cruel. C is that we
believe it, Unlike I think the occasional bad thought about
others that we can dismiss or call ourselves out for.
When we are hard on ourselves, the only person who
(07:03):
can validate that belief is us, and so we tend
to believe these negative thoughts. We tend to really take
them on board because they voice the opinion that is
with us the most in our lives is our own,
so it's the one that we trust the most as well.
And finally, d it negatively impacts our lives. We may
(07:26):
find ourselves skipping social events or going out, not putting
ourselves out there dating people who treat us poorly, or
ruminating on our failures to a point where we can't
move on, and we do become stuck in that moment
and stuck in that thought spiral. All of these things,
I think really detract from the now but also from
(07:48):
our reality, and they make it incredibly hard to be
gentle and to have a kind mind and a really
soft internal space for us to thrive. All of their
stems from what we call in pop psychology, the inner critic,
this sub personality, this almost separate, unconscious entity that judges
(08:10):
and demeans us. The inner critic is the voice in
our head telling us that we are worthless or shaming us.
And it's been theorized that it's actually a manifestation of
our ego, more specifically what Freud called our super ego.
So this super ego is something that we all kind
(08:30):
of develop in early childhood, and it's that part of
us that internalizes all the things that society wants us
to do, or the lessons from our parents, or the scolding,
and it automatically censors our behavior. It's this kind of
unconscious mechanism for regulating our actions, and that's basically where
(08:52):
the inner critic comes from. It's natural to have this
impulse control right, to have our ego over ride some
of those extreme impulses. Otherwise our society would kind of
fall into anarchy. But when that inner critic is given
too much control, instead of moderating certain behaviors, it absolutely
(09:14):
paralyzes us. And I think one of the major ironies
of self criticism is that whilst we are constantly putting
ourselves down and very carefully self monitoring every little behavior
for some perceived fault, we rarely level that same amount
or severity of criticism against others. We have no problem
(09:39):
celebrating our friends, accepting their failures, overlooking small things, hyping
them up, but we cannot treat ourselves in the same way.
There's actually a very rational scientific explanation behind why this
may be. Some researchers have proposed that we actually use
(10:01):
different areas of our brain for judging others and judging ourselves,
because we are more attuned to our own behavior for
survival a lot less than the behavior of others. In
one study conducted in the US, they actually examined this
and what they did was they got participants to respond
to a series of situations either from a place of
(10:24):
self criticism or self reassurance. For example, they may have
been told that they just received a rejection letter for
a job, and they were instructed to either speak kindly
to themselves or to self criticize. Whilst they were doing this,
they had them hooked up to an fMRI machine. This
(10:45):
basically examines where blood is kind of flowing in the brain,
and the logic is that when an area of the
brain is active, it needs more blood. So therefore we
can link the current behavior with the specific cortex or region,
and the results reveals this very significant association between self
(11:08):
criticism and the prefrontal cortext the part of our brain
that is involved in regulating our thoughts and our emotions,
but also in error detection and resolution, as well as
behavioral response inhibition, preventing us from doing things that are
life threatening or maybe embarrassing. And what this essentially concluded
(11:32):
is that self criticism, as demeaning and awful as it is,
may actually have an evolutionary role in keeping us safe
from things like dangerous, repetitive behaviors and possibly life threatening errors. However,
when it gets out of control, the opposite is also true.
(11:52):
That's just one kind of biological possibility amongst many. The
other one has to do with temperament and personality. The
leading theory around why we are so hard on ourselves
is that self criticism is a negative personality trait that
we all innately possess. But this trait exists on a
(12:15):
spectrum or a continuum, and those of us who possess
this very loud inner critic a measuring higher on self
criticism as a personality trait. Some of that comes from
our temperament, maybe our DNA, you know, the mystery of
where personality comes from. It's still a bit of a
black box in psychology, but we do know that personality
(12:37):
traits like self criticism are a combination of nature, that
being our genetics and nurture, how we were raised, and
that really leads into what I think is one of
the biggest determining factors and reasons why some of us
are so deeply self critical adverse childhood experiences and childhood upbringing.
