Enough Is Enough! 3 Essential Steps To Stop Being So Mean to Yourself.
‘You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. but you won’t discover it until you are willing to stop banging your head agains the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.’
Geeneth Roth
‘Why can’t I get it right’, ‘Why do I keep doing it?’, ‘Why can’t I have a normal life?’, ‘What’s on earth wrong with me?’
These are some of the most frequent questions that I hear from my clients. And if they sound familiar to you, I’m sure you also know that the emotions that come with these questions are very painful. Frustration, guilt, regret, shame and often helplessness.
Since the pandemic started these questions have been coming more and more often.
It seems that one of the side-effects of these challenging times is that all things that are not working well in our lives are thrown right into our face.
So, if on top of that, you have the tendency to take everything on board and make yourself at fault — I’m sure this is not the easiest time for you.
Shifting from being over-critical or even mean to yourself into being kind and respectful is the simplest thing on earth. But not the easiest one.
The problem is, most of us have been practising this habit for such a long time, that now, all this negativity happens automatically, somewhere on the edge of our awareness.
And because we are so familiar with it, so used to it, it seems like the most natural thing to do. It feels like a part of who we are, so we don’t even realise (or allow ourselves to realise:) that there’s something off here.
But there is something VERY OFF here.
Self- criticism, self-sabotage, self-doubt (or even self-bullying!) will keep you struggling for life. Never satisfied, always feeling not good enough, always looking for your faults and failures. They will keep you frustrated, resentful and bitter.
Lack of self-compassion impacts very negatively on our relationships as well.
As K. Neff, one of the best experts on self-compassion says:
‘If you are continually judging and criticising yourself, while trying to be kind to others, you are drawing artificial boundaries and distinctions that only lead to feelings of separation and isolation.’
Ain’t that enough reasons to put an end to this madness?
Change always starts with a decision and a commitment. Telling yourself that ‘Enough is enough’ and that you refuse to treat yourself like that anymore, is always the first step.
I wouldn’t be writing this today if at some point I didn’t tell myself ‘enough is enough’.I would probably be busy doing another degree or diploma course, hoping that once I graduate, I would feel good enough to share something with the world. That I would feel confident enough to do my work in the world. But it never worked that way and at some point I realised that I could keep doing that till the end of my life.
So, I said: Ok, that’s enough. Time is our big ally here and at some point you realise that life is too precious, that you’ve been skirting around long enough and that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life standing in your own way to living your life fully.
If you’re not in the ‘enough is enough’ place yet, it’s might be very helpful, to reflect on what the alternative is.
If you don’t put an end to self-doubt, self-sabotage and even self-bully, what will your life look like for the years to come? Do you really want to live that way? Take a bit of time to imagine this, it might turn out to be your best motivation to make the change.
Once the decision is made and you can commit to doing whatever it takes to bring more respect, kindness and compassion into your relationship with yourself, these 3 steps will allow you to move forward with clarity and easiness:
1. ACCEPT THAT BEING MEAN TO YOURSELF IS A LEARNT BEHAVIOUR.
‘Your beliefs become your thoughts.
Your thoughts become your words.
Your words become your actions.
Your actions become your habits.
Your habits become your values.
Your values become your destiny.’
M.K. Gandhi
This is so important because our mind will often trap us into thinking that being hard on ourselves is just the way we are. That it is a part of our personality or character and there’s nothing we can do about it.
This is never true.
You have not been born being hard of yourself. In the first weeks and months of your life, you expressed yourself fully and had no problems with showing both contentment and frustration, using all the means available. You were perfectly ok with being you.
But then, you know, life happens. It isn’t always milk and honey. We were not always seen, heard, loved, taken care of the way we really needed to.
This is how our journey to self-criticism, self-doubt and even self-bullying started.
We came up with thoughts and assumptions about ourselves which were far from positive. And then we repeated them over and over again. The more often we repeated them the more evidence we found that they were seemingly true. The more evidence we had, the more ‘set in stone’ these beliefs seemed. A never-ending story, a vicious circle really.
That’s why it’s so important to acknowledge that all your negative, limiting, demeaning, disrespectful beliefs about yourself are just the way you have learnt to think about yourself — a learnt behaviour.
And what is learnt, can be unlearnt.
Your brain has the ability to change and reorganise its internal networks and maps. In psychology it’s called neuroplasticity. It means you can literally train the impulses in your brain to run alongside different pathways. You can rewire your brain. You can reshape the way you think.
And it all starts with saying: “Ok, I learnt to think this way (because of factors far beyond my control), I can see it creates a lot of mess and drama in my life and generally makes me unhappy, so I’ll do whatever I can to change it. Enough is enough.”
