For just one day, observe your thoughts about yourself. First of all, do you get up in the morning dreading the day ahead? Do you feel like just pulling your blanket over your head and hiding under it for the rest of your existence? Then finally dragging yourself out, you look in the mirror and feel like you are the ugliest person on earth. Throughout the day you find yourself critiquing your every move, chiding yourself that you can do better and making yourself feel worse because you didn’t meet up to your own standards. Every time you make a mistake, you act like it is a crime and you punish yourself until you feel the guilt go away. This self-criticism cycle does nothing good for no one. You will feel drained at the beginning of the day itself and by the end you won’t want to face yourself.
Self criticism has become sort of a norm in today’s culture. We see a lot of shows and movies on TV where the female puts herself down and it’s made to look charming and adorable. Also, growing up we faced a lot of criticism that wasn’t necessarily constructive and were punished at the drop of a hat. So the only way that we decided we could get through life was by being our own moral police and jumping at every chance to set ourselves straight before someone else did so to us. But the result was that, just like we loathed our teachers and other seniors, we began to secretly dislike ourselves. We became two personalities – the criminal and the law and one tried to overcome the other and it finally became a battle within our own minds. It sounds kind of deep, but think about it – how many times have you done something you shouldn’t have done and then avoided that mental meeting you were about to have with yourself by conducting activities that distracted you from the issue – you ate, you drank, you went out on the town, you watched a load of TV, you wasted time on idle activities and you went to sleep for generous amounts of time.
If you feel that you criticize and put yourself down a little too much, then maybe you should try some constructive and healing ways to be positive with yourself while still making changes.
EFT
This is a technique used by many therapists that you can try at home. It is about tapping different points on your body and repeating lines. It is said to remove all the stress from the body and negative thoughts that may be plaguing you.
Meditation
Another way you can control stress and reduce self-criticism is through meditation. Practiced for thousands of years by those in the East, this method has now become popular in western countries as well. From celebrities to businessmen to stay-at-home moms, everyone is taking to this calming method to get back to self and win at life.
Positive Affirmations
Another great method to get over self-criticism and ego issues is to affirm that you are lovable, that you are human, that you accept yourself for who you are. You don’t need to follow any method here. Iyanla Vanzant recommends that you write 40 things for 40 days to transform yourself but you can also come up with your own custom method as long as you are saying good things about and to yourself.
Truly loving yourself and who you are helps with avoiding self-criticism and including self acceptance into your life.
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