Morning Vibes With Dr Jerry - The First-Episode 145/Stop Criticizing Yourself And Others

Monday                         5th February 2018

Morning Vibes With Dr. Jerry - the First

Hello and welcome to #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst-Episode 145

Title:          If You Have To Choose Yourself First This Year, These Are The 8 Things To Throw Overboard - Stop Criticizing Yourself And Others

In continuation of our discussion on the habits to drop like a piece of hot charcoal if you have to choose yourself first this 2018.

Yesterday we took a look at Stopping Negative Self Talk and discussed in details what it is and how it can be nipped in the bud to allow for self growth

Today we are taking a look at Stop Criticizing Yourself And Others

What Is Self Criticism

Self-criticism, or the act of pointing out one’s perceived flaws, can be a healthy way to increase self-awareness and achieve personal growth, but it may also prove a barrier to one’s self esteem and peace of mind.

Self-criticism may often help facilitate the process of learning from one’s mistakes and can also be helpful when one attempts to overcome areas of weakness or unwanted habits.

A high level of self-criticism that prevents individuals from taking risks, asserting opinions, or believing in their own abilities may be unhelpful or detrimental to well-being.

Understanding Self-Criticism

The Levels of Self-Criticism Scale, developed in 2004 by Thompson and Zuroff, measures the two types of self-criticism: comparative and internalized.

Comparative self-criticism typically involves comparing oneself to others and finding one’s self to be lacking.

People who are self-critical in this way often tend to base their self-esteem on perceptions of the way others feel about them and may view other individuals as superior, critical, and/or hostile.

Operating under the belief that one is viewed in a negative way may lead one's self-image to adapt to reflect this perception. 

Internalized self-criticism, on the other hand, may involve the feeling that one cannot possibly live up to personal ideals or standards or the belief that one is deficient in some way.

Thus, even success may be viewed as failure. For example, an individual who has a high level of internalized self-criticism may receive an A- on a test and still feel unsuccessful, believing that anything less than perfection constitutes failure. 

Examples of Self-Criticism

Self-criticism is typically experienced as negative internal thoughts about one's self or, more specifically, about one’s behaviors or attributes.

When self-critical thoughts apply broadly rather than focus on a particular behavior, they may be more likely to impact well-being negatively.

"I'm a failure."

"I can't do anything right."

"I'm not good enough."

"I'll never get better."

The above statements do not focus on any particular behavior that can be improved upon.

Rather, they apply a negative mindset in an all-encompassing manner.

Therefore, they may be more likely to affect confidence and contribute to the development of both physical and mental health concerns. 

“I shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night.”

“I watched too much TV and didn’t study for my exam. I can’t do that anymore.”

“I scolded my son too harshly. I should remain calm while correcting him in the future.”

“If I keep speeding, I might hurt someone or get a ticket. I should slow down.”

These statements, on the other hand, focus on a particular aspect of behavior that an individual wishes to improve.

They are constructive rather than simply negative. This type of criticism is often more likely to lead to improved behavior and modifications of perceived shortcomings.

 A teacher mentally scolds himself for being too hard on a student, “Why do I always do this? That poor child looks so sullen and all because of me."

A lawyer loses a case and despite having won many others in the past, she tells herself, “I’m good for nothing. I couldn’t win a simple case. I shouldn’t have become a lawyer, I am not fit for the job.”

The food is saltier than it should be, thus causing the husband and father to question his culinary skills, “Gosh, I have done it again. Why can’t I ever get it right? My wife will hate me for this.”

Do these examples sound familiar?

Do you have a similar commentary running in your head?

If so, you may be prone to self-criticism.

It’s great to have goals.

Everyone needs to have things in life they strive to achieve.

But is it necessary to constantly seek perfection in everything and then beat ourselves up for every misstep, or harshly self-criticize for each perceived underachievement?

In healthy doses, self-critique can be helpful; through introspection, we find new ways to improve, better connect with others, and become more self-aware and humane. However, nothing is good when done or taken in excess, especially self-criticism.

The repeated effects of this practice are detrimental; instead of helping you reach your goals or become a better version of yourself, self-criticism belittles you and erodes your peace of mind.

Do you enjoy it when other people judge and critique you? Does it encourage you to thrive or boost your self confidence?

Would you tolerate it if someone bullied your child or harassed your friend?

Without a doubt, these are painful experiences.

So why let the voices in your own head do the same to you? Why be your own bully?

Because that is what you are if you incessantly self-criticize.

No one knows you better than you do; no one knows what hurts you most, or how to attack your weaknesses in the meanest way possible.

We all sometimes doubt our abilities and wish to improve certain aspects of our personalities, attitudes, looks, or skills. It’s normal.

However, constantly thinking of ourselves as worthless or not good enough is very different.

Chronically treating ourselves with scorn and self-loathing can have consequences for our mental well-being, health, and relationships with loved ones.

Where does it come from?

Self bullying arises from lack of compassion and kindness towards oneself.

It is often engendered by painful childhood experiences that left a child with emotional scars.

Children are more vulnerable and susceptible to negativity, so harsh criticism from parents, teachers, or peers can easily shatter their confidence, making them feel insecure or inadequate.

The desire to avoid others’ criticism in the future prods us to set criteria and standards for ourselves, and conditions us to think that we need to be perfect and better than others in order to be loved and appreciated.

Perfectionism in its positive form can help us be more successful, but the negative or self-critical form actually impedes our progress.

Negative self talk and worrying about what others would say can zap the energy needed to become a better you.

The results of five psychological studies demonstrated a consistent pattern of negative relationship between self criticism and goal progress:

Participants reported significantly less progress towards goals when they ranked higher in self-criticism.

A positive relationship between self-oriented perfectionism and goal progress was also established:

When self-criticism was controlled, participants reported significantly more goal progress.

