In my teens and 20s I wanted to change most things about me, even my name. I remember sitting on my bed in my flat, writing out potential new names, keen for a totally new identity. My inner critic was an unforgiving, brutal bitch.
I hope you don’t relate to that feeling, that vicious inner life that demands an impossible, non-existent perfection, but I meet so many people who do. So, I’m writing this is for you.
Younger You Maybe Wasn’t So Bad??
Much of the work I’ve done in developing self-compassion began with finding forgiveness for younger me – the me who was desperate for approval, lost for a purpose, and always apologising and over-compensating. The me who made so many rookie mistakes and dissected herself over every one.
I fell into awful relationships because I didn’t know what a good one was, tried things that didn’t work, with all good intent, but then punished myself over them, seeing myself as a failure.
In conversations I would often second-guess myself, anxious I might be coming across as uninteresting or inauthentic. After, I would post-mortem myself ad nauseam, exploring every way I’d possibly looked ridiculous - even if there was no evidence for that at all.
Now I can see, with the benefit of hindsight, that these ideas about myself were stories I created. They were not truths, or facts, but a slanted narrative I put together out of anxiety to be loved, perfectionism and fear of humiliation. I cherry picked instances to use as evidence of not-good-enough, and to create stories that fed my whirlpool of self-doubt.
Telling the Alternative Stories about Yourself to Yourself
Now I see there were many other potential pieces of ‘evidence’ about me that I could have chosen instead of the fear-based and self-pity ones. I could have constructed those other pieces of information to push forward any one of many alternative narratives as my defining one, if I’d chosen to. I could have gathered all the evidence for liking myself more. I could have noticed all the instances where good things happened and I did good things. I could have collected joys and rejected false starts as merely experiments. I do now.
Now, I let the supportive, helpful stories win every time. I’m no Ned Flanders, the less helpful stuff is still there. It needs to be. That’s human. But it doesn’t dominate.
If you can’t be kind to yourself ‘cos it’s too cheesy, start with neutral. I mean, just don’t be cruel.
Otherwise You Live in Grief
It took a long time for me to realise that when you reject parts of yourself, especially big parts for a long time, other parts of you understandably grieve their loss. You grieve the loss of parts of yourself until you start to allow some reintegration and acceptance again.
I got into cycles of feeling disgusted with myself a lot, then feeling angry and hopeless about that, in a long-lasting story of shame and grief over feeling that way. This grieving and disconnection is at the root of so much mental illness and human suffering.
What Can You Do?
Therapy
Consider therapy, if you haven’t yet, someone who will hear you and help you to forgive your perceived flaws and mistakes by reminding you’re a normal human, not someone outstandingly unworthy and imperfect.
Tell the therapist that’s what you’re there for, straight up, that you need to start liking yourself and stop torturing yourself with rejection and criticism, because enough. You have to start finding the other stories that you’re overlooking.
Write It Out
Write about how you’re feeling. Get it all onto paper or screen. Read it back as many times as you like. See that it is all OUT of you. It isn’t you,. doesn’t define your character.
See that how we see things, including ourselves, is a constructed story an interpretation of influences and events, not the only perspective, not the only truth. It is possible to look up and see another perspective over time. Start by working with your awareness of the stories you tell, your inner dialogue and questioning it rather than swallowing it.
Compassion for the Child You
Make it a practice to imagine your younger self when you were really little and vulnerable – that kid you is still a part of you now, longing for love and acceptance from adult you.
If you are rejecting you, cruel to you, that beautiful child you is grieving the loss of your care and acceptance on some level.
Imagine helping yourself as a child, reassuring the kid you were, that they will recover from any missteps, if they allow themselves compassion. Look at pictures of yourself as a child if it helps you connect to this work. Have mercy on yourself.
Every child is born good enough, worthy of the same compassion as anyone else.
Pay attention to your self-talk
If it’s difficult to be kind to yourself in your self-talk and therefore your inner attitude to yourself, please consider whether you would speak to anyone else in the way you speak to yourself inside.
Would you regularly tell a friend all the things you think are not good enough about them, somehow expecting that was going to be useful to them?
Would it bring you closer together to treat them that way, make you feel peaceful, increase trust, or split you apart?
