Overcoming Self-Judgment

In this episode, you’ll learn where self-judgment stems from, why you might have adopted this behaviour pattern and how to overcome it. I’ll share with you questions for self-reflection, journal prompts and effective practices on how to let go of self-judgment.

Music: “Going Home” by Lee Rosevere licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Transcript

Hey,

You're listening to the Ena Carlin Podcast with your host,

Anika Spuddin.

Hi everyone.

Thank you for being here.

I really appreciate it.

It's been a while since I've talked to you over here,

So I'm excited to get started.

Today is all about self-judgment.

I'll talk to you about where self-judgment comes from,

Why do you feel it,

And how do you end up in this spiral,

And of course,

How to get out of it.

At the end,

I'll share with you some techniques and practices on how to release it.

Self-judgment is a behavior pattern that we've adopted often early on.

It could be learned from childhood.

If you had criticizing parents growing up,

You are more likely to be self-judgmental as a way of protecting yourself from making future mistakes.

If you had parents who gave you inconsistent support growing up or who adopted the hot and cold parenting style,

Which means basically praising you for your acceptable behavior,

I say acceptable in air quotes,

And then criticizing you and withholding affection as a way to punish your unacceptable behavior,

Which could be anything really from throwing up a tantrum,

Being late for school,

Breaking something around the house.

If your caregivers showed you warmth and affection only when you did something that pleased them,

You quickly learned what kind of behavior would get you more affection and love from them,

So you repeated.

And I just want to say that I'm not saying this so you can blame your parents or anyone else,

Definitely not.

This is so you can create awareness of where this behavior may stem from.

And with this new awareness,

You can change this behavior afterwards.

So how did we end up in this spiral?

We internalize our parents' criticism and then later on as adults,

We use self-judgment as a motivational tool.

For an example,

When you didn't hear your alarm ringing in the morning and end up running late,

You might say to yourself something in the lines of,

How could I be so stupid?

I'm so lazy.

This is so unprofessional of me.

What is wrong with me?

Using this kind of negative self-talk to punish yourself and at the same time to motivate yourself not to make the same mistakes again.

And you might be thinking right now,

But isn't criticizing myself the smart thing to do?

Why is it not serving me?

Self-reliance is not found to be effective or productive in helping us avoid making mistakes.

It's just an illusion,

An irrational belief that we continue to buy into,

Believing that it's motivating us,

But it's not.

Let's look at your behavior using the same example with our alarm ringing.

Once you realized that you overslept and didn't hear it,

You became aware of the situation and you acknowledged your role in it.

You realized that your actions led to it.

So beating yourself up afterwards only made you feel worse and doubt yourself even more.

And then doubt your abilities not to repeat the same mistake again.

You've put the focus on who you are as a person by saying to yourself that you are unprofessional or stupid or that there must be something wrong with you.

You've turned the focus on yourself and not on your actions.

And if you believe that you are unprofessional,

Then you're more likely to act out on that belief.

The healthy response would have been to become aware and then take ownership and responsibility by looking at your behavior and making amends there.

And what would have been even more helpful is to give yourself self-compassion instead of self-judgment in that moment.

I'm going to talk to you about self-compassion a lot more later in this episode.

But if you still don't believe me that self-judgment is not a helpful strategy for correcting your behavior,

Then I'm going to share with you a study in psychology that illustrates this scientifically.

Research showed that self-judgment was negatively linked with self-efficacy before and after a failure.

Self-efficacy is your beliefs in your capabilities to complete a task or a goal.

The results showed that our tendency to criticize ourselves make us doubt our abilities to overcome challenges and is only increased after we experience a failure.

And the truth is that we are all going to experience a failure at one point in our lives because this is part of being human.

We can't protect ourselves from it no matter how much we try and judging yourself for your mistakes can only make things worse.

The thing is that we get so caught up into rating ourselves who we are as human beings,

Good or bad,

Strong,

Weak,

Pretty,

Ugly,

Smart,

Stupid,

Rather than turning the focus on our behavior and actions.

Because we can take responsibility for our behavior and work on it.

But when we internalize our mistakes and flaws and root them in our identity,

It's so much more painful,

Damaging and harder to move forward.

Another reason why you might continue to use self-judgment on a daily basis is because you believe that if you judge yourself first,

You will be less hurt by the judgment and rejection of other people.

And I would encourage you to reflect on this for a moment.

Can you recall times in the past when you've rushed to judge or criticize yourself so you can lessen the impact of other people's criticism?

We often pride ourselves for being our biggest critic.

It's a way to say to others,

Nothing you can say can really hurt me because I've already told or said the worst to myself.

But this is not healthy.

We are only lying to ourselves that it helps to soften the pain of rejection.

You don't need to protect yourself from the pain by judging yourself first.

What you can do instead is acknowledge the pain or hurt of someone's words or feedback and then take a moment to give yourself self-compassion instead because self-compassion is what heals and helps us move through the pain.

Judgment is not giving yourself tough love or being real.

You can be absolutely honest with yourself without speaking to yourself in a negative or hurtful way.

Imagine you are talking to a friend or someone you love.

Would you judge them as a way of being honest?

Honesty doesn't require judgment.

It just needs self-awareness and willingness to be open.