(13:02):
We know so much more now about the kind of environment,
that kind of reassurance and love that children need to grow,
especially compared to a few generations ago. Studies have continuously
shown across so many different areas that persistent parental criticism,
(13:23):
being constantly put down, even childhood bullying, instills what we
would call a negative self image and feelings of inherent
inadequacy that continue into childhood. I think it used to
be a very common belief that excessive criticism made a
child stronger, and we know now that it doesn't. It
(13:45):
just doesn't. And the reason some of us are so
hard on ourselves likely originates from those early relationships with
caregivers and also with peers. So as children, we really
internalize the words spoken to the language used against us,
the treatment, and how we incorporate those things as truth
(14:07):
because we've never been told any differently. Our only source
of self esteem is those around us. And when we're
told that we're just not that smart, that we're ugly,
that we're embarrassing, that we're worthless, these things become part
of our belief system and part of our self concept.
Those early years are just so formative because it's during
(14:30):
that time that our brains are laying those important neural pathways.
They're understanding our relationship to others, and we really need
the validation of our caregivers. We need a loving environment
to feel good about ourselves, or when we don't receive that,
the consequences are lifelong. And it's not just this kind
(14:50):
of emotional neglect or verbal scolding that's influential. When we
face really high expectations from our family, you know, the
need for perfect grades, to do a few sports, play
a couple of musical instruments, to be excellent at all
of them. Our standards for ourselves are incredibly out of
(15:10):
proportion to what we're sustainably able to accomplish. But yet
our sense of self has been hijacked for this need
for approval and to be perfect, and we begin to
internalize these expectations and self police through excessive criticism. It's
also influenced by how our parents or caregivers treat praise
(15:33):
and love. In psychology, there is this important distinction between
conditional and unconditional positive regards. So conditional positive regard means
only giving someone love, giving them support, praise, warmth when
they meet certain expectations or a set of conditions. Love
(15:54):
is conditional on our ability to meet some standard. It's
not freely given. In contrast, we have unconditional positive regard,
and that means loving someone supporting them regardless of whether
they meet our expectations. We can see why conditional positive
regard might be especially harmful as a child, and also
(16:18):
contribute to that self criticism later in adulthood. If you
learnt that love and warmth and support, all of which
are basic human needs, were something to be earned, we
become exceptionally good at blaming ourselves when we fail, and
we're found on deserving. This kind of attitude teaches us
(16:39):
that it is our actions that caused us to be neglected,
our actions that caused love and praise to be withheld.
Something about us is wrong, something about us is bad,
and we carry that with us for a long long time.
Like I always say, the words spoken to us in
childhood become the words we speak to ourselves in adulthood.
(17:02):
And I found that over and over again to be true,
especially when we dive further into the psychology behind negative
self talk that in a critic we were speaking of before.
That voice can often sound a lot like the voice
of our parents, or a judgmental friend, a bad ex
partner who put us down. Sometimes we don't realize how
(17:24):
much we take on that apparent feedback of others, and
they don't even need to be there or be saying
those things for you to still think about them, for
you to still believe them. I remember back in like
I don't know, a couple of years ago, I was
dating this guy right when I started this podcast. I
think I was like six months into recording, and he
(17:47):
said to me one day, he was like, your podcast
is so generic, I don't think anyone is ever going
to relate to it. And his voice runs through my
head almost every time I publish an episode, every time
I do something different, every time I take a risk,
no one's ever going to listen, no one's going to relate.
But it's not his voice anymore, right, It's my voice now,
(18:09):
because even though you know I tried to shake it
off at the time, I loved that person. I unfortunately
trusted his opinion, and some part of me truly did
believe him and took that so deeply and so to heart,
and I think it was in the aftermath of that
situation that I became particularly negative towards myself and quite
(18:32):
self deprecating. Self deprecation is an element of this that
I think is really important to discuss because it has
so many nuanced, hidden links to self criticism that are
rarely spoken about. I think a lot of us like
to use self deprecating jokes and humor at our expense,
and we think it's funny, right, it keeps us humble,
(18:55):
and it might seem fairly harmless to call ourselves stupid
in front of our friends, to kind of downgrade our achievements.
But really that's actually just out in a critic, masking
as being humorous or being humble. At the end of
the day, it's still a negative self evaluation, even if
you're joking. There's another explanation proposed by researchers that we
(19:18):
adopt self deprecation in an attempt to appear more modest
and seem really agreeable. But I also find that we
use this kind of language, these kinds of jokes, to
protect our self esteem and our ego. If I already
think that about myself, no one can use it against me.
If I tear myself down first in a social situation,
(19:42):
no one else can do it for me. It's an armor.
It's a protective coping mechanism against the judgment of others.
Sometimes I think we can even use it in some
ways as a form of motivation, if you naturally have
a negative self perception, telling yourself you're awful, that you're
going to fail. For some people, I think it can
(20:04):
compel them to perform, to do better, to be better.
