I started carrying around a photo of myself as a kid. I'm sitting against a wall, by a pillar, at our state capital. My eyes are shut. I was kind of a shy kid.
When I start to get frustrated and talk to myself in that short, abrasive, condescending tone, I think of that photo and of myself, as still that kid.
It helps me to be more compassionate towards myself in those moments. I'm still that shy kid trying to make sense of the world.
It's easier to be fond and/or tolerant of someone if you can occasionally get a breather from them. You go easy (or easier) on your significant other, family, friends etc because -- at least occasionally -- you can keep some distance.
Try keeping distance from yourself. :/ The self is always there, it never relents; its mistakes and weaknesses ever present, recurrent. It's less easy to accept and/or forgive when you can't forget.
In fact what you are doing with that photo -- which is a practice I completely support and agree with BTW -- is precisely that: distancing yourself from yourself, taking a look "in" from the outside. It's easier to find compassion like that, for both your child and current selves.
I’m curious about what ways you have to distance yourself from yourself. The photo trick is an interesting one I had not thought of. I’ve found that some engrossing activity is a good way to disconnect for awhile: running is my go-to, but also woodworking or yard work. Oddly, although coding is also engrossing, it is so tied up in my career that it does not usually give me any distance from myself. Other ideas?
I just realised, from writing a comment below in the thread, that at 47 (which roughly approximates my age as well) that the internal talk is increasingly provably false.
the voice is a shock jock, click bait. All headline, no research, no lede.
I'm reminded of that scene from A Beautiful Mind where someone asks him if he still has his hallucinations. He looks over and sees the fake people still there, and says "Oh no, they're not gone. Maybe they'll never be." And they still would drag him into things again, but he has learned to ignore them and not get pulled in.
So it is with internal demons sometimes, I find. You learn to recognize them, rather than expunge them.
True. Rubber ducks for self-debugging are uh mostly overrated. A trained therapist--- sometimes free-of-charge-- works for most
issues where some would rubber duck
The man in the mirror can be a real asshole. However, win his confidence and trust then everything else becomes much easier.
I work with a lot of young people starting marriages, families, and life. The advice I give is have as much love and patience for yourself as you do for your partner and others. You won’t always get it right so be forgive yourself, learn, and get better.
Here's a link to WHO's guide for "unhooking from difficult thoughts and feelings".
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240003927
It includes links to audio. It can be helpful for the experiences you describe
Does anyone else have stories of successful ways to overcome overwhelming negative selftalk?
Preferably personal, but alternatively something where you helped a friend or child or family member. Asking for a friend. There's a whole parasitic industry built around this concept e.g. selfharm books (selfhelp) or life coach.
Try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. From the Wikipedia article [1]: “This therapy focuses on challenging unhelpful and irrational negative thoughts and beliefs, referred to as 'self-talk' and replacing them with more rational positive self-talk. This alteration in a person's thinking produces less anxiety and depression.”
I just started talking back. I started about 3 years ago. Every time I heard that critical voice, I would summon a different voice in response, of someone who loves and supports me unconditionally. Like an ideal mother, or just the way I talk to my friends.
Example: in my head, “You’re so fucking lazy, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why can’t you just-“ etc, would be answered by, “You are human. You are doing your best. The modern world asks too much of all of us. You deserve to rest. I’m proud of you. I love you.” Consistently in my head, sometimes out loud if I was alone.
Along with forgiving myself, sometimes I would think through and list out my accomplishments. The voice in my head told me I was a failure, but I built up an entire list of the things I had achieved to prove it wrong, every time.
At first it felt weird and fake. I didn’t have any reason to believe “myself.” But then, I didn’t have any reason to believe that criticizing voice either.
Slowly, the responding voice became more and more “real.” To the point where I was easily scoffing at and brushing off my self criticism. And then, for reasons I really don’t understand, that critical voice started speaking up less and less.
After over two years of this, I have stopped hearing that critical voice entirely. I’m in my mid thirties, which isn’t old but is old enough to still be startled by how night and day different it is now to live in my head. It is so much quieter and more peaceful. And a lot of the stuff I used to struggle with, actually isn’t a struggle anymore. I don’t procrastinate hardly at all now. In most cases I recognize “I’m not ready to tackle this yet, let me put my energy elsewhere and I’ll get back to it when I’m ready” and shockingly enough, when I’m forgiven and allowed to walk away, I do find myself “ready” later on to come back and tackle it.
I think what I did falls under the umbrella of “reparenting your inner child” if you want to research more.
