ConfidenceWoman Standing on a Dock is something we all struggle with from time to time. We want to feel sure of ourselves, but those little whispers of self-doubt show up whenever we want to put ourselves out there, take risks, or try something new. They tell us to play it safe and do things the way we’ve always done them to avoid getting hurt, embarrassed, or rejected, but you don’t always have to listen to them. In fact, doing things your conscience deems unsafe or out-of-the-norm is a great way to build confidence.

Cultivating confidence is the first step toward healthy self-esteem and personal growth, but it isn’t easy for most people. In order to foster confidence, you may have to do something you’ve never done or think in a way you haven’t thought. This can be scary, but know that cognitive restructuring and adjusting behaviors are essential parts of many types of effective therapy.

To help you on your journey to become more confident, here are eight suggestions to get you started:

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1. Face a Fear

Fear is usually at the root of a lack of self-confidence. When you’re scared of the outcome of something, you aren’t likely to go into it feeling assured. Until you face your fear head-on, it controls you and makes the voice of self-doubt louder.

Think about a fear you faced and recall how you felt afterward. Perhaps you felt liberated and proud; you might have even wanted to do the thing you were afraid of again.

Make a commitment to do something that scares you every day, once a week, or once a month and watch your confidence quickly grow.

2. Befriend Failure

If you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried. In order to truly be successful, you have to be comfortable with the possibility of failure. The more you fail, the more you’ll learn and grow. Accept your mistakes and use them to propel you forward.

Failure often seems like the end of the road, but it’s probably just the beginning. Once you accept the initial disappointment, you’ll be able to move forward better equipped to succeed the next time. By taking risks and being willing to fail, you’ll learn to believe in yourself and your capabilities.

3. Doubt Your Doubt

Doubt is the enemy of confidence. It keeps us feeling uncertain and, sometimes, even makes us a bit cynical. If you start doubting yourself, counteract it by doubting your doubt. Question the truth of what your doubt is saying to you.

Perhaps your doubt is saying, “Oh, I’m really not good at this.” Question those limiting beliefs whenever they arise. You’ll likely realize there aren’t many facts to back up the doubtful assertion.

4. Affirm Your Strengths, Talents, and Accomplishments

People who lack self-confidence tend to focus more on their weaknesses than their strengths. Make a list of your strengths, talents, and accomplishments. Be honest with yourself and try reading from this list daily to remind you of your greatness.

Don’t hesitate to write something like, “I am beautiful and wonderful” in red lipstick on your mirror. Though it may seem cliché, it works. We tend to believe in messages we are constantly exposed to—just ask an advertising executive.

Your confidence is influenced tremendously by your daily thoughts, especially recurring thoughts. Consistency is key to lasting change. If you want to be more confident, make a habit of reminding yourself of your unique gifts and abilities.

5. Embody Confidence

Fake it ’til you make it. Ever heard that phrase?

If you want to be more confident, feel more confident. When you find yourself feeling nervous and unsure, stop for a moment, close your eyes, and think of a time when you felt confident and self-assured. Use all of your senses to bring you back to that moment. In doing this, you’ll be more able to cultivate that feeling in the present moment.

Also, consider your posture. Choose a body posture that looks and feels confident. Next, think about your clothing and style. Dress to impress—yourself! Dress in a way that makes you feel good. If you look good to you, you’ll feel good, and feeling good often leads to higher self-confidence.

6. Listen to Empowering Music

Music is a great for evoking emotion. When you want to feel more confident, turn on some music that lifts you up.

If you’ve never used music to inspire motivation, we suggest these confidence-inducing songs:

Press play on one of these tracks and turn the volume up before a workout, job interview, date, or some other event that requires you to summon confidence.

7. Set a Realistic Goal and Take Action to Achieve It

Your achievements contribute greatly to your feelings of self-confidence. By making a commitment and following through with it, you’ll learn to trust yourself and your abilities more.

Often, we make extreme resolutions—think New Year’s resolutions—that require broad, sweeping change. Then we don’t stick to them. It happens every year: people who exercise once a month try to exercise an hour each day and almost inevitably make it about a week or two before they give up. By not following through on a commitment we make to ourselves, we lose trust and faith in our abilities, and our confidence suffers as a result.

