When Your Inner Critic Keeps You From Happiness

When Your Inner Critic Keeps You From Happiness

How often have you allowed stress to affect your happiness by placing unrealistic demands on yourself resulting in negative self-talk? Does this sound like you? I used to fall victim to this exact practice regularly and, at times, I still succumb to negativity and destructive behaviors that prevent me from achieving everything I am capable of.

Here’s the reality. We all have certain strengths and weaknesses, but when we stop focusing on the strengths and start to have unrealistic expectations from the weaknesses, we are destined to fail before even getting started.

For instance, I like to juggle many things at once. My brain has always been wired that way and I have always been really good at managing a lot of balls in the air at one time. However, while my strength is in getting those balls in the air, my weakness is following through on the details of each ball.

I find that my own personal pursuit of happiness is affected when I begin to have high and unrealistic expectations around things I don’t do well – like managing all those details.

To offer an example, many people can agree that a full inbox can often times be a destroyer of happiness and a significant contributor to stress in life. My inbox keeps getting longer the more time I spend trying to perfect my responses. The longer my inbox got, the more stress in my life grew, and the louder my negative self-talk became. As a result, I was locked into a vicious cycle of constantly struggling with a very distorted image of myself.

These negative thoughts can often be traced back to childhood. I learned this thinking pattern as a child who was constantly verbally and emotionally abused. The more time my father spent screaming at me the worse my own self-image became. I began to falsely believe that happiness was something that can be given and taken away. The regular abuse was a stressor that kept me focused on my weaknesses rather than my strengths.

Growing up, this tendency made it very difficult for me to acknowledge my own accomplishments. In grade school, as I received honors for my grades, I began to shy further away from the spotlight. I learned a behavior that said if I got straight A’s I will be required to go in front of the class, so I better stop getting straight A’s.

Similar to my inbox, my relationship with my father put me into a position where happiness felt like it could be taken away. The longer my inbox, the more negative attention I would get from clients and it would, in turn, validate the failures in my life.

In the end, the greatest gift I could have given myself as a child was to learn that happiness is a choice and that focusing on my strengths and accepting my weaknesses would have been the best self-care practice I could have engaged in.

I have learned through the practice of mindfulness, gratitude, and spirituality a new path to maximizing my own awareness and happiness. I have started putting negative voices in my mind to bed and learning to accept and focus on my strengths. Now when my emails are getting out of control, I simply respond or archive. I’m taking small steps to executing my goals, such as focusing on simply reducing the size of my inbox to as few emails as possible. Allowing things to linger for weeks while you await the perfect response is not healthy. Just like with many things in life, clearing those old messages is one of the healthiest things you can teach yourself to do.


About the Author: Michael Weinberger

Michael WeinbergerMichael Weinberger is a dynamic and inspiring speaker frequently asked to speak on topics including Mindfulness, Coping with Mental Illness, and Addiction. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1994 and has learned how to not only cope, but to thrive while living with his illness. Michael teaches individuals how to adjust their mindset to be mindful and grateful for everything in their life. Michael is the founder and creator of A Plan For Living, a digital mindfulness manager and wellness platform. Everyone has problems and Michael’s approach helps people apply gratitude, spirituality and mindfulness to their daily lives.

[irp posts=”1810″ name=”How to Be Mindfully Self-ish – And Why It’s SO Important.”]

4 Comments

jan

Thank you for your insights. My story shares many similarities with yours. I have been battling since I was a teenager. I am now 60 & and I am realizing that I create much of my sense of failure by expecting far too much from myself. I,too, was always able to juggle a lot of balls but I am setting myself up for a crash every time I don’t succeed. Things like following an exercise or healthy eating program are very difficult to adhere to as my moods bounce so much. I practice mindfulness, take my meds, go to mental health support programs but I keep falling back into pattern of not able to maintain consistency. Your article was helpful.
I am not the same person I was several years ago and it is time to embrace who I am now.

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Can’t wait for this! I’ll be in Devonport, Tasmania next week to present two talks for parents and carers. 

The first is on Monday evening 19 May for a talk about how to strengthen young people against anxiety. This is not just another anxiety talk. You’ll walk away feeling hopeful, empowered, and with strategies you can start using straight away. 

Then, on Tuesday morning 20 May, I’ll be giving another talk for parents and carers but this will be a Q&A. Bring your questions to me! Even if you don’t have questions, the ones I answer will be loaded with practical information that will support you in your parenting journey. 

So grateful to @devonportevents for organising the events. They are public talks, open to everyone. 

Tickets available at Humanitix - search Devonport events and scroll down until you find me! 

Would love to see you there.♥️
Hello Adelaide! I’ll be in Adelaide on Friday 27 June to present a full-day workshop on anxiety. 

This is not just another anxiety workshop, and is for anyone who lives or works with young people - therapists, educators, parents, OTs - anyone. 