Caveat that I also pulled this off while working at the least toxic workplace I have ever worked and being surrounded by the best friends I’ve ever had. Set and setting might be really important here.
I've never been unpleasant to myself, and to "talk to myself in that short, abrasive, condescending tone" means nothing to me. I gather that this is something a lot of other people have trouble with. So this should mean I'm very friendly, right? Not really, no.
Skilled essay, but not an argument. Opens with "As Jung notes" as an appeal to authority, then more name-drops.
Misses clear definitions (what counts as "friendship with self"?) and the mechanism (how X->Y). Anecdotes/quotes != proofs.
IOW, prestige != proof. Two quick checks 1) strip the names - does the reasoning still stand? 2) Flip to counterexamples - does the thesis survive? We all know people who are hard on themselves but deeply loving to others.
Nice essay but treat it as a opinion to test, not a truth to inherit. The thread reads as if the case were already proven.
I usually treat “think pieces” like these as mere mental stimulation. It’s pretty difficult to say anything definitive about how everyone should live or how everyone should think, but I don’t think that means we ourselves should not reflect on those things. After all, we live and think, and why not try to do those things better?
Introspection and self awareness are prerequisites to love yourself. Or, at least, to become someone you can love.
Loving yourself means you have acknowledged your weaknesses. Whether or not you strengthen them, it enables you to empathize with others as their own weaknesses manifest.
The world becomes much more cozy once you realize others are not much different than you.
Hot take perhaps, I don't really agree with this. It's the same tired "worth by self work" claim that is given for all kinds of personal issues. I won't claim that it's strictly false (obviously working on yourself is beneficial), but it's disappointingly and frustrating reductive.
A lot of (most?) people get some sort of self love more or less by default, not because they are necessarily super self aware, but because their upbringing fostered that. They're emotionally normal and well adjusted. You don't have to be a philosopher to love yourself.
For those of us that did not get appropriate love in their upbringing, or even learnt self hatred, we will spend significant time down the track learning acceptance. That's when you need a lot of self awareness, because you will need to uproot a lot to move towards a more helpful emotional system.
I'll be honest, I can't say that awareness of my weaknesses has in any way made it easier to love myself. If anything, the constant gnawing awareness of the many qualities I lack makes it harder.
I think it can also be the other way around - self love leads to willingness to introspect and to be self-aware - because you love yourself, so of course you care enough to pay attention. If you think you’re worthless or broken, why bother waste time digging into yourself to find out who you are and why you do the things you do, what you really want? What benefit could there be - as a matter of fact, couldn’t there only be the risk of pain?
Knowing yourself to know, and forgive / accept, who and what you are.
Allows you to appreciate the perceptiveness of others when they're correct.
Also, if you do not know yourself (and especially if you cannot forgive yourself) you're going to struggle to deal with your own children.
My kids reflect me back at myself in what were frustrating ways, until I realised it was me and my influence, and it became massively endearing.
Although I may be too forgiving of myself (but in amongst that I do still have 'the voices of discontent' but the longer I live the more their sentiment is proven wrong).
Because English doesn't have precise terms for love I feel we should use it less. I think here you're talking about self acceptance which seems to me more correct because self love can also mean narcissism
As someone who's had to do extensive work on myself to survive I can relate to a lot of things said here. I have gone through a lot of material on psychology and spend a lot of time thinking myself when I read or go through the material. This was after 3 years of medication and 20 years of suffering and reaching the point of wanting badly to end my life due to multiple factors growing up.
What I would suggest if you wanted to start working on yourself building healthier relationships with yourself and others:
First is find a suitable therapist. Shop for a therapist like you shop for clothes. Do a session or two and see what you feel. What you need depends on what you are going through. Depression panic anxiety marriage health etc. But don't continue therapy where you don't feel good. There wont be a perfect fit but 'good enough' is someone you can talk to and is compassionate and helps you to do well. They will also assign small homework and that is important. The right therapist will be on your team and slowly nudge you in the right direction (though with your knowledge not sneakily). This builds trust.
Second would be start working on your body. Your body is just as important as your mind. And the two are very interlinked. Yoga, Mindfulness, being more present (ditch your phones and social media accounts), exercise, food, etc. all contribute to your mental wellbeing which will help you create a good relationship with yourself. Once you give the body the love it needs, it will give it back to you.
Third would be to do some reading on mental health and books by psychologists. The thing is you will get lot of insights on your own life reading all that. But be careful too, it might bring up intense memories (like trauma) that can be dangerous. So go slow. Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, Bessel van Der Kolk, Gottman, Richard Shwartz, David Burns, beane Browne etc. Such authors are actively doing work on the cognitive side of things. Some have extreme theories so look for things that apply to you.