New habits take a significant amount of time, effort, and dedication to cultivate. When setting new goals, be realistic and make sure that your goals are attainable. Start slowly and set small goals that you can build on. By following through with your commitments, no matter how small, you’ll learn to trust yourself and gain confidence in what you’re capable of achieving.

8. Make a Difference

Do something to give back and contribute to society. Consider volunteering or making a donation to your favorite charity. Do something for someone else. It doesn’t have to be a major contribution; even something as simple as helping your elderly neighbor carry her groceries will make you feel good (and more valuable).

By making a personal contribution, it reminds you that your individual choices have an impact on the world. Realizing your true significance as an individual will empower you and increase your feelings of self-confidence.

Choose One Suggestion from Our List and Give It a Shot

If you really want to be more confident, consider choosing just one of the suggestions above that resonates with you. Even if it seems quirky, try it. Focus on one thing at a time and adjust a simple thought or behavior and it could go a long way toward building your confidence.

If you try to do too much at once, you may become overwhelmed. Remember that confidence is a state of trust, which, like any therapeutic relationship, takes time to build. Be patient with yourself and know the journey begins with one step. Take baby steps and, before you know it, you will arrive at your destination feeling confident and capable.

AdobeStock 164133536For people who define themselves as socially awkward, the perceived risk of being seen in endlessly negative ways—inadequate, ugly, boring, stupid, anxious, depressed, empty, arrogant, fat, pathetic, etc.—is always present. When I think about people in therapy who see themselves as socially awkward, I find little correlation between how I experience each individual as a social person and how they think of themselves. Every one of them seems to have characteristics that I enjoy and admire, and they are often (but not always) in occupations of respectable social status. However, for the “socially awkward” person who supposedly “knows” how little they have to offer to the world, the facts of their occupational status or character are irrelevant.

What I have come to recognize about many people in therapy who feel severely socially awkward is that they share the belief that when they were growing up they missed out on learning the rules of social discourse. As a consequence, they are intensely anxious about how they will be responded to if they are socially off the mark. For example, Robert, an attorney, worries about phone calls and what to do after you say hello. Paula, an information technology manager, panics about being in a social situation and not knowing how to approach someone. Tanya, a college graduate, unemployed for the past year, keeps asking “what are the rules, how long do you talk with someone at a party and how do you get yourself out of a conversation?” Everyone worries about silence and eye contact.

While many of us might experience similar social concerns, a “socially awkward” person believes that their anxiety and inability to navigate these situations will be blatantly evident, and they expect to be responded to with rejection and disgust. Even when there are no evident responses that confirm their fears, such people continue to experience bad feelings about how they behaved and consequently justify their continued self-attacks and self-hate.

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Parental Expectations

A major source of the feelings of social inadequacy and the consequent self-hate that people often express is related to parental expectations. Both Tanya and Robert had parents with very high expectations. Robert talked about his parents pushing him to work harder at all the extracurricular activities they insisted he engage in: “They thought I was a virtuoso and kept pushing me to do more with the violin. My mother kept telling me what a wonderful writer I was and that I should try and get published. But she also insisted on critiquing any creative writing I tried.”

Tanya described how her parents pushed her to succeed in high school so she could get into an Ivy League school: “They would compare me to their best friends’ son and list all his achievements. On the surface, they seemed to be saying they thought I had what it took to be superior. But I never felt I could really be good enough, no matter how well I did. I upset them when I didn’t apply to Harvard, but I couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing them by not getting in.”

Paula also was negatively affected by her parents’ expectations. They wanted her to “be good.” The worst thing she could do was make anyone outside the family think any negative thoughts about her. This would shame and humiliate her parents and result in physical or verbal abuse. The most Paula could hope for from her parents was to avoid anger and criticism. She recalled: “My mother would scream and berate me if I didn’t smile the right way at a neighbor. I remember, when I was about 9, she dragged me from the Thanksgiving table at my aunt’s house because I didn’t say ‘please’ when I asked for the turkey. I was a very scared kid and never knew when I was going to get hit or criticized. I never knew what the right thing to do was. I still don’t know.”