Tickets are still available. Search Hey Sigmund workshops for a full list of events, dates, and to buy tickets or see here https://www.heysigmund.com/public-events/
First we decide, ‘Is this discomfort from something unsafe or is it from something growthful?’

Then ask, ‘Is this a time to lift them out of the brave space, or support them through it?’

To help, look at how they’ll feel when they (eventually) get through it. If they could do this bravely thing easily tomorrow, would they feel proud? Happy? Excited? Grateful they did it? 

‘Brave’ isn’t about outcome. It’s about handling the discomfort of the brave space and the anxiety that comes with that. They don’t have to handle it all at once. The move through the brave space can be a shuffle rather than a leap. 

The more we normalise the anxiety they feel, and the more we help them feel safer with it (see ‘Hey Warrior’ or ‘Ups and Downs’ for a hand with this), the more we strengthen their capacity to move through the brave space with confidence. This will take time, experience, and probably lots of anxiety along the way. It’s just how growth is. 

We don’t need to get rid of their anxiety. The key is to help them recognise that they can feel anxious and do brave. They won’t believe this until they experience it. Anxiety shrinks the feeling of brave, not the capacity for it. 

What’s important is supporting them through the brave space lovingly, gently (though sometimes it won’t feel so gentle) and ‘with’, little step by little step. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, as long as they’re forward.♥️
Of course we’ll never ever stop loving them. But when we send them away (time out),
ignore them, get annoyed at them - it feels to them like we might.

It’s why more traditional responses to tricky behaviour don’t work the way we think they did. The goal of behaviour becomes more about avoiding any chance of disconnection. It drive lies and secrecy more than learning or their willingness to be open to us.

Of course, no parent is available and calm and connected all the time - and we don’t need to be. 

It’s about what we do most, how we handle their tricky behaviour and their big feelings, and how we repair when we (perhaps understandably) lose our cool. (We’re human and ‘cool’ can be an elusive little beast at times for all of us.)

This isn’t about having no boundaries. It isn’t about being permissive. It’s about holding boundaries lovingly and with warmth.

The fix:

- Embrace them, (‘you’re such a great kid’). Reject their behaviour (‘that behaviour isn’t okay’). 

- If there’s a need for consequences, let this be about them putting things right, rather than about the loss of your or affection.

- If they tell the truth, even if it’s about something that takes your breath away, reward the truth. Let them see you’re always safe to come to, no matter what.

We tell them we’ll love them through anything, and that they can come to us for anything, but we have to show them. And that behaviour that threatens to steal your cool, counts as ‘anything’.

- Be guided by your values. The big ones in our family are honesty, kindness, courage, respect. This means rewarding honesty, acknowledging the courage that takes, and being kind and respectful when they get things wrong. Mean is mean. It’s not constructive. It’s not discipline. It’s not helpful. If we would feel it as mean if it was done to us, it counts as mean when we do it to them.

Hold your boundary, add the warmth. And breathe.

Big behaviour and bad decisions don’t come from bad kids. They come from kids who don’t have the skills or resources in the moment to do otherwise.

Our job as their adults is to help them build those skills and resources but this takes time. And you. They can’t do this without you.❤️
We can’t fix a problem (felt disconnection) by replicating the problem (removing affection, time-out, ignoring them).

All young people at some point will feel the distance between them and their loved adult. This isn’t bad parenting. It’s life. Life gets in the way sometimes - work stress, busy-ness, other kiddos.

We can’t be everything to everybody all the time, and we don’t need to be.

Kids don’t always need our full attention. Mostly, they’ll be able to hold the idea of us and feel our connection across time and space.

Sometimes though, their tanks will feel a little empty. They’ll feel the ‘missing’ of us. This will happen in all our relationships from time to time.

Like any of us humans, our kids and teens won’t always move to restore that felt connection to us in polished or lovely ways. They won’t always have the skills or resources to do this. (Same for us as adults - we’ve all been there.)

Instead, in a desperate, urgent attempt to restore balance to the attachment system, the brain will often slide into survival mode. 

This allows the brain to act urgently (‘See me! Be with me!) but not always rationally (‘I’m missing you. I’m feeling unseen, unnoticed, unchosen. I know this doesn’t make sense because you’re right there, and I know you love me, but it’s just how I feel. Can you help me?’

If we don’t notice them enough when they’re unnoticeable, they’ll make themselves noticeable. For children, to be truly unseen is unsafe. But being seen and feeling seen are different. Just because you see them, doesn’t mean they’ll feel it.

The brain’s survival mode allows your young person to be seen, but not necessarily in a way that makes it easy for us to give them what they need.

The fix?

- First, recognise that behaviour isn’t about a bad child. It’s a child who is feeling disconnected. One of their most important safety systems - the attachment system - is struggling. Their behaviour is an unskilled, under-resourced attempt to restore it.

- Embrace them, lean in to them - reject the behaviour.

- Keep their system fuelled with micro-connections - notice them when they’re unnoticeable, play, touch, express joy when you’re with them, share laughter.♥️

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