I will admit that I was skeptical of the whole 'change your thoughts and things will change' and to some extent I still think that it's not the whole story. But you have to do the self work and your mind is a big part of it. I am very far from building healthy relationships in my life but I think I am having a good relationship with myself lately. I may have gone a few notches down in depression and things have improved.
There is a lot more to share tbh on this but these things are something I did in the last two years that seem to have helped.
When I read su**de my brain read suicide, so you still put the word in my mind, what's your point doing that? In fact I spent more time thinking and parsing the word suicide because of the asterisks.
Communication has different registers, that is, in different situations some words words or expressions are less or more appropriate. For example formal or casual talk.
I don't have a proof, but I think 'su**de' is a more appropriate form of 'suicide' here than 'suicide', just because it is.
To friendship and love of others I say, you cannot sell what you don't have.
You can do it for a while but, the long lasting stuff, you need that personal foundation.
Easily said but difficult to do for many.
It requires a level of self awareness and an acknowledgement of your strengths and weaknesses and how they impact yourself and others. But like a doctor, the first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis.
Something something Jungian shadow work or something.
Except you can, you can be a middle layer. I'm not just nitpicking on the analogy failing at the first degree, you can love someone much more than you love yourself, and the nature of what you bring to them doesn't need to be how you deal with yourself.
People raising kids in particular are supporting a level of self abuse that flies in the face of the analogy. They also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed. But asking them to treat themselves like they treat their kid just doesn't work in any practical way.
treat themselves like they treat their kid just doesn't work in any practical way
how do you figure that? or, what exactly do you mean here? i don't exactly treat my kids the way i treat myself, but that's because we have different needs. but i most certainly don't treat my kids worse or better than myself.
you also say: they also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed
That 'doing it for a while' part is one reason I don't really like the "only as well as you love yourself" truism. One can absolutely care deeply for others without caring much for themself, at least to start. But to your point, unless you can develop [/an awareness of the] strengths that you bring to a relationship, fears of being a burden, failing, or taking too much will put a steady drain on it.
I think the biggest thing that the "self-love prerequisite" idea misses and that the article sort of indirectly gets at is that this feeling of social self-efficacy is something most (all?) people learn through successful relationships with others - sometimes in our upbringing, sometimes not. I don't think it's unnatural at all for others' love of us to outpace our own just a little.
Everyone tells what but not how. From years of healing I have learned that picking up random quotes or texts from internet won’t help at all. You should read or go to a professional. Anger,Sadness, Misery cannot just go away when you say you would. It takes a change in mindset, knowledge, and convincing.
I don't think it's possible to "love yourself" if you want to word it like that. Understand yourself? Maybe. Accept yourself? Sure. But love as a concept is shared.
"I love eating delicious food" is a totally sensible sentence with involves only the self and an inanimate object, and arguably only the self because it is about your own enjoyment and actions more so than the food itself.
"I love computers", etc etc.
Love is broad, it can be shared, it can be unrequited, it can be with an inanimate object or with an abstract concept. The object can certainly be the self.
I’ve always struggled with this concept too. Respect yourself. Be kind to yourself. But _loving_ youself sounds kind of narcissistic to me (but yes, I get that this is probably a question of semantics and/or my working class catholic upbringing)
Maybe it is a British cultural difference, however, 'loving oneself' and the language of 'self love' definitely makes me cringe.
Hence, I prefer to think of 'not hating oneself' as the area to improve on. From time to time I do hate myself. This can be from letting someone down or from an accidental misunderstanding. This is when I truly loathe myself and only the passage of time will help me move on from 'shameful behaviour', but that self-hate will never fully go away.
In these situations, any talk of 'self love' really won't help. What does help is to have friends to confide in, and sometimes they provide some perspective that is helpful. Maybe they have also upset the same person and can reassure me that I meant no harm.
If you scroll down the dilog box for this service you will find a link to "vendor preferences".
Click this, and you will find dozens of companies, with many having "legitimate interest" switched on. I find this deceptive (hiding this, essentially, and also using "legitimate interest".
If I really want to read what the site says I laboriously click no to legitimate interest, though usually I just close the page.
Readit News
I started carrying around a photo of myself as a kid. I'm sitting against a wall, by a pillar, at our state capital. My eyes are shut. I was kind of a shy kid.
When I start to get frustrated and talk to myself in that short, abrasive, condescending tone, I think of that photo and of myself, as still that kid.