The Importance of the Audience

Robert and Tanya needed to be high achievers so the parents could feel pleasure and ego satisfaction about their parenting. By pushing achievement on their children, the message, consciously and unconsciously, was that you must do more, be better, and shine or you will hurt and disappoint me. For all three people in therapy, the ultimate authority on how they were doing as children was the social audience their parents looked to and empowered. Most importantly, the incredible power of the “audience out there” cast the final judgment on how the parents were doing.

Without audience approval, the parents felt inadequate and humiliated and put the responsibility for these bad feelings onto their child. The parents held the child responsible for their own feelings of inadequacy, which were then attributed (projected) to the child who was designated as inadequate. The child not only felt the shame of insufficiency, but experienced the badness of having socially hurt, disappointed, and shamed the parents. It is no surprise, then, that for the humiliated, “inadequate” child, the social world would feel like a constant source of scrutiny with the mission of detecting and identifying the guilty party.

Developing Feelings of Social Adequacy

These three individuals have great certainty and strong emotional attachments to their belief that they are socially inadequate people. While they typically begin therapy with some hope that they can do something to improve their experiences, feelings of hopelessness often outweigh the hope. The journey to feeling more socially able begins with people becoming aware of the ways in which their social awkwardness has been shaped and confirmed by their early and continuing life experiences. While this provides a rational understanding of how their feelings of social inadequacy developed, it does not alter the strong emotions that arise when they find themselves in social situations.

I often hear about their intense anxiety in social situations and how they become panicked. With intense agitation, they scan faces of others to detect the expected negative reactions. If I wonder how it would be if I helped them to strategize for a social situation, the response is usually negative: “It won’t work; I’m too anxious; it’s useless.” I believe this is an expression not only of hopelessness but of the self-hate that the person feels. If I can help the person reflect about this and put his self-hate into words, it can help break through the paralysis and allow the person to agree to try and practice some new behaviors before a social situation.

Even when a person may bravely go to the party and try out a strategy, it is unusual for the person to feel that he or she has had success. As Robert told me: “It was horrible. I saw a woman standing alone near the bar and I went over to her and introduced myself and asked her name and how she came to be at the party (like we planned). I couldn’t make eye contact very well, but I tried. She did answer my questions, but then this other girl came over and started talking to the first girl and I panicked. I couldn’t say anything and left.”

The example above illustrates how, even with a strategy, it is difficult to succeed with the plan. What is even more difficult is to change the negative feelings about one’s self that influence our social behaviors. With considerable work, repeated experiences of small successes can lead to incremental but steady changes in behavior and self-perceptions.

I am going to list some steps that represent what happens in the therapy process that can help in altering self-defeating behaviors and feelings of self-hate and social inadequacy. To undertake these steps, with or without the help of a therapist, requires commitment to tolerate frustration and painful unwanted, and intolerable feelings. There must be a willingness to fail and try again repeatedly.

Steps to Changing Feelings of Social Inadequacy

  1. Gain knowledge through self-reflection to hypothesize how your “social awkwardness” has been shaped and confirmed by your life experiences.
  2. Self-talk to remind yourself of (1) positive qualities, (2) feelings that seem intolerable, and especially (3) your resilience, i.e., ability to withstand those intolerable feelings. (After all, you are still standing and functioning, and have had many encounters with those feelings, and you’re still here.)
  3. Develop strategies to help manage behavior in social situations, e.g., what to say when approaching a stranger at a party or subjects to talk about on a date. (Google your questions if you can’t come up with your own strategies.)
  4. Try out behaviors and be prepared to fail.
  5. Learn to see failed attempts as success. This means overriding old patterns of self-attack and bad feelings and allowing yourself to feel courageous for trying.
  6. Try out behaviors again and be prepared to fail again.
  7. Keep trying to feel successful for trying.
  8. Repeat steps 1 through 7 as long as necessary until you begin to feel more positively about yourself and more able to tolerate your unwanted feelings.
  9. Come up with a new thought which reflects positive feelings about yourself.
  10. Come up with a new thought about yourself as someone who is feeling a little more socially adequate.
  11. Allow yourself to consider that you can change and be aware of your anxiety about change.
  12. Keep repeating steps 1 through 11.
  13. Never stop working on developing positive feelings about yourself.
  14. Never stop working on your ability to tolerate unwanted feelings, change your behavior, and feel positive about yourself.

