Tag: inner critic

self kindness

How to nourish your mind with self kindness

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So far we have covered in depth the topics of nourishing yourself through food, movement and rest. Today we are shifting the focus slightly onto nourishing the more subtle bodies, particularly the mental or emotional body aka Manomaya kosha. Specifically how to nourish your mind with self kindness.

Having the perfect diet and workout regime can only get you so far if your mind is full of toxic thoughts, stress and fear. It is just as important to take care of your mental health as it is your physical body if you want to experience true wellness. This includes managing stress but also regularly checking in with the way that you speak to yourself. Words are powerful!

Facing your inner critic

One of the most harmful mental programs that we all experience to one degree or another is that nasty inner critic. You know that mean girl voice that hides out in the corners of your mind and likes to tell you you’re not [Insert society standard here] enough or you don’t deserve [Insert goal/dream here]? Perhaps your inner critic speaks loud and clear and you are very familiar with what she has to say. Or maybe it’s a more subtle whisper that you don’t even notice.

Either way, listening to your inner critic is a fast track way to low self esteem and feeling stuck in your life or unable to make change. If you feel that you are constantly bogged down by the opinions and demands from others then it’s likely your inner critic is in control. Because that is all it is in reality. If it weren’t for the influence of others, whether that is people in reality or media messages, you would have no reason to criticise yourself. Without a standard to compare to, there can be no comparison.

Learning to face your inner critic head on and understanding that what she says is not reality will help you to release self-judgement and find true inner peace. The truth is that we are all unique individuals. We have different strengths and weaknesses, dreams and desires. If we were all the same, life would be extremely boring! So whatever trait you have that you dislike or you feel is socially un-acceptable is really nothing more than part of the interesting spectrum of humanity.

All thoughts are energy, therefore allowing your inner critic to run wild is a waste of your precious life force and will leave you feeling exhausted and drained, both physically and mentally. Releasing the bonds of this self-judgement will free up that energy for your creativity, relationships and your community.

Are your thoughts ones of self kindness?

Practice observing your inner critic and realise that you are the witness of your thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. As my yoga teacher tells me “You are the awareness in which everything is arising”. Get in touch with this part of you, the part that is separate from your appearance, identity, personality or life circumstances. Once you have created distance between your Self and your thoughts, you will be in a position to start questioning whether they are true and replacing any critical thoughts with those of self kindness.

I am sure you have heard before the idea that your thoughts create reality… I would take it a step further and say that your thoughts are your reality. We all experience the world through the filters of our senses and our mind. We rarely experience true reality as unfiltered conscious awareness, although this is a goal of yoga and meditation practices! Rather, we perceive everything based on the inputs from our senses and what our brain interprets them as based on past memories, knowledge and stored emotions.

Our minds love to be right and often play tricks on us. We can believe that something is true without a doubt, even when it is not reality. Optical illusions are a great example of this! Even when we’re told that the two lines in the image below are the same length and even if we take a ruler and measure them to prove it, our eyes cannot see anything different than the top line being longer than the bottom one.

So next time you are experiencing an unhelpful or self-critical thought, think of this illusion. Know that no matter how real it may seem, your mind does not always see things as they really are. You can CHOOSE to see events and experiences through the lens of self kindness.

Practice self kindness in your thoughts

Once you know you have the power to change your thoughts, you have the choice to think differently and create a new reality. Filling your mind with positive thoughts of self kindness will nourish your whole being and leave you feeling energised and confident. Perhaps this will not happen over night but gradually over time you can train your mind to be your ally and not your enemy.

One tool you can use to practice self kindness is a mantra or affirmation. These are positive statements that you repeat either in your mind or out loud which can help to:

  • Break the habit of negative self talk
  • Create new mental pathways
  • Improve your confidence and wellbeing

That’s not to say that you will never have another negative or critical thought again. But when you do, you will be able to let it go and come back to your affirmation rather than getting sucked into a downward spiral. You can choose affirmations that are appropriate for you and your goals.

When I was going through eating disorder recovery in my early twenties, I used self kindness affirmations whenever I felt fear around food or my changing body or doubted my ability to make it through hard times.

Top tips to practice self kindness

Here are some top tips for creating self kindess affirmations (based on advice from Well College Global):

  1. Use “I am” statements
  2. Keep it short and simple
  3. Use positive (I am/I will) not negative (I am not/I will not) statements
  4. Be specific to you and your goals
  5. Invoke emotion

Affirmations can also be future-based, if it feels unrealistic to affirm something in the positive right at this moment. This way you are acknowledging the journey that you are on and the progress you are making without saying that you are there yet. For example:

“I hate my body” becomes “I am beginning to accept my body”

“Why bother” becomes “I deserve nourishment”

“I can’t do this” becomes “I am learning to do this”

“I am so stressed” becomes “I create my own calm”

Repeating these statements might feel unnatural at first but like anything, persistence creates a habit. Notice any changes in the way you feel and celebrate even the slightest improvements in your mental wellbeing. Once you realise you have the power to change your thoughts through self kindness you will know that anything is possible!