It helps me to be more compassionate towards myself in those moments. I'm still that shy kid trying to make sense of the world.
I'm 47.
Try keeping distance from yourself. :/ The self is always there, it never relents; its mistakes and weaknesses ever present, recurrent. It's less easy to accept and/or forgive when you can't forget.
In fact what you are doing with that photo -- which is a practice I completely support and agree with BTW -- is precisely that: distancing yourself from yourself, taking a look "in" from the outside. It's easier to find compassion like that, for both your child and current selves.
I'm also 47.
I listen to the grownups here. I am merely 46.
the voice is a shock jock, click bait. All headline, no research, no lede.
So it is with internal demons sometimes, I find. You learn to recognize them, rather than expunge them.
(reminder to self)
I work with a lot of young people starting marriages, families, and life. The advice I give is have as much love and patience for yourself as you do for your partner and others. You won’t always get it right so be forgive yourself, learn, and get better.
(I’m 49)
Preferably personal, but alternatively something where you helped a friend or child or family member. Asking for a friend. There's a whole parasitic industry built around this concept e.g. selfharm books (selfhelp) or life coach.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy
Example: in my head, “You’re so fucking lazy, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why can’t you just-“ etc, would be answered by, “You are human. You are doing your best. The modern world asks too much of all of us. You deserve to rest. I’m proud of you. I love you.” Consistently in my head, sometimes out loud if I was alone.
Along with forgiving myself, sometimes I would think through and list out my accomplishments. The voice in my head told me I was a failure, but I built up an entire list of the things I had achieved to prove it wrong, every time.
At first it felt weird and fake. I didn’t have any reason to believe “myself.” But then, I didn’t have any reason to believe that criticizing voice either.
Slowly, the responding voice became more and more “real.” To the point where I was easily scoffing at and brushing off my self criticism. And then, for reasons I really don’t understand, that critical voice started speaking up less and less.
After over two years of this, I have stopped hearing that critical voice entirely. I’m in my mid thirties, which isn’t old but is old enough to still be startled by how night and day different it is now to live in my head. It is so much quieter and more peaceful. And a lot of the stuff I used to struggle with, actually isn’t a struggle anymore. I don’t procrastinate hardly at all now. In most cases I recognize “I’m not ready to tackle this yet, let me put my energy elsewhere and I’ll get back to it when I’m ready” and shockingly enough, when I’m forgiven and allowed to walk away, I do find myself “ready” later on to come back and tackle it.
I think what I did falls under the umbrella of “reparenting your inner child” if you want to research more.
Caveat that I also pulled this off while working at the least toxic workplace I have ever worked and being surrounded by the best friends I’ve ever had. Set and setting might be really important here.
Good luck to you. I hope you can also break free.
Magnesium glycinate, magnesium threonate, l-theanine, inositol, NAC - all have been both calming and help with negative ruminations, for me.
Misses clear definitions (what counts as "friendship with self"?) and the mechanism (how X->Y). Anecdotes/quotes != proofs.
IOW, prestige != proof. Two quick checks 1) strip the names - does the reasoning still stand? 2) Flip to counterexamples - does the thesis survive? We all know people who are hard on themselves but deeply loving to others.
Nice essay but treat it as a opinion to test, not a truth to inherit. The thread reads as if the case were already proven.
Loving yourself means you have acknowledged your weaknesses. Whether or not you strengthen them, it enables you to empathize with others as their own weaknesses manifest.
The world becomes much more cozy once you realize others are not much different than you.
A lot of (most?) people get some sort of self love more or less by default, not because they are necessarily super self aware, but because their upbringing fostered that. They're emotionally normal and well adjusted. You don't have to be a philosopher to love yourself.
For those of us that did not get appropriate love in their upbringing, or even learnt self hatred, we will spend significant time down the track learning acceptance. That's when you need a lot of self awareness, because you will need to uproot a lot to move towards a more helpful emotional system.
Interestingly enough, once I started forgiving myself for my flaws, a significant portion of them went away.
(Edited for clarity)
Allows you to appreciate the perceptiveness of others when they're correct.
Also, if you do not know yourself (and especially if you cannot forgive yourself) you're going to struggle to deal with your own children.
My kids reflect me back at myself in what were frustrating ways, until I realised it was me and my influence, and it became massively endearing.
Although I may be too forgiving of myself (but in amongst that I do still have 'the voices of discontent' but the longer I live the more their sentiment is proven wrong).
