Self-Compassion Beats the Inner Critic

Your inner critic is not discipline - it’s psychological self-harm.

I love reading articles about psychology, and recently I read about the work of Dr. Kristin Neff. She’s spent around 20 years studying self-compassion, failure, and how we react to our own mistakes.

One small mistake can stay active in your head for 24, 48, even 72 hours!

The mistake lasted maybe 30 seconds but the punishment lasts three days. When we fail, the amygdala can react like there is a real threat nearby.

Cortisol rises. your the nervous system goes into defence mode and the voice starts your dirty work: you always do this, you’re not good enough, and so on.

Some books telling us that this voice made people stronger but that's bullshit.

It’s probably 95% fear and 5% useful information.

The problem with that that external criticism ends when the other person leaves but self-criticism keeps attacking you 24 hours a day because the abuser lives in your own head.

So people work 2 times harder, stay busy for 10 hours, watch 3 episodes of Netflix, overeating, etc.

None of it fixes the threat.

Instead of spending 15 minutes learning from what happened, they waste the next two days trying to prove they weren’t stupid.

It made them tired / defensive / likely to screw up again.

What helps? Self-compassion!

1. Say what happened without attacking yourself: I made a mistake
2. Remind yourself that everyone screws up
3. Ask one question: What can I do differently next time?

Keep practice that!