Untangling Stressful Habits – Self-Criticism

If you have been in my world for a while, you will know that I am passionate about habits and untangling unhelpful habits to live a fulfilling and whole-hearted life as a well-being. So I am writing a series to shed some light on some stressful habits that have come back in to my awareness recently.

Before I start sharing about stressful habits, let’s have a look at what stressful habits are.

What Are Stressful Habits?

Basically – habits can be useful or not so useful, helpful or not so helpful, stress inducing or not. Sometimes we are conscious of our habit/s (i.e. often chosen and intentional) or the habit/s can sit within our blind spots or the unknown.

When I refer to stressful habits, I am referring to habits that are impacting our overall life, business or well-being. They could be adding extra stress, suffering or draining life force energy in our lives. The stressful habits could be showing up in one or a variety of areas within our lives (i.e. physical, emotional, mental, financial, environmental or social).

In order to start to untangle from stressful habits, we need to develop self-awareness, so we can be more responsible and take ownership of our own life. Today I wanted to introduce self-criticism.

Stressful Habit: Self-Criticism

Have you ever wanted to try something new, change something, ask for help or pursue a passion? Then, as you muster enough courage to take small steps towards these changes or situations, you start to feel nervous, anxious or fearful?

You may even notice a voice inside your head constantly evaluating you why these changes could never happen – you’re not clever or skilled enough, everything you do is wrong, you’ll run out of money or a variety of other distorted thoughts.

Well done – you are human! Each of us has this self-critical voice inside our heads that can hold us back. Some people are aware of this inner critic or outside voice and some people are not.

This voice  inside our heads has been referred to by many names. Some people refer to this voice as the voice of ego or super ego, the little me, lower personality, limiting beliefs, sub-personality, monkey mind, saboteur and also linked in with the shadow. Today, I am going to refer to it as the inner critic or the “outside voice”.

Where Does Self-Criticism Show Up?

The inner critic or “outside voice” can –

• Store all the rules on how you “should be” and then if you don’t follow these rules punish you (i.e. work and sport),
• Often believe the negative/bad stuff said about you growing up (from family, friends, teachers, coaches) and reminds you of it constantly, so you are continually trying to be liked and striving to be better,
• Stop you from trying something new in case you make mistakes. If you do try something new, you can be constantly on high alert to avoid mistakes for fear of what can happen and the pain associated with it,
• Continually criticises and compares you to other people (i.e. in life, relationships, study, sport or work).
• Store the voices of parents, coaches or teachers (anyone you want to please) so you have a clear idea of what these people want from you and how you are to behave. With this information stored in your mind you can avoid their disapproval.

After reading the above on self-criticism, I imagine you can see that self-criticism can show up in many places of our lives. When self-criticism shows up it can be challenging, however we can start to untangle from it and awareness is the first step. Once we recognise it, we can then discover ways to help befriend and then untangle from the self-criticism.

Over to You…

Now you have this awareness, what is your next step? Imagine what life would be like if we were more aware of the inner critic and could choose to respond to it instead of react? Well we can!

Feel free to share any insights on self-criticism or a reflection below. Remember to take care of yourself (yes BE self-compassionate). Sometimes change can take a while, so be patient. Also – remember when the inner critic (outside voice) is consciously understood it supports our adventure of wholeness and heartful living.

If you are ready to take yourself on the adventure of getting to know yourself (your true Self), why not join the Toolkit? A place where I share tools, inspiration and ideas to live a courageous and openhearted life.