Note: To protect privacy, names in the preceding article have been changed and the dialogues described are a composite.

ContemplativeDeath is a subject that is generally off-limits in our society. We spend much of our time denying its existence and its inexorable approach, even though we all realize that we will die “some day.” For the most part, however, we try to convince ourselves that the day is far away and we operate from the premise that we are invincible—until the wheel of fate rolls around to show us just how vulnerable we really are.

We imagine that our loved ones will always be there for us, and often fail to take the time to let them know just how much we really care about them. This fact was recently driven home to me when a very dear friend finally lost the battle he’d been waging against cancer for the past year. Although I called and visited him regularly, I struggled with watching him age before my eyes and melt down to a frail, skeletal version of his once-healthy self. He unfortunately passed away before I really had a chance to say goodbye and tell him how much he’d meant to me.

During challenging moments such as these, we realize just how precious and fleeting our lives really are. We tend to take for granted many of the factors that contribute to our happiness, such as our health, our homes, and our families and friends. In the blink of an eye, our worlds can come crashing down as we come to realize just how weak and defenseless we are against the casualties of time.

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In addition, we frequently feel as though we cannot communicate our pain to others, as the grieving process is not truly honored in our society. After a short amount of time, we are expected to pick ourselves up and carry on with our lives as though nothing had happened. As death is such a taboo subject, others often feel awkward talking to us about our loss, which can leave us feeling cut off from our friends and acquaintances and alone with our suffering.

In other cultures around the world, they have special ceremonies and rituals designed to celebrate the ancestors who have gone before them. They keep them alive in their hearts and souls by dedicating holidays to remember them by. They share stories about the loved ones they have lost, honoring their lives and rejoicing in their passing on to a higher plane. These rituals can be of genuine help in assisting the families and individuals left behind to come to terms with death.

When a loved one dies, we mourn the loss of his or her companionship and presence in our lives, and feel bereft by the void that is left behind. We often regret not having shared with them our deepest feelings or having allowed ourselves to be more open and vulnerable with them. In some cases, we may also be left with unresolved issues if we have not come to terms with our underlying emotions, such as anger or resentment, toward the person who died.

These feelings can continue to haunt us long after the individual’s death, making it difficult in some cases to get on with our lives. This was the case for one of the persons I worked with, a person who harbored considerable hatred toward his father for the abuse that he had suffered at his hands. He grew up feeling unwanted and unlovable and thought that he was somehow to blame for his father’s abusive nature. He was consumed by bitterness for many years after his father’s death, which prevented him from being able to enjoy his life despite having a loving wife and a beautiful home.

His inner world was an ongoing nightmare until he started to gain a new perspective during the therapeutic process by realizing that he had not been to blame for his father’s abusive nature and that he had ended up internalizing many of the same dynamics himself. He came to see that his father probably had his own inner demons to contend with and had unfortunately just been repeating the cycle that likely had been going on for generations in his family.

As his compassion grew, he started to open up his heart to forgiveness. This played a huge role in his ability to heal and let go of the hatred that he had held onto for so long. Paying a visit to his father’s grave was the final ritual that allowed him to let go of his past and to start to move forward again in his life, with a newfound sense of compassion for his own human imperfections as well as those of his father.

Although we have not all grown up in abusive environments, we can all relate to this story on some level, as we have a tendency to carry some anger and hatred toward others regarding unresolved past wounds. These feelings of bitterness prevent us from being able to fully inhabit the present moment, as we ruminate on the pain that we’ve experienced and continually perpetuate our suffering. However, we can never find peace or joy in our lives as long as we are holding onto grudges for past wrongdoings. The resentment we feel ultimately hurts us much more than the person who initially caused us harm. And if the individual we hold a grudge against has died, this can compound our problem, as we tend to internalize this anger, thereby hurting ourselves even more.

