Theresa Byrne believes the path to personal improvement is through self-compassion, not self-bullying.
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Compassion. It’s one buzzword that I admit that I adore. I’m glad we live in a time where people in my world are becoming more conscious about themselves, intentional about the things they do and the impact they have, and seeing the power in the thoughts they choose. I’m glad The Good Men Project is all about articles with themes of consciousness. One of my all time favorite articles by Tamara Star was also on compassion.
One of the main components of compassion is the power of being compassionate with yourself.
I see students struggling with self-compassion because there’s a powerful belief or concept that needs to be addressed first. One I’d like to see kicked to the curb immediately if not sooner. We must stop what I call “self-bullying.”
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The thinking goes something like this: “If I tell myself that I’m horrible for making this mistake, then I’ll never do it again.”
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After my brain injury I was given this gem of advice from my concussion doctor, Dr. Kathy Vidlock: “You can’t beat your brain up or get frustrated with it; it’ll stop or delay the healing process. Your brain needs time and space to heal. Getting frustrated at yourself for what you can’t control has a detrimental effect on the healing.”
I saw it in myself, and I’ve seen it in my work. It made perfect sense. I had the epiphany to let go of self-judgement so my brain could find her own way. It was a huge step for me.
There’s a prevalent thought process or belief many of us were programmed into (culturally or through our family.) We believe the way to get better at life is to yell at ourselves for any mistakes, real or perceived. We believe we can bully ourselves into being better. And my brain was not going to start healing when I was bullying her, when she was always in trouble for her failings. So I asked myself, How’s that going to work for us?”
The thinking goes something like this: “If I tell myself that I’m horrible for making this mistake, then I’ll never do it again.” There’s a belief that by being hard on ourselves, we’ll stop doing whatever doesn’t work. That we’ll immediately see the error of our ways and will never make that same mistake again.
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Self-judgement isn’t going to help or change us. And by allowing ourselves compassion, we are then able to offer it to others.
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It might sound something like this: “Stupid stupid stupid. Why did I say that? Why did I do that? Why did I eat that? Why did I (fill in the blank)? Why didn’t I (fill in a new blank)? I can’t believe I’ve screwed up so much this time. I’m a screw up. I’m an idiot. This is awful. I’ll never get what I want. What was I thinking?”
I understand the reasoning behind it, and I believe there’s power in making apologies when we have made a mess somewhere. But beating ourselves up doesn’t help. Sometimes the person we need to apologize to is the face in the mirror. Yeah, you know the one. The one looking back out at you. Self-judgement isn’t going to help or change us. And by allowing ourselves compassion, we are then able to offer it to others.
Let me repeat that: BEATING OURSELVES UP isn’t going to help or change us.
For every one negative thought we have about ourselves, positive psychologists say we need 7-10 positive thoughts to counteract it. And what happens when those thoughts carry the weight of something negative we believe about ourselves? That our own self is saying to us? It’ll take even more work to release the negative effects.
But it can be done. Starting now.
Stop bullying. Start with yourself.
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Photo: Flickr/Frank Douwes
The post Why We Need to Ease Up on Ourselves appeared first on The Good Men Project.