2. ACCEPT OUR COMMON HUMANITY
‘Ring the bells, that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There’s a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.’
L. Cohen
Once you’ve said ‘enough is enough’ and made a commitment to stop being so mean to yourself, it is essential to realise that all this negativity, self-sabotage and drama is not your fault.
You are of course responsible for your own happiness and for creating a better, kinder and more compassionate way to treat yourself.
But you are not to blame for all the negative and limiting ways of relating to yourself you learnt on the way. They were developed due to factors far beyond your control. They came from your parents and grandparents, your whole upbringing, all the big and small traumas that happened on the way, the society and culture you grew up and have been living in. You had little control over all that.
Through all the ups and downs of life, you have always been doing the best you could with the resources you had. As all of us have. We all do the best we can with the resources we have.
And ….we are all just human.
Being human, by definition, means being imperfect, making mistakes, failing and suffering at times.
K. Neff, one of the best experts on self-compassion, refers to this as our ‘common humanness’.
The problem is, we often forget about this simple truth and instead tend to think we are the only ones who suffer, make mistakes or fail. So often, it seems to us like the whole world is doing great (or at least much better than we are) and all the people around us are coping just fine (or at least much better than we are) so the obvious conclusion is, there must be something wrong with us.
Recognising how flawed this reasoning is, is essential to bring more compassion and kindness into our relationship with ourselves. It is our human nature to be imperfect and to make mistakes. Struggles and pain are part of being human. We all go through rough patches, we all fail. It is not ‘just you’!
Accepting this will not only allow you to avoid going into the negative spiral about how inadequate you are, but also help you to stay connected to others in times of adversity. It will make it so much easier for you to reach out for help and accept help graciously.
We are all in the same boat, really. You might be going through a rough patch now, I might be going through a rough patch next month. And we all need one another.
3. PRACTICE LOVING KINDNESS
‘A moment of self -compassion can change your entire day. A string of such moments can change the course of your life.’
Ch. Germer
I’m sure you know the feeling of loving-kindness very well. We all experience moments when this amazing emotion fills our heart fully. Loving-kindness is the opposite of being judgemental and critical, not to mention overly mean. It is the feeling of warmth, appreciation and love that opens our heart wide. So seldom though, we chose to direct this feeling towards ourselves.
If you are used to being very critical towards yourself it might feel hard, weird or even impossible to envelope yourself in this comforting and healing energy. But this is exactly what your most effective shortcut to positive change is.
So, let me show you the easiest way to start.
Find a moment or a few in your life when you felt loving kindness in the most vivid way. Take as much time as you need to go deep into that memory, relive that moment and allow your heart and body to be filled again with this beautiful, warm feeling. Once you are immersed in it fully, consciously direct it to yourself. Just envelope yourself with love, kindness and compassion.
I remember when my first son was born. I was just 23. It was a very long labour, complicated at the end, as it turned out he had a cord around his neck. I was completely exhausted. It was early in the morning and I remember clearly the moment when the sun rays started to come through the blinds in the window. When the doctor put him finally on my breasts, he seemed so tiny and fragile. I was a bit scared to touch him, afraid I could hurt him. My heart was filled with so much love. I realised that my husband was crying as I saw teardrops falling on my son’s little head. And then… it seemed like time stopped and the whole world disappeared. I can’t find words to describe what I was feeling in that moment. But it was all-encompassing, expanding far beyond the three of us in the delivery room. I was filled with love and compassion for the whole world, for all life.
So, this moment is my anchor. Whenever I need to I can come back to this feeling, I go back in time to that summer morning when my son was born. It was over 26 years ago, but it just takes me a few moments to focus and relive it almost as vividly as it originally was.
I’m sure you have moments like this, too. It can be an important life-changing event, like a baby being born, but equally well it can be something very simple, like a beautiful sunset, a smile on your child’s face, the pet you adore, or even some moving scene in a movie.
The key is to use this anchor to re-create the feeling. As intensely as you can. And then redirect this warmth, compassion and love, very intentionally toward yourself.
Because you are no less of a miracle than any of these moments, people or animals.
No need to learn anything new here. You now know how to be kind and loving. You have all the knowledge and all the skills and once you start practising you will see it’s so much easier, more natural and flowing to approach life and yourself (!)that way.
Working on your mindset, accepting your imperfect human nature and practising loving-kindness (not only towards others but also towards yourself) will let you put a stop to standing in your own way to living fully, happily and meaningfully. All you need is commitment, dedication and a bit o practice.
So…if you’re ready to stop skirting around and make a real breakthrough in how you treat yourself, I’m here to help. Be sure to check out my Self-Love Magic Makeover Programme — it will guide you step by step into falling back in love with YOU! Or just send me an email, and let’s talk!
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