Today’s challenge: Create a self kindness mantra

Your task for today is to choose a self kindness mantra that feels relevant to you and your goals. Write it down on post it notes and stick them anywhere you might see them throughout the day e.g. the car dashboard, the fridge door or inside your diary. You could even create a graphic and save it as your phone or desktop background as a constant reminder.

For me, I am starting a new job on Monday which I am equally excited and nervous about. I am anticipating the rise of the inner critic with all it’s fears of failure. So my mantra for the week will be:

Over to you…

If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.

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Real health #28 How self-criticism can destroy your health and what to do about it

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We’ve all been there.. one day we are feeling strong and confident and the next it is like the rug has been pulled from underneath our feet. Your inner critic goes beserk, bringing up all the reasons why you should dislike yourself, bringing up past mistakes and failures and highlighting all of your “imperfections”. For women, we are especially vulnerable to this out of control inner critic during our pre-menstrual phase as our emotional sensitivity is heightened. Yesterday was day 29 of my cycle and my inner critic hit me hard. I had a total meltdown and felt awful about myself all morning. Luckily I’ve been through this many times before and now I have ways to deal with it which I want to share with you in this article.

This experience got me thinking about just how destructive excessive self-criticism can be for our health. Our thoughts generate emotions which are felt by all of the cells in our body. Berating ourselves causes distressing feelings of sadness, unworthiness, guilt or shame which all send out chemical stress signals throughout our bodies causing all sorts of mayhem. Those feelings then trigger more destructive thoughts and the cycle continues. It could be thoughts about the way you look, your knowledge and abilities or even about your personality. Whatever it is, the inner critic can be a real bully and if we don’t get it under control it can really affect our mental and physical health.

Chronic stress, like that caused by self-criticism, is one of the worse things for our health as it leaves us stuck in fight or flight mode, unable to fully relax and let go which is when true restoration and healing takes place. Imagine living with a real-life tyrant who was constantly following you round pointing out all of your flaws and errors. You’d want to escape from that situation pretty fast right? But so many of us let the judge inside our head take over and dominate our thoughts. Being trapped in this cycle of negative self-talk and the stressful emotions that follow can prevent us from healing and even cause more damage to our bodies.

Stress affects how we digest food and assimilate nutrients, our blood sugar and blood pressure management, our hormonal balance, the health of our immune system and our ability to sleep well. So if we want to be truly healthy we have to learn how to keep our inner critic in check.

How to tame your inner critic

I’m not a psychologist, but as someone who has struggled with self criticism for most of my life, I want to share the things that help me the most to pull myself out of the hole of self-destruction whenever I get sucked in. If you have been following this blog series, you will know that journaling is my number one tool in my self-care kit. Journaling can improve your health in so many ways by helping you to uncover thoughts and beliefs that are keeping you trapped. When it comes to overcoming self-criticism, two journaling techniques I like to use are “thought replacement” and “mind-mapping”.

Thought replacement is exactly what it says on the tin… replacing critical thoughts. For 24 hours, keep your journal with you and whenever you notice yourself having a self-critical thought, write it down leaving a few lines space underneath each entry. At the end of the day, sit down with your journal in a cosy space. Set the mood by lighting a candle or incense and playing some relaxing, uplifting music. Centre yourself by closing your eyes and taking a few long, deep slow breaths. Then open your journal and read what you have written. You might be shocked by how mean you have been to yourself! Next go through each critical thought one by one, cross it out and lovingly write a new thought underneath.

This could be the opposite of the critical thought, for example:

“I am lazy and stupid” could be replaced by “I am a smart and motivated person when I want to be”

Or it could be a way that this thing could benefit you, such as:

“I am too quiet and reserved, I wish I was more outgoing” could be replaced by “I am a naturally introverted person, I am thoughtful and I am a good listener”

This isn’t a magic trick, it doesn’t mean that all of your critical thoughts will go away over night. But it does help to give you a new perspective and to see things in a different light. You can repeat this whenever you feel like your inner critic is getting out of control and come back and read your thought replacements as much as you need to.