Our psychological health therefore depends on our ability to forgive others. But we also have an even greater need to forgive ourselves for our own past transgressions and learn from them the lessons that we were intended to learn in order to move beyond them. Constantly beating ourselves up for something we have done in the past will not change what happened, but it will affect our ability to be happy and to truly love and accept ourselves now.

We are all human beings with imperfections and failings that we can learn from. As we open our hearts and begin to forgive and accept the aspects of ourselves that we have previously judged and rejected, we become more compassionate and loving toward ourselves as well as others. We learn to truly live our lives fully, rather than just surviving or waiting for a misfortune to hit us. We experience grief and pain, but we also become able to love with all our hearts. We start to drink deeply from the well of compassion that nourishes all who draw near and connects us on a deep level—the level of our own humanity.

Mature Man Looking in Mirror“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung

One thing is certain: each person has his or her own views, thoughts, and emotions. Even though we are so different, we experience similar patterns of self-analysis which make up who we are today. These patterns are typically created by the end result of our behaviors and viewed either negatively or favorably by our strongest critic, the almighty self. It’s amazing how our growth is determined by how the self translates our actions.

Self-awareness is the ability to formulate a summary of our behavior based on past and current thoughts and emotions. It allows us to understand what’s going on in our heads and why. Self-victimization, on the other hand, prevents us from accepting that we’re responsible for it, and for what we do as a result.

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Being self-aware is the ability to see our true selves without blinders. This is the first step in being true to one’s self. It requires empathy, patience, strength, humility, and love. One of the hardest things to do is see one’s self as fallible, but that is what we are. We all make mistakes and we all have our triumphs. The great ones are capable of seeing both extremes in oneself and learning how to merge them together to make them a better individual.

As humans we generally spend our life living within the two hemispheres or poles of self-thought. On one side, we play out our lives as victims due to painful events in our past and learn to feel powerless when confronting obstacles. These thoughts are considered indications of victimization behavior, and may look different for each individual:

In the other hemisphere dwell our thoughts of empowerment, which require self-awareness. The following are indications that you are practicing self-empowerment:

The fundamental difference between self-awareness and self-victimization pertains to our acknowledgment that we have been hurt. Self-awareness is about observing our response to what happened; self-victimization is about feeding into the story of what happened.

Tips to Achieve Self-Awareness

Girl hiding in scarfRecently, my son told me of a situation he had decided to avoid. To sum it up, he said, “I’d rather protect than subject.” I thought this encompassed many lessons in a concise way.

How often do we subject ourselves to situations we know will be unpleasant? How often do we choose to see people we know will deplete us, go to an event we would really rather skip, or say yes when every cell is screaming no?

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Healthy self-care depends on our ability to set boundaries. Assertively creating the life you want includes saying no—and sticking to it, as opposed to saying no and letting people cajole you into saying yes. By staying true to your goal of treating yourself well, you can push out of the comfort zone of not disappointing anyone and actually say no as many times as is necessary for someone to hear you. Typically, this takes a few repetitions. The good news is you just have to repeat yourself. There’s no need to say it in a different way. The easiest response is often, “I am sorry I won’t be able to do that; I have other plans.” No one needs to know what your plans are. You may want to spend the afternoon staring into space, writing a dissertation, or taking a nap. It doesn’t matter. Just saying the same sentence again and again in a kind, patient, gentle way will do the trick.

Good self-care also requires a willingness to look at one’s life and see where it could be more balanced. Are you spending an inordinate amount of time at work? Are you experiencing compassion fatigue from caring for a relative? Does your life feel swamped with errands and chores? Are you studying into the wee hours? Exercising to a state of exhaustion? By taking a look at the major areas of your life, you can quickly see if you are giving short shrift to rest, relaxation, social time, solitude, quiet, dancing, nature, journaling, music, or anything else that rejuvenates your body, mind, and spirit. Start by carving out even five minutes to sit quietly, have a cup of tea, or close your eyes. Making the conscious decision to take time to be still can be far more challenging than staying on the activity treadmill. Once you give yourself the gift of stopping and simply being, the rewards will keep you coming back.