That's not a particularly sustainable way of motivating ourselves, though,
because when we fail, we just reinforce that belief system,
and when we succeed, it's a fluke. That voice isn't
going anywhere. That's the cycle, right. It's like drinking more
(20:25):
alcohol and expecting it to help you become sober. Using
self criticism to push yourself or to eliminate your negative
self appraisal is not going to make you love yourself anymore.
I want to discuss two other reasons why we are
so hard on ourselves after this break, as well as
(20:47):
some of the best ways to kind of break out
of this habit, to liberate us from that really nasty
inner voice telling us will never be good enough, will
never succeed. So all of that and more in just
a second. There are two final psychological explanations that I
(21:08):
want to discuss super briefly. The first is overthinking and
over analyzing, and the second is the power of social
comparison as a fuel for our inner critic. If you
listened to my episode on overthinking, it's an absolute favorite
of mine, you'll know that it's sometimes possible to almost
(21:30):
be too self aware, and one of the consequences of
that is being way too hard on ourselves, especially in
relation to how we think others perceive us. Our brain
tricks us into thinking that overthinking a scenario, examining every
possible way we've messed up or done something wrong, will
(21:51):
prepare us for the future. It will allow us to
prepare for the judgment of others. It links to the
sphere of uncertainty firstly, but also our innate, evolutionary fear
of the opinions of others, And I think that's really crucial.
Other's opinions, they are important. Let's not discredit that entirely. Historically,
(22:15):
we needed the approval of others to remain in the
in group, to be accepted and therefore protected by the herd.
And it's been proposed that our tendency for negative self
talk evolved from this instinct. This fascinating article, I'll leave
it in the description. It summed it up perfectly. Negative
self talk has served an evolutionary purpose. It comes from
(22:40):
this evolutionary brain circuit in our brain. It's called the
default mode network, and it helped people survive by aligning
their interests with the group norms. We needed to follow
the standards of the group. We need to constantly monitor
our behavior so that if we step out of line,
we can correct ourselves before we're ostracized. That is why
(23:01):
the default mode is self directed and critical. It's trying
to keep you alive. There's also that element of social comparison.
Our inner critic loves, absolutely loves using others as fuel
for our own insecurities. How do I know that I'm
a terrible person, Well, look at her. She's obviously incredible
(23:24):
and kind, and since I'm not like her, I must
be awful. How do I know I'm a failure? Well,
look at all of that they've achieved. Look at them.
How do I know that I'm unattractive? Well, she is beautiful.
I don't look like her, so I must be unattractive,
I must be ugly. I think that the important thing
is to realize that the existence of someone else's value
(23:46):
and success is not evidence of our inadequacy. Those two
things are completely separate. Our value and their value are
not mutually exclusive. No one is living the same way.
And beyond that, I think an important thing to remember
is that no one is looking at you as closely
(24:06):
or judging you as closely as you are judging yourself.
Our in a critic benefits from us feeling like we're
at the center of the universe, because that just adds
weight to how important our actions and behaviors are, and
therefore how perfect they need to be. That's not true.
No one is looking at you. I promise we are
(24:28):
all just as self obsessed as the next person. And
there's this thought experiment I always like to do when
I start to really worry and overthink about the opinions
of others, and that is, when was the last time
you noticed a mistake someone else made? When was the
(24:48):
last time that you cringed at someone else? And what
was that person's name, what were they wearing? What does
that say? About them, and how often do you actually
think about it genuinely? How often? Because if you're thinking
about someone else's mistakes a lot, that's really not their problem.
(25:09):
That's a you problem. And the saying goes for other
people who are spending their hours judging you, that is
not your problem. And exacerbating or heightening those opinions in
your mind is only going to increase your susceptibility. And
I guess the frequency by which you're hard on yourself?
(25:31):
So how do we stop doing this? How do we
rain in that pesky inner voice that can feel especially hard?
I want to give credit to people who are like,
I don't know if I can do that, because you know,
when we understand the childhood roots and the roots in
so many historical events, childhood bullying, things that we cannot change,
(25:53):
it's really hard to feel like we have agency or
control over this thought pattern. But I do believe that
we can change our negative self perception. Those are our thoughts.
We should feel empowered and able to control them. Additionally,
I think when we think good things about ourselves, it
(26:14):
kind of makes us this like amazing person, Like I
don't know if there is a theory behind this, like
I haven't really looked into it, so take it with
a grain of salt. But I think anecdotally, I've found
that when I think better things about myself, I think
better things about others. I just kind of have this
like this glow, this energy to me that I find
(26:36):
really attractive and that I would hope others do as well.