The second journalling technique that helps me to manage my inner critic is mind-mapping. Specifically mind-mapping about my identity. Start with a blank page in your journal and write your name in big letters or the phrase “WHO AM I?”. Then start to free-associate whatever comes to your mind about your personality, your values in life, things you are good at etc. You can write negative things on there too but make sure they are balanced by positive things that you do like about yourself. You aren’t trying to create a false, perfect image of yourself here but the aim is to be realistic and allow yourself to have a more holistic view of who you are.

No one is perfect and it’s ok to acknowledge the things that you don’t like or want to improve about yourself, that’s an important step to growing and developing as a person, but if you have been beating yourself up for a long time it’s time to change your program. If you get stuck you can ask your friends and family for their input. I also really love online personality tests and find them really helpful for this technique. The 16 personalities test is the most interesting and accurate one I have found. I’m not saying that an algorithm can say more about you than you know about yourself but it can provide you with some insight into your character based on your responses and help you to see what your strengths and weaknesses might be if you can’t see them for yourself.

I don’t know about you, but I find this kind of thing fascinating! I spent hours reading over the different personalities and doing the test with all of my family and friends. It was actually really helpful for me to read the profile of some of the people I looked up to and see their weaknesses as well as their strengths. It’s really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that one personality type is “better” and wishing that you were different but in reality we all have positives and negatives and have our own path to follow in life. Often when we feel bad about ourselves it’s because we are being inauthentic by trying to be something that we are not.

In the past I felt out of alignment when I worked in the chemical industry because I felt like I was going against my core values and morals. Taking a career turn to work in environmental protection felt much more like me and there was less tension inside of me. To feel happy I need to feel like I have a purpose and I am working towards a cause. I’ve been told in the past that I get “obsessed with things” which I thought was a negative thing but in reality I am just passionate about the things I care about and that interest me. And funnily enough, the advocate personality is also supposed to be well suited to writing and to careers in counselling and holistic health which explains why I am now being called to this work in helping others improve their health!

So if you feel called to, take the test and reflect on your results. Maybe it won’t resonate with you but there will be at least a few gems that you can take. Try out the thought replacement and mind-mapping techniques whenever you have some free time. Like I say, these techniques won’t transport you from hating yourself to loving yourself overnight but they will help you to take small steps along the road of self-acceptance and help you to develop an “inner cheerleader” that can stand up for you when your inner critic gets loud. I think changing your inner dialogue is one of the best things you can do for your health. So if you’re feeling stuck and like you aren’t progressing towards your health goals, despite having a healthy lifestyle, definitely spend some time becoming aware of how you speak to yourself and maybe try out these tips.

Over to you…

I hope you enjoyed this article and the series so far. Let me know in the comments below your thoughts and your 16 personalities result if you take the test!

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How self-criticism can destroy your health

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We’ve all been there.. one day we are feeling strong and confident and the next it is like the rug has been pulled from underneath our feet. Your inner critic goes beserk, bringing up all the reasons why you should dislike yourself, bringing up past mistakes and failures and highlighting all of your “imperfections”.

As women, we are especially vulnerable to this out of control inner critic during our pre-menstrual phase as our emotional sensitivity is heightened. Yesterday was day 29 of my cycle and my inner critic hit me hard. I had a total meltdown and felt awful about myself all morning. Luckily I’ve been through this many times before and now I have ways to deal with it which I want to share with you in this article.

How self-criticism can destroy your health

This experience got me thinking about just how destructive excessive self-criticism can be for our health. Our thoughts generate emotions which are felt by all of the cells in our body. Berating ourselves causes distressing feelings of sadness, unworthiness, guilt or shame which all send out chemical stress signals throughout our bodies causing all sorts of mayhem. Those feelings then trigger more destructive thoughts and the cycle continues. It could be thoughts about the way you look, your knowledge and abilities or even about your personality. Whatever it is, the inner critic can be a real bully and if we don’t get it under control it can really affect our mental and physical health.

Chronic stress, like that caused by self-criticism, is one of the worse things for our health as it leaves us stuck in fight or flight mode, unable to fully relax and let go which is when true restoration and healing takes place. Imagine living with a real-life tyrant who was constantly following you round pointing out all of your flaws and errors. You’d want to escape from that situation pretty fast right? But so many of us let the judge inside our head take over and dominate our thoughts. Being trapped in this cycle of negative self-talk and the stressful emotions that follow can prevent us from healing and even cause more damage to our bodies.

Stress affects how we digest food and assimilate nutrients, our blood sugar and blood pressure management, our hormonal balance, the health of our immune system and our ability to sleep well. So if we want to be truly healthy we have to learn how to keep our inner critic in check.

