What to Do the Next Time You Are Being Cruel to Yourself — Part #2

It’s easy to beat yourself up because there is no one there to defend you inside your head. As I talked about in Part #1, we all have a tendency to be too hard on ourselves. Especially when it comes to making mistakes. We say things inside our heads that we would never allow anyone else to ever say to us. And we let ourselves get away with it over and over.

In Part #1 I used a scenario that happens like clockwork in my life. I make a mistake, I drop the ball on something important, or I let someone down. The first thing that happens is this angry little voice in my head pops up with the heart-warming message of…

“Seth, you are so fucking stupid.”

Over the years I have gotten much better with either preventing this message from occurring. I’d estimate it’s less than 1/3 of the time that it still sneaks through. Over the last five years, I noticed when it does pop up in my head, there was a very consistent structure to it.

What do these have in common?

“Seth, you are so fucking stupid.”

“You really are a failure.”

“God, I’m a loser…”

If it doesn’t stand out to you immediately, let me point out that these are being said after I have messed something up. Bungled some situation. Let someone down because of an action I did or didn’t do. But those statements never include that detail.

It’s not, “Seth, forgetting to submit that was stupid.” or “Seth, dropping your keys down the floor gap into elevator shaft was stupid.”

No, it’s “Seth, you are so fucking stupid.”

What I noticed is I took the action or outcome and personified it. I took the mistake and I made it represent me, my life, my substance, my worth.

This is a risky habit for your long term mental and physical health. Just as you can’t escape the litany of countless articles telling you all the wonderful health benefits to using positive statements, affirmations, mindfulness, meditation, etc…

The opposite is true as well. Abusive statements, like I’m referring to in this post, have the opposite effect on your mental and physical health. The lower your self-esteem, promote/enhance depression, reduce your creativity, increase anxiety, and typically spike cortisol levels in your body.

What did I do?

When I catch myself personifying a mistake, I practice reframing it based on the reality of the situation.

“Seth, you are so fucking stupid.” … Ok, what really happened?

“I was late paying my credit card again, because I always forget to turn on auto-pay.” … Ok, that sounds like it might have been a little careless. “Always” seems a little extreme as well, isn’t this only the 2nd time?

“Yes, it’s only the 2nd time I forgot to do it.” … Well, that doesn’t seem like anything more than a couple forgetful mistakes. Definitely not something that makes you stupid and certainly nothing millions of people don’t do each year. Let’s try to rephrase this shall we?

“Ok… Seth, it was a little careless when you forgot to pay your credit card on time.” … Ah, that sounds much more balanced and fair.

I’m stretching out something that only takes about five seconds to do in my head, but I wanted to make sure you get the general idea of the process.

In addition to Part #1, I hope you are better armed against these moments where we beat ourselves up in unfair ways. Try them both out and please do let me know your results!