Protecting yourself from your own internal litany of self-criticism is also important. How do you talk to yourself? Are you quick to put yourself down? Sometimes, protecting yourself means learning to be more tender with your own feelings, including your emotional responses to life’s slings and arrows. Creating an inner dialogue of supportive, positive, loving messages will have a profound effect on your relationship with yourself. A good way to start is to read a list of affirmations and write down a few that really resonate with you. I am especially fond of Louise Hay’s approach: Look in the mirror every day and say, “I love you. I really, really love you.” As supremely simple as this sounds, it is amazingly powerful.

On a more mundane level, self-protection entails daily rituals of eating, sleeping, and getting some fresh air. How conscientious are you with these basic life tasks? Most Americans get far too little sleep, which sets the stage for disease, crankiness, and deep fatigue. How is your diet? Are you eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day? It is not that hard to do. Try a handful of baby carrots, a bowl of bean soup, some fruit and cereal, a stir-fry or salad. Each of these foods will improve your mood, bolster your immune system, and provide you with the energy you need to better navigate your day. Make eating well a priority and watch your sense of well-being improve. While you are at it, make sure you eat frequently enough. Eating infrequently is another emotional saboteur, as low blood-sugar levels wreak havoc on your ability to feel stable, patient, and resilient. So, don’t let more than four hours pass without a snack or meal—and please eat breakfast.

On the topic of food, there is an ever-increasing amount of research being done on the beneficial effects of probiotics on all aspects of health—especially immunity and mood. Whether you eat sauerkraut, tempeh, yogurt, kefir, cheese, or dark chocolate (yes, chocolate is a fermented food), having some of these every day ensures a healthy gut.

Last, but not least, being aware of how things affect you is crucial to doing everything I’ve mentioned. Whether it is awareness of how you respond to someone’s tone of voice and asking them to speak to you differently, paying attention to feeling tired and actually going to sleep, or eating before you are starving, the greater your awareness, the greater the chances you will take better care of yourself. If you find yourself rushing through your day, try to carve out some solitude for yourself. By sitting with your breath and watching the parade of thoughts as they pass across your mind, you soothe your nervous system and begin to understand the transitory nature of everything.

Remember, you are a work in progress. The next time you think you have subjected yourself to someone or something that was disturbing, unhealthy, or even toxic, use it as an opportunity to be more aware in the future. Growth and change happen incrementally. Be thankful you could be aware of the situation’s effect on you, and resolve to head it off at the pass the next time.

GoodTherapy | How to Turn Self-Hatred into Self-Compassion“I’m such a loser.”

“I can’t do anything right.”

“I’m ugly.”

Too often, people brutally judge and attack themselves. If everyone treated others as poorly as they treat themselves, the old biblical adage, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” could be a recipe for war.

Negative Beliefs, Self-Loathing, and Why It Matters

Incessant negative beliefs about oneself may be called self-loathing, self-judgment, self-attack, or low self-esteem, but it all boils down to one menacing problem: self-hatred. At its most extreme, self-hatred can lead people to retreat into substance use, suicidal and other self-destructive behaviors, or violence toward others.

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If you beat up on yourself, are disgusted with yourself, or in any other way experience the effects of self-hatred, there are two important things to know: why the self-hatred exists, and what you can do about it.

Why Self-Hatred?

Self-hatred almost always stems from childhood. Trauma experienced after childhood also can fuel negative feelings about oneself.

Children believe what they hear from others. If a parent tells a child that she is good for nothing or can’t do anything right, then that becomes the truth in the child’s mind. It takes a very mature and insightful child to say to herself, “Something is wrong with Mom/Dad for telling me this. An adult shouldn’t say such mean things to me. I’m just a child.”

