How kind and loving to yourself are you? Do you suffer from critical voices inside beating you up, telling you need to try harder, or must be bad or a failure if you made a mistake or do you turn this kind of treatment out onto others? It can be a trait that becomes ingrained for so many of us who were raised in a culture that always encouraged us to try harder, did not really see into us, or taught us to be neglectful or abusive to ourselves (under the disguise of so called ‘love’).
I am reading through Louise Hays’ book The Power Is Within You at the moment and she addresses the issues of self criticism in Chapter 8.. How to Love Yourself. The following paragraphs I found very powerful and helpful on what I am working on at the moment in my own life :
If we tell ourselves we are okay, no matter what is going on, we can make changes in our lives easily. It is when we make ourselves bad that we have great difficulty. We all change – everyone. Every day is a new day, and we do things a little differently that we did the day before. Our ability to adapt and flow with the process of life is our power.
Those who come from dysfunctional homes often have become super responsible and have gotten in the habit of judging themselves unmercifully. They have grown up amidst tension and anxiety. The message they get… is “There must be something wrong with me.” Think for a moment about the words you use when scolding yourself. Some of the phrases people tell me are : stupid, bad boy, bad girl, useless, careless sloppy, dirty etc.
There is a tremendous need to build self worth and value in ourselves, because when we feel not good enough, we find ways to keep ourselves miserable. We create illness or pain in our bodies; we procrastinate about things that would benefit us; we mistreat our bodies with food, alcohol, and drugs.
We are all insecure in some ways because we are human. Let us learn not to pretend that we are perfect. Having to be perfect only puts immense pressure on ourselves and it prevents us from looking at areas of our lives that need healing. Instead, we could discover our creative distinctions, our individualities, and appreciate ourselves for the qualities that set us apart from others. Each one of us has a unique role to play on this earth, and when we are critical of ourselves, we obscure it.
We must also stop scaring ourselves…. with frightful thoughts.. making situations worse than they are….If you find yourself habitually reviewing a negative thought or situation in your mind, find an image of something you would like to replace it with….. a beautiful view, or a sunset, or flowers.. anything you love. Use that image as a switch to image every time you find you are scaring yourself.
Be kind patient and gentle with yourself. Accept and learn from your mistakes, don’t always seek immediate gratification.. sometimes learning and healing and forgiving and accepting take time. Often we need to make certain mistakes to learn lessons. We are all human and when we let ourselves be human and kind we can then extend that same consideration to all suffering beings. When we don’t beat ourselves up for negative thoughts we are more likely to let them go, it is human to think negatively and have fears, but we do have a choice in how we respond.
Allow yourself to accept good whether you deserve it or not. I’ve discussed how believing that we are not deserving is our unwillingness to accept good in our lives. It’s what stops us from having what we want.
The following affirmations are not from Louise Hay but I find them powerful.
I am worthy.
I accept my good.
I am safe and secure.
I am always cared for.
I forgive and release the past.
It is safe for me to surrender.
I let go and let God.
It is safe for me to me in my body.
I am loved and loving.
It is safe for me to breathe.
Dysfunctional homes and trauma can make us feel anxious and unsafe but what ever happened to us in the past it is up to soothe our fears and heal our unkindness now through an act of conscious choice. Each of us really do have that power.
Emerging From The Dark Night 