Compassionate Living Psychology

I often tell my clients that based on my observation of people from so many different backgrounds throughout my career, most of us are experts in finding faults with ourselves: I hate myself for not doing better, how could I be so dumb, I am hopeless when it comes to sports…

The sad fact is that most of us would be appalled if we hear someone calling others dumb and hopeless, and we simply do not use the word “hate” lightly. These are serious accusations that are hurtful and to a certain extent, emotionally abusive when we say these punitively and/or repeatedly. However, we somehow believe it is alright to say these to ourselves.

Self-criticisms could be a safety behaviour we adopt to protect ourselves. We usually do this with a hope of preventing mistakes, perfecting our performance, or indicating submission to someone of a higher position to secure their forgiveness. For some people, blaming ourselves is safer than holding others responsible when things go wrong.

Self-criticism could be a habit we learn from a harsh and critical caretaker. Hearing negative feedbacks repeatedly throughout the years of upbringing, it is difficult to stay immuned and internalize none of the comments attacking our value and capability. Underlying self-criticism, there is often a certain sense of insecurity: Will I be shamed and ridiculed? How should I handle disapproval? I was always told I am wrong, so that must be true? Even when you rationally know that this is not true, it is not easy to free ourselves from these old traps.

Sometimes it could become a superstition-like habit to attack ourselves: We may hold hesitations if being self-critical can indeed protect us and ensure that we would not make mistakes, but we still do it because we “feel like” it is better to be safe than sorry. We can become particularly sensitive to instances when we try to be nice to ourselves but things do not seem to go well. However, we may not remember the times when we stopped being self-critical and still did well, or the times when we were self-critical yet the outcome was less favourable than we wished.

If the “safety” of self-criticism comes at a cost of poor self-view, anxiety, and depressive feelings, would you tell your friend or children that it is a fair deal and a reasonable price to pay?

Be kinder to ourselves does not mean ignoring our weakness and pretending that shortcomings do not exist. However, we can still take away the judging elements when we reflect on our areas to improve in neutral and objective terms.

Instead of “I am hopeless when it comes to sports,” we can say “I am not good at sports.” Without calling ourselves dumb, we can say “I could have considered it more thoroughly.” Rather than saying that “I hate myself”, we can say “I feel regretful.”

If you find it hard to modify your internal dialogue, think about what you would say to a friend, a family member, a colleague, or a mentee. One kind of self-compassionate act is, do not talk to yourself in a way that you would not talk to others.

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