Instead of saying, “Something is wrong with Mom/Dad,” the child usually thinks, “Something is wrong with me.” That simply is how a child’s mind works. Children need safety and stability. It is much less chaotic for a child to think something is wrong with himself than to think he cannot rely on the people upon whom he depends for food, shelter, and survival.

Sometimes, a child never hears harsh judgment from a parent or other caregiver, yet self-hatred manages to fester. This happens when, for whatever reason (genetics, environment, plain bad luck, etc.), a child experiences anxiety, perfectionism, or other traits that conjure feelings of self-blame in the face of fear, imperfection, or other perceived flaws.

Trauma, too, can inspire self-hatred. It can feel safer to attack oneself over what happened than to accept that bad things happen randomly in the world—and can happen again, at any time. As a result, many people who have endured sexual assault, combat, or other trauma blame themselves for what they endured, and self-hatred grows.

Self-hatred and shame are related but not synonymous. Shame can be healthy, the mind’s tool for helping people understand when they have done something that must not be repeated. However, the majority of shame that people experience is not a healthy tool for learning right from wrong. Instead, it is a manifestation of self-hatred, a message that when they do things wrong (or, at least, differently than they wish they had) then they are wrong, a judgment of the person and not the act.

Many people who feel shame cannot assign it to any particular action. Shame is a feeling of essential badness that they simply cannot shed. Often, people experiencing unhealthy shame feel that if others saw their real self, then nobody could possibly love them.

It is helpful to understand how your own self-hatred is formed. This can help you to develop compassion for yourself. No matter what you did or did not do as a child, no matter what trauma you endured, the hurt part of you deserves love, compassion, and nurturing. No matter what, you possess a fundamental goodness that is not touched by external events, in the same way the clouds can cover the sun but never really touch it.

The Antidote: Self-Compassion

A seminal work on self-hatred and self-compassion is titled, appropriately enough, Compassion and Self Hate (by Theodore Isaac Rubin). More recently, mental health professionals have published quite a few more books on self-compassion, including The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion (by Christopher Germer), Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind (by Kristin Neff), and The Power of Self-Compassion (by Mary Wellford).

There are websites devoted to self-compassion. There also is an evidence-based psychotherapy that cultivates self-compassion. Called compassion-focused therapy, it extends cognitive behavioral concepts to foster in people the ability to soothe, accept, and understand themselves.

The common theme underlying all these works is that self-compassion is the antidote to self-hate. So how do you create more compassion for yourself? Over time, I will write about many different ways to grow the seeds of self-compassion. For now, here are a few tips to get you started:

My Questions for You

Do you ever hate yourself? If so, what helps you to deal with this brutal judge who lives inside your head? What tips do you have for others in the same situation?

Thanks so much for your question. Boy, it sounds like you’re going through a really tough time, and I’m sorry to hear about your childhood abuse; I know how intrusive and debilitating posttraumatic stress symptoms can be. What’s kind of a “double whammy” here is the fact therapy doesn’t seem to be helping. What’s interesting to me is that it sounds as though it’s all up to you to make it work, when in fact the therapist is a 50/50 collaborator in the process. It’s sad to me you feel you’re “blindly” fumbling around, as if you have no help finding direction. I always challenge my clients when they take whole blame for any “stuckness.” Therapist and client form a system, like two atoms in a molecule, and every relational system seems to reach a kind of homeostasis, or regular pattern, which on the one hand provides a sense of stability and reliability, but on the other can lead to the sort of stalemate you’re talking about. I would agree with you that you’re not capable of change by yourself; your therapist needs to be an active participant, and the way you describe therapy makes it sound as though there’s tremendous distance between you two.

I’m also curious as to what made you decide to quit at that particular juncture. A sense of boredom? Frustration? Sometimes it takes time to get to a point where change begins, but until then it can feel eternally slow. I’m not saying that’s happening here, but sometimes we hit a wall, and just beyond the wall is a new phase. Always darkest before the dawn, as the cliché goes. Sometimes it’s true.