How to tame your inner critic

I’m not a psychologist, but as someone who has struggled with self criticism for most of my life, I want to share the things that help me the most to pull myself out of the hole of self-destruction whenever I get sucked in. If you have been following this blog series, you will know that journaling is my number one tool in my self-care kit. Journaling can improve your health in so many ways by helping you to uncover thoughts and beliefs that are keeping you trapped. When it comes to overcoming self-criticism, two journaling techniques I like to use are “thought replacement” and “mind-mapping”.

Reduce self-criticism with thought replacement

Thought replacement is exactly what it says on the tin… replacing critical thoughts. For 24 hours, keep your journal with you and whenever you notice yourself having a self-critical thought, write it down leaving a few lines space underneath each entry. At the end of the day, sit down with your journal in a cosy space. Set the mood by lighting a candle or incense and playing some relaxing, uplifting music. Centre yourself by closing your eyes and taking a few long, deep slow breaths. Then open your journal and read what you have written. You might be shocked by how mean you have been to yourself! Next go through each critical thought one by one, cross it out and lovingly write a new thought underneath.

This could be the opposite of the critical thought, for example:

“I am lazy and stupid” could be replaced by “I am a smart and motivated person when I want to be”

Or it could be a way that this thing could benefit you, such as:

“I am too quiet and reserved, I wish I was more outgoing” could be replaced by “I am a naturally introverted person, I am thoughtful and I am a good listener”

This isn’t a magic trick, it doesn’t mean that all of your critical thoughts will go away over night. But it does help to give you a new perspective and to see things in a different light. You can repeat this whenever you feel like your inner critic is getting out of control and come back and read your thought replacements as much as you need to.

Reduce self-criticism with mind-mapping

The second journalling technique that helps me to manage my inner critic is mind-mapping. Specifically mind-mapping about my identity. Start with a blank page in your journal and write your name in big letters or the phrase “WHO AM I?”. Then start to free-associate whatever comes to your mind about your personality, your values in life, things you are good at etc. You can write negative things on there too but make sure they are balanced by positive things that you do like about yourself. You aren’t trying to create a false, perfect image of yourself here but the aim is to be realistic and allow yourself to have a more holistic view of who you are.

No one is perfect and it’s ok to acknowledge the things that you don’t like or want to improve about yourself, that’s an important step to growing and developing as a person, but if you have been beating yourself up for a long time it’s time to change your program. If you get stuck you can ask your friends and family for their input. I also really love online personality tests and find them really helpful for this technique. The 16 personalities test is the most interesting and accurate one I have found. I’m not saying that an algorithm can say more about you than you know about yourself but it can provide you with some insight into your character based on your responses and help you to see what your strengths and weaknesses might be if you can’t see them for yourself.

I don’t know about you, but I find this kind of thing fascinating! I spent hours reading over the different personalities and doing the test with all of my family and friends. It was actually really helpful for me to read the profile of some of the people I looked up to and see their weaknesses as well as their strengths. It’s really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that one personality type is “better” and wishing that you were different but in reality we all have positives and negatives and have our own path to follow in life.

The inner critic and authenticity

Often when we feel bad about ourselves it’s because we are being inauthentic by trying to be something that we are not. In the past I felt out of alignment when I worked in the chemical industry because I felt like I was going against my core values and morals. Taking a career turn to work in environmental protection felt much more like me and there was less tension inside of me. To feel happy I need to feel like I have a purpose and I am working towards a cause.

I’ve been told in the past that I get “obsessed with things” which I thought was a negative thing but in reality I am just passionate about the things I care about and that interest me. And funnily enough, the advocate personality is also supposed to be well suited to writing and to careers in counselling and holistic health which explains why I am now being called to this work in helping others improve their health!

Being authentic can help to tame the inner critic because you are living in line with your strengths rather than constantly fighting against your weaknesses, This isn’t to say you should stay within your comfort zone. I am a big advocate of personal growth and self-development. But as the English saying goes “you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole”. Trying to be something you are not will keep triggering self-criticism and your inner critic, leaving you feel like you are not good enough as you are. When in reality there is a place for everyone in this world!

Summary

So if you feel called to, take the 16 personalities test and reflect on your results. Maybe it won’t resonate with you but there will be at least a few gems that you can take. Try out the thought replacement and mind-mapping techniques whenever you have some free time. Like I say, these techniques won’t transport you from hating yourself to loving yourself overnight but they will help you to take small steps along the road of self-acceptance and help you to develop an “inner cheerleader” that can stand up for you when your inner critic gets loud.

I think changing your inner dialogue is one of the best things you can do for your health. So if you’re feeling stuck and like you aren’t progressing towards your health goals, despite having a healthy lifestyle, definitely spend some time becoming aware of how you speak to yourself and maybe try out these tips.

Over to you…

  • Comment: Is self-criticism destroying your heath? Share your thoughts and experiences below!
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I want to improve my health!

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