As someone who's had to do extensive work on myself to survive I can relate to a lot of things said here. I have gone through a lot of material on psychology and spend a lot of time thinking myself when I read or go through the material. This was after 3 years of medication and 20 years of suffering and reaching the point of wanting badly to end my life due to multiple factors growing up.
What I would suggest if you wanted to start working on yourself building healthier relationships with yourself and others:
First is find a suitable therapist. Shop for a therapist like you shop for clothes. Do a session or two and see what you feel. What you need depends on what you are going through. Depression panic anxiety marriage health etc. But don't continue therapy where you don't feel good. There wont be a perfect fit but 'good enough' is someone you can talk to and is compassionate and helps you to do well. They will also assign small homework and that is important. The right therapist will be on your team and slowly nudge you in the right direction (though with your knowledge not sneakily). This builds trust.
Second would be start working on your body. Your body is just as important as your mind. And the two are very interlinked. Yoga, Mindfulness, being more present (ditch your phones and social media accounts), exercise, food, etc. all contribute to your mental wellbeing which will help you create a good relationship with yourself. Once you give the body the love it needs, it will give it back to you.
Third would be to do some reading on mental health and books by psychologists. The thing is you will get lot of insights on your own life reading all that. But be careful too, it might bring up intense memories (like trauma) that can be dangerous. So go slow. Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, Bessel van Der Kolk, Gottman, Richard Shwartz, David Burns, beane Browne etc. Such authors are actively doing work on the cognitive side of things. Some have extreme theories so look for things that apply to you.
I will admit that I was skeptical of the whole 'change your thoughts and things will change' and to some extent I still think that it's not the whole story. But you have to do the self work and your mind is a big part of it. I am very far from building healthy relationships in my life but I think I am having a good relationship with myself lately. I may have gone a few notches down in depression and things have improved.
There is a lot more to share tbh on this but these things are something I did in the last two years that seem to have helped.
Self-censorship is a worrying trend.
I don't have a proof, but I think 'su**de' is a more appropriate form of 'suicide' here than 'suicide', just because it is.
You can do it for a while but, the long lasting stuff, you need that personal foundation.
Easily said but difficult to do for many.
It requires a level of self awareness and an acknowledgement of your strengths and weaknesses and how they impact yourself and others. But like a doctor, the first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis.
Something something Jungian shadow work or something.
Except you can, you can be a middle layer. I'm not just nitpicking on the analogy failing at the first degree, you can love someone much more than you love yourself, and the nature of what you bring to them doesn't need to be how you deal with yourself.
People raising kids in particular are supporting a level of self abuse that flies in the face of the analogy. They also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed. But asking them to treat themselves like they treat their kid just doesn't work in any practical way.
how do you figure that? or, what exactly do you mean here? i don't exactly treat my kids the way i treat myself, but that's because we have different needs. but i most certainly don't treat my kids worse or better than myself.
you also say: they also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed
exactly, so where is the self-abuse?
I think the biggest thing that the "self-love prerequisite" idea misses and that the article sort of indirectly gets at is that this feeling of social self-efficacy is something most (all?) people learn through successful relationships with others - sometimes in our upbringing, sometimes not. I don't think it's unnatural at all for others' love of us to outpace our own just a little.
I love this formulation and will add it to my collection of aphorisms. I myself like a similar phrasing: one cannot pour from an empty cup.
"I love eating delicious food" is a totally sensible sentence with involves only the self and an inanimate object, and arguably only the self because it is about your own enjoyment and actions more so than the food itself.
"I love computers", etc etc.
Love is broad, it can be shared, it can be unrequited, it can be with an inanimate object or with an abstract concept. The object can certainly be the self.
Maybe it is a British cultural difference, however, 'loving oneself' and the language of 'self love' definitely makes me cringe.
Hence, I prefer to think of 'not hating oneself' as the area to improve on. From time to time I do hate myself. This can be from letting someone down or from an accidental misunderstanding. This is when I truly loathe myself and only the passage of time will help me move on from 'shameful behaviour', but that self-hate will never fully go away.
In these situations, any talk of 'self love' really won't help. What does help is to have friends to confide in, and sometimes they provide some perspective that is helpful. Maybe they have also upset the same person and can reassure me that I meant no harm.
This service can have cookies switched off, though "legitimate interest" is left on.
"Legitimate interest" sounds innocent, yet it is not.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
If you scroll down the dilog box for this service you will find a link to "vendor preferences".
Click this, and you will find dozens of companies, with many having "legitimate interest" switched on. I find this deceptive (hiding this, essentially, and also using "legitimate interest".
If I really want to read what the site says I laboriously click no to legitimate interest, though usually I just close the page.