I want to tell you that—and I have zero doubt about this—your therapist is part of the problem here, and the solution. Therapy is, in part, a business arrangement, and as the customer you are not satisfied and have every right to voice your concerns. I would strongly encourage you to have at least one more session and air your true feelings. Let it all hang out; we’re professionals, but we’re not perfect, and feedback is terribly important. Yes, it’s true that we are “experts” of a kind, but psychology is not medicine (it’s part art/part science, in my view). Everyone is different and comes with his or her own history, perceptions, feelings and interpretations that warrant close exploration so that you and your therapist can co-construct a way of working that you both feel is productive and going somewhere. It’s almost like co-creating a language that exists solely within the “psychic sphere” of therapy, to borrow Freud’s phrase.

On another note: One of the many sad things about trauma is it can challenge us in forming attachments to others, including, of course, to the therapist. He or she may become an authority or parental figure whom we are afraid to confront, but clients often report that it is very healing for them to tell me the truth when something bothers them, and to have me listen and understand each of our contributions so we can work it through. Some of the very best work happens when a client is unhappy with something and we process it. Additionally, there are often beliefs about the self based on past abuse that have to be brought to light. Some may unconsciously feel they “deserve” to suffer because of the belief that they brought the trauma on themselves. To a child, assuming they are the cause is less frightening than no cause at all. I hear a note of this when you ask if you are capable of change. Everyone is capable of change, my friend—in fact, we are changing every second of every day! We are organic, physically and psychologically. It’s the illusion or experience of staying the same that is so painful. (The new gray hairs I saw in the mirror today are testament to this.)

There are even unconscious motives for change not to happen, in some cases. Abuse and mistreatment are often, tragically, the only way some caretakers have ever related to their children; clinging to the symptoms is, symbolically (for some), a way of holding on to Mom or Dad. Some would rather believe they are bad than accept that their caretaker, often idealized, treated them so horribly. It’s like losing a parent, and the underlying grief and loss can create terrible apprehension. All of this needs to be explored in the consulting room.

I’m describing a very psychodynamic way of working, by the way. There are other modalities to employ with these types of injuries, including cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, somatic experiencing, neurofeedback, spirituality, peer support, and so forth. I use an eclectic mix, depending on what the client finds helpful. But again, without sustained feedback, I don’t know what’s helpful.

You might also look into a peer support group instead of, or in addition to, individual treatment. Finding a group of people who can relate and accept you as you are, because of (not in spite of) your challenges, can be tremendously healing.

Please don’t give up. I recommend that you talk to your therapist or try with another one, and ask for a treatment plan or set of goals that you both agree are obtainable and desirable. Each goal should have specific methods or ways of working that you both, again, feel comfortable with. The technique of therapy shouldn’t be a mystery; there are many unknowns, of course, but this isn’t hocus pocus and there have been some tried-and-true methods shown to work over the past hundred years. The key one appears to be a trusting relationship with your therapist, and I think that even if you decide this one ultimately isn’t for you, you deserve a fair hearing as to why you’re unhappy and the changes you’d really like to see (and what seems to be getting in the way). You don’t and shouldn’t have to go through this alone.

Respectfully,
Darren

man-peering-out-from-behind-curtainLast weekend I went to see the musical Wicked and found myself thinking about perception and self-acceptance. The show, based on a book of the same title, is the story of The Wizard of Oz as told from the perspective of Elphaba, the wicked witch of the west. From the beginning, the reimagining of this story questions the power of how we see things, and what happens when that perception is shifted. Our heroine is now the vilified underdog who was born with green skin instead of the sweet, young girl from Kansas.

In the play, the wizard himself speaks at great length about the power of perception. He acknowledges that the only power he really has is that other people believe he is powerful. His entire identity relies on the power of perception. The film version of the wizard is exposed by Toto to be just a man behind a curtain. Fallible and even a little bit tacky, his identity is based not on an internal sense of who he is, but on how others see him. When we actually meet the great and powerful Oz, he feels inauthentic.

We all have inside of us a “person behind the curtain.” For some, it’s an internal voice that doles out judgments aimed at others or internally at ourselves. From behind the curtain, we watch to see how people see us and if it matches the version of ourselves we want to put out into the world. Our internal wizard feeds on fear and anxiety. What will people think? How do I compare to others