Because you already see yourself in a better light, you
feel more respect for yourself, and you demand that respect
from others. So I do think it's really critical that
we step through exactly how we can stop judging ourselves,
being mean to ourselves, and putting ourselves down. I think
(26:56):
our initial instinct when we initially recognize our selves in
a negative thought sparrel, is to ironically be more self critical,
to shame ourselves, criticizing our self criticism comes from that
misguided belief that you have to do something in response
to it, and since we've formed a habit around judgment,
(27:18):
our knee jerk reaction to counteract the self criticism is
to just amp it up, to just add more fuel
to the fire. I think you can either treat your
inner critic as an enemy. You can treat them as
an ally or as neither as just a thing. It's
just something that exists, and I think that taking away
its power, by detaching it from our identity, we regain
(27:42):
the most control. So you need to create kind of
a psychological distance from your self criticism by personifying it.
Give it a name, give it, give it a feature,
give it a face. Maybe call it the little devil.
It could be anything. Just give it a name, treat
it like it's neither an enemy or a friend. It's
(28:02):
just this little creature that exists in your mind who
wanders from room to room. You know, occasionally it pops up,
but you know what's around, and it's not scary, and
you can acknowledge it and say, hi, be like high
little creature, high, little devil, whatever you want to call it,
and then ignore it. It's just like a little critter
that lives in your house. This article in the Harvard
(28:24):
Business Review, which is one of my go to places
for finding some of these studies, an amazing resource if
you are a psychology student, I will say, but it
explains why this personification is so powerful. When we name
our inner critic. This leverages a concept called cognitive diffusion,
(28:44):
and it's a process by which we separate ourselves and
our identity from our thoughts. So diffusion is shown to
reduce discomfort, It reduces stress, It reduces particularly stress around
negative thoughts, and it also promotes psychological flexibility, or the
capacity to be aware and open and to adapt to
(29:08):
your changing emotional circumstances. You know, it's not your thoughts,
do not own you. That's what cognitive diffusion says. Your
thoughts are just a thought. There's also this incredible theory
in psychology called radical self compassion. I could talk about
this idea for ours. It's possibly my new favorite theory,
(29:29):
and it initially arose as just radical compassion, and it
was used to describe a specific type of empathy towards
other people that this philosopher can lamp it. He suggested
that loving others unconditionally kind of has a healing element
to it. When we love others deeply, we can heal them,
(29:51):
We can alleviate what they're going through. And when we
direct that compassion and love towards ourselves, we can heal
ourselves and stop being so hard on ourselves. We do
this by emulating the kind of love we would typically
receive from others and giving that love to ourselves, redirecting it.
(30:11):
We don't need to earn it our self. Compassion is
radical and freely given. Think about it in terms of
the five love languages to kind of structure our thinking.
So those are words of affirmation, quality, time, receiving gifts,
acts of service, and physical touch. You need to adapt
and adopt those love languages and direct them towards yourself.
(30:34):
Speak kind words. Say two things to yourself every day
that are positive. Tell yourself that you are proud of
how far you've come. Tell others that you are proud
of yourself, as you would say that you are proud
of your friends or your family members. I would also
say make time to spend with your thoughts. My favorite
(30:55):
activity is solo dates. And one of my friends, claud
who is on the show so recently shared this amazing
practice that they have where once a month they go
to a different Italian restaurant in Sydney and get a
glass of wine a pasta and they journal about how
they're feeling and where they see the next month going.
(31:16):
That is self love, that is self compassion, and it
counteracts that negative self image. You know. That's adapt those
further by yourself a little trait every now and again,
not because you've worked hard for it, not because you've
been quote unquote good, but because you deserve to have
nice things. You deserve to feel happy. Make your bed
(31:38):
in the morning, clean your room in the evening because
you know that your future self will thank you the
same way that you would want others to do upon you.
With acts of service you can do upon to yourself,
and finally, give yourself physical touch. This sounds really strange
sometimes when I explain it to people, but which actually
(32:00):
activates our parasympathetic nervous system. That is what helps us
exit flight or flight mode, and it helps us feel
safe and calm. And we can physically self sooth and
create that same reaction by doing things like placing one
hand over our heart and the other hand over our
shoulder and just giving a tight squeeze or caressing our
(32:22):
own face. That is radical self compassion. It's saying you
don't need to earn the love that you give yourself.