So I hope this can lessen the resistance that you might feel towards letting go of self-judgment because it's absolutely ok to feel resistant at first.

Our brains are just trying to keep us safe and protect us from getting hurt in one way or the other.

But I really believe that letting go of being judgmental towards yourself and others can really transform your life.

Self-judgment can also be linked with the need to control.

We try so hard to be better or more and strive to be perfect and not make mistakes.

But we can't avoid the human element of life.

And this means being imperfect,

Making mistakes and not always being something more.

This is all part of being human and you don't need to deny your humanness or try to protect yourself from it.

We spend so much time in our society by competing with each other,

Rating ourselves,

Comparing and evaluating.

We scroll down social media and it feels so easy to fall in that trap.

Because you always find someone who have it better,

Someone who is more successful or more attractive.

No matter how much you try,

It's just impossible to be the one who is better.

There are millions of people out there.

And you don't have to be better.

You don't have to be anything more than who you are in order to feel worthy and deserving and happy and loved.

I know that we all struggle sometimes because we don't feel good enough.

But the truth is that it's okay.

It's okay to feel this way.

We all feel it.

No one is immune to it.

I know that it may seem like you are the only one who struggles with this.

But it's human to feel not good enough.

Let go of trying to rate yourself and your self-worth based on an unrealistic scale.

As human beings,

There is no rating scale for worthiness.

We are alive and therefore we are worthy to be alive,

To be here.

Shame also plays a big role in feeling unworthy,

Not good enough,

Unlovable or inadequate.

And shame often goes hand in hand with self-judgment.

So if you'd like to learn more about shame and what strategies you can use to help you,

You can check some of my previous episodes.

It's called Shame,

Self-acceptance and Worthiness.

This leads me to self-compassion.

Self-compassion is the antidote to self-judgment.

You've probably heard about it before and you know what it is already,

So I'm not going to get into a great detail here.

But at the core of self-compassion is kindness and affection.

These two things that we don't allow ourselves often.

Either it's because we believe it's selfish or self-indulgent or because we've been conditioned to believe that it makes us weak or spoiled.

But if you allow yourself to give compassion to other people and you find it normal,

Then why is it so hard to allow yourself self-compassion?

Why would other people need it more than you?

By giving yourself compassion,

You are giving yourself kindness.

You've been there for yourself and taking care of yourself.

You are acknowledging that you're hurting and instead of beating yourself up for doing something wrong or waiting for someone else to meet your needs or soothe you,

You are meeting your own needs.

You are giving yourself what you need and what you deserve.

Even we're not even aware that we are self-dutimental.

It has become such an integral part of your life that you don't even realize that you can unlearn it.

It doesn't have to be something normal to you.

Honestly,

I still remember the day when I realized that the self-talk I've been playing in my head for as long as I remember wasn't healthy.

And I believe this is how positive change begins with self-awareness.

The more aware we become of the way we speak to ourselves,

The way we think about ourselves and how we treat ourselves,

The more we identify patterns and then can make the step forwards towards releasing them and adopting healthier ones.

So this is why now I'm going to share with you a couple of questions for self-reflection.

You can use them as journal prompts or meditate over them,

Whatever suits you best.

So here we go.

How do you speak to yourself when you mess up or fail?

How do you speak to yourself when you complete a goal or achieve something?

What are the differences in your self-talk between these two situations?

Are you more likely to judge yourself as a human being or are you more likely to judge your actions and behavior?

Once you become aware,

You can then start keeping track of every time you catch yourself judging.

You can keep a mental note or write it down but I would suggest writing because it keeps you more accountable and it's also going to serve you as a reminder of the progress you've made.

And then you can slowly start to release the self-judgment by adopting self-compassion instead.

When you feel upset or angry at yourself,

Rather than getting back into the habit of judging,

You can calm and suit yourself.

How do you speak to someone you love when they are hurting?

How would you suit them?

When you adopt the same language and direct it towards yourself instead?

Ask yourself,

What do I need to hear or do right now in order to show kindness to myself?

It's really that simple.

It's not complicated.

It just takes time and patience but you can absolutely get there.

Turn self-compassion into a daily practice.

The more you remind yourself of it and implement it,

The easier you will let go of self-judgment.

This is all for today.

I really hope this helped you and sparked some insights.

I love talking to you and thank you so much for listening.

I've got additional free resources that might help you further.

Free self-acceptance workbook that you can get from my website at anygirlspotting.

Com.

You'll see the link in my bio.

Thank you and see you soon.

Reviews

Nameste 🙏 when is your
birthday?you’ve help me a lot

Thank you for sharing this call to be kind to ourselves! It was a wonderful reminder of the importance of self-compassion. 🙏

Wow, this was a great talk to remind myself to not be so harsh to the self. It serves no purpose. I loved this talked and will listen to others.

Great discussion, like you, I finally caught the whispers of self judgment the other morning in a way that was like ah ha! I got it! Like I actually captured crystal clear the tendency and the voice in a way that made me feel like I got it. Lovely examples that helped me connect, like it does seem to go hand in hand with shame. Bleh! Good to know! Daily self compassion, I'll work at it.

Very helpful! Thank you so much!❤️

Great lesson! Thank you 🙏🏼

Insightful and helpful! Thank you!