Nobody is perfect, and even the best and brightest make mistakes.

Instead of dwelling on failures, learn from them and move on.

Silence the inner bully that persistently goads you to hurt and neglect yourself.

The following are 5 practices to help you become the best you can be:

1. Focus more on positive self-talk.

Make a conscious effort to stop putting yourself down.

To do that, you need to be more aware of your negative self-talk, those jabbing comments that you make to yourself.

Compliment yourself on the things you do well; acknowledge your achievements, no matter how small.

Make a list at the end of each day of 5 things you did well, that made you happy, or that you are proud of doing.

Write these down and then read them to yourself (out loud if possible) before you go to bed.

This won’t eliminate all negative thinking, but if you can tip the scales toward the positive, it will help keep your energy up.

2. Practice kindness towards yourself.

Being kind to yourself is just as important as being kind to others.

Here's a rule:

Things that you would never say to your loved ones, either out of consideration or for the fear that you might offend them, should never be said to yourself, either.

Imagine the amount of suffering it would cause others to hear these things from you, and realize that you are hurting yourself just as much.

To quote from an old song by Helen Reddy:

“Would you take better care of yourself

Would you be kinder to yourself

Would you be more forgiving of your human imperfections

If you realized your best friend was yourself?”

3. Stop comparing yourself to others.

There is always going to be someone better than you at something. There will be those who are not as proficient as you, too.

If you tend to compare yourself to someone who is the best at what they do, you may be playing a losing game.

We play so many roles throughout our lives that it’s impossible to be better than the other 7 billion human beings at everything.

Accept the fact that you are not perfect, and focus on being the best version of yourself.

4. Think of mistakes as learning opportunities.

Life is an unending process of self-improvement, and mistakes are unavoidable.

It truly is a journey, and just like the longest road trip would involve some mistaken turns, so does your life.

You have many great qualities and many areas for improvement.

See those mistakes as opportunities: They show you what you need to work on to become the best you can be.

5. Be patient with yourself.

It takes time to correct the harmful habits that you have had for most of your life, especially deep-rooted ones like self-criticism.

Considerable effort is required to change the way you think and to foster positive self-talk to get to the calmer, more reasonable you.

Your life is a work in progress, so commit each day to doing something positive for you.

Practice until being naturally good to yourself becomes more comfortable.

Most important, don’t beat yourself up when you don’t do it as well as you “should."

And then to the other matter of criticizing other people, have you noticed that each time you criticize someone (especially those close to you), you are indirectly criticizing yourself? because those faults you find in them that you think warrant your criticism are also the same exact faults which you have but which you are in denial of because of your ego.

Our ego, which operates based on fear, loves denial because it prevents us from tapping into who we really are — the spiritual essence of our true Self.  

While the truth about ourselves can be painful, if we face them, it can set us free.

In the spiritual laws of cause and effect, the Universe simply operates as a mirror of our thoughts and actions. 

As in nature, when you look into a lake, you see a reflection of yourself in the water. 

Just like your water reflection, the consciousness of this Universe works based on the same law of attraction, so when we criticize others, we are really criticizing ourselves. 

Because we are really looking for ourselves in others, for this very reason, our souls choose our spouses, parents, siblings and all the important people in our lives.  

Our fearful ego always tells us to criticize others, so, by putting someone down, we can feel better about ourselves for just two seconds. 

But do we ever really feel better about ourselves when we criticize someone? 

In fact, it actually makes us feel worse about ourselves. 

We are not only criticizing others to displace blame on them for our own shortcomings, but, more importantly, we are crying out for help. 

 Like the baby who cries out for its mother, our souls are the same babies that are crying out to learn lessons that can help our souls grow into the higher level of our Self. 

So when a woman or a man chooses an abusive spouse who makes them feel worthless, she or he is really seeking to learn the lesson of self worth and self love.

However, the lesson becomes futile when we use the relationship to serve our egos by criticizing others.

The first step is to stop criticizing others. As their shortcomings are really our own, we can just observe, understand and make our own internal shifts in positive ways.  

Whenever we choose to criticize, we are increasingly damaging ourselves because we are blocking our own energies from realizing our divine Self.  

A self sabotage, our own self worth decreases every time we criticize others, and we start to lose the power to take control of our lives.

By endlessly criticizing others, we are just digging a deeper grave for ourselves until it becomes so deep that we have no chance of breaking out of it. 

That is what I see in criminal predators, who are the most relentless critics of others and ultimate self haters of themselves. 

They have dug their graves so deep that they have no way of breaking out, so their self hatred becomes manifested in their perpetration of heinous crimes on others.

So before we dig ourselves a grave from which we can not rise, we must stop criticizing others, so we can come back to ourselves.

As the Universe only mirrors our thoughts and energies, have you ever noticed that happy and confident people rarely criticize others because they are just too busy in their own bliss? 

When you’re happy and positive, wonderful things happen in your life, like the better job, better spouse, and just better opportunities. 

Because everything seems to go right with happy people, we envy them. 

Happiness is not exclusive to happy people, it’s exclusive to people who choose to be happy by looking inward and focusing on bettering themselves, rather than criticizing others. 

As the Universe only responds in kind, they get all the “luck” in the world, and their positive energy becomes infectious. 

We can all be that happy person, shining our own beacon out into the world, if we choose to focus our energies inward, rather than outward by criticizing others.

When you criticize others, you are just moving yourself farther away from your own brilliant light within, which is your true Self. 

So when you start criticizing others, take a mirror up to yourself, and you will only see a reflection of that ugly wicked witch and self hate.

Your true inner Being is yearning to shine its light out into the world, so rather than criticize others, mesmerize others with your magnificent Self.

Until I come your way again, this is #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst

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