Unlikely, you’d consistently treat them poorly, right? Because you know it would hurt them, damage your trust and possibly even end the relationship.
So why keep doing to ourselves what we wouldn’t do to another, especially when we know it doesn’t work for us.
Might be better to just have one rule of compassion for everyone then, including ourselves. Agree?
Inner Critics are Slippery
A Warning:
When you’re becoming aware of your self-talk and you’re questioning old, unhelpful stories that shame or hurt you, be vigilant with your inner bully, mean girl, inner critic, whatever you want to call him or her.
I was speaking with a very insightful patient recently who told me that she is highly aware of her unhelpful self-talk, which is great. Problem was, when she noticed herself chastising or criticising herself, she reacted by criticising and attacking herself for that.
The conversation in her poor head went something like:
“You’re shit, you’re gonna fail. How did you ever even get into uni? Maybe you should drop out…”
To which she responded to herself, “Oh, no, you’re being critical to yourself! You’re not meant to do that! You idiot! You know better than that! You are so fucking useless…etc”
Can you see why the beautiful, clever woman was caught in a whirlpool of low self-esteem and grief?
Once she saw what was happening and how imprisoning it was, she could start teaching herself to respond to her self-talk more compassionately, with something like:
“Oh, self-criticism, eh? Not helpful. Let’s let that go and think about more helpful, practical things I can focus on to feel more on top of my study today…”
Re-parenting some parts of you
A good deal of the work of personal growth is akin to re-parenting the parts of ourselves that are crying out for recognition and acceptance. It doesn’t necessarily mean our parents didn’t do it right, although maybe.
Most parents do their very best, but that doesn't mean they get the parenting spot on for each child, in every circumstance. Even if they do, the world comes in and we construct our stories according to our vulnerabilities and biases. At a certain point, we must become our own parent-like nurturer.
True Self-care = self-compassion and Nurture
What does it mean to you, to give yourself the re-parenting, the loving self-care, that's necessary to your wellbeing, in practical terms?
Start with thinking about what gives you comfort every day - not distraction, not treats, but deeper nurturing. (Of course enjoy your treats and distractions in measure, but be clear they’re not self-care.)
Self-care is inner, deeper stuff, like saying no to unhelpful self-talk. Telling your critical inner voice to sit down and stop hogging the limelight in your head.
Instead, work on mindful questioning and finding new perspectives on your old unhelpful stories:
What kind of encouragement were you looking for from a parent or mentor, to feel confident, more alive as a kid?
Did you receive that kind of support as a child? What about as a teenager? Can you cut yourself some slack if you lacked resources? I mean is it even realistic to believe humans shouldn’t make mistakes finding their way?
What struggles did you face, and what kind of support would have helped you the most?
What did the younger you want and need?
Think about how you can be the person you needed to mentor and advise you, when you were younger. Give yourself that love and support now.
Accepting your Human-ess Remedies Shame
Were you able to be open with parents, or somebody supportive, about the real things in your life growing up, or did you feel you had to hide and feel ashamed of normal things, like periods, masturbation, sex, unhelpful thoughts, death, and all the other stuff some people are scared to talk about.
Not being able to be open and talk really set us up to feel ashamed of ourselves for just existing because we grow up feeling we have to hide normal stuff from our closest people. It makes people feel alone to not talk, to not be able to embrace being human. Push back against that. Shame is not good for your health. The more you can talk with supportive people about things, the more you can dissipate shame. That’s deep self-care.
Find Self-care and Self-acceptance in Flow
Flow is deep self-nurture
Maximise the time and energy you put into things that give you flow.
If possible, ignite your interest in at least one or two things in your life that don’t necessarily require other people to be present for you to enjoy them. Then you are cultivating special, private pleasures of your own to run to with joy and anticipation when you are alone.
It strengthens your relationship with yourself, helps you like you and value your own company when you immerse yourself regularly in deep pleasurable challenges that take all your focus.
Read up more on Flow here. It’s very good medicine. I take it every day.
Love to you.
The soundtrack to this piece is called Flow and is, I think, sublime.
Wonderful insightful writing. Having a T to fall back on has been a lifesaver for me as my inner critic totally dominated and ruined my life. My real worry now is I am having the first talk of how would I feel about ending my regular sessions with my T. The thought frightens my inner child immensely.