It is freely given, It is yours. If you don't
see how this relates to minimizing your inner critic, I
want to explain a little bit further. We know that
one of the root causes of being hard on ourselves
(32:43):
is feeling like you are undeserving of love or empathy,
or seeking validation from others because you're of childhood deprivation,
or an intense pressure to prove yourself, or bullying. But
when you institute radical self compassion, you give yourself the
permission that maybe others haven't given you to feel good,
(33:05):
to celebrate yourself, to be loved. And before we ask
others to do that for us, we need to find
a way to reach that conclusion and deliver that feeling
on an individual level. And there have been so many
experiments that have shown self compassion reduces the negative effects
of shame and self criticism, and it's even created its
(33:29):
own type of therapeutic practice called compassion focused therapy. So
there you go look into that as well. I find
that is so fascinating. Some other strategies are to do
a bit of a mental and social detox. Sometimes it's
the things in our environment that are causing us to
be excessively negative, maybe a particularly strained toxic friendship or
(33:56):
a bad habit that is bringing forward a lot of guilt.
So do a bit of a stock of your life
what feels good, what doesn't? What is creating a negative
thought spiral? And is it possible to eliminate this from
your life. One of the things that my therapist actually
said to me as well is like, and what days
do you feel the best about yourself? And what are
(34:17):
you doing on those days? What are you wearing on
those days? And on what days are you feeling bad
about yourself? What do you do on those days? What
are you wearing, who are you interacting with, what are
you eating? All of those little things really do contribute
to our self image on a day to day basis. Also,
further to that idea kind of of not treating self
(34:38):
criticism like an enemy. Another way to bring it under
our control is to almost counterintuitively give ourselves the occasional
permission to be a bit mean. You can't always quit
cold turkey, especially if that negative self talk is a
(35:00):
deeply ingrained thought pattern. So instead, give yourself five minutes
a day to think those negative thoughts. If you really
can't break out of them, contain the habit, and then
you can be like, Okay, I gave myself five minutes.
I did that. I let myself feel bad, I let
myself be cruel, and that part of my day is done.
(35:23):
Those thoughts are going to remain in that moment, and
my life is going to go on. It's also important
to just be neutral towards your thoughts, especially as they
relate to your perceived failures or imperfections. A thought is
just a thought. It's not the truth. You can think it,
and you don't have to believe it. It can just exist.
(35:45):
That was a really powerful realization for me, not just
in relation to my tendency to be hard on myself,
but also how I treat self doubt and anxiety and
even body dysmorphia and insecurity. Just because I think something
about myself does not make it true, and I think
(36:06):
all of those practices are incredibly liberating. We deserve to
have a peaceful mind. I think we can be our
own worst enemy. We can really take on the feedback
of others and make it our own and criticize as
a way to almost protect ourselves, but also to humble
ourselves and to make ourselves feel less than. You are
(36:28):
not the only one, I promise. I think that this
is highly common in this generation, especially because we have
so many points to elicit social comparison. Like I talk
about the prominence of social media all the time. But
you know, it used to be that we could only
really view those in our in our community and in
our surroundings. And then we had the Internet, but it
(36:48):
was always in one corner of the house on the computer.
And now suddenly we can walk around every day with
the phone glued to our hands. And if at any
point we want to feel bad, we want to judge ourselves,
we can find a million ways to do that. We
can look at a million different pictures of other people's
perfect lives and perfect bodies and perfect jobs and just
(37:09):
feel inherently really crappy. So I don't think that that
is forever. I think that's something that we can act
out against and we can push back against. And I
just hope that this episode gave you some valuable insight
firstly and psycho education, but also some tips and some strategies.
Like I said, radical self compassion life changing, so life changing.
(37:32):
Cognitive diffusion also incredible. So this episode was definitely one
that I really enjoyed researching and putting together. As always,
if you enjoyed it and you think someone in your
life might enjoy it as well, please please feel free
to send them a link to this episode. You never
know what they'll take from it. Also, again, I'm going
to plug the Poetreon because I would love to see
(37:54):
more of my loyal listeners. Over there. You get access
to bonus episodes as content and newsletter, all of the
episode transcripts. You can vote on upcoming episodes free merch
and it's as little as one dollar a month, so
it goes a long way when a lot of people contribute.
I'll leave a link in the episode description and please
(38:15):
feel free to leave a five star review on Apple, Spotify,
wherever you're listening right now. If you did enjoy this episode,
we will be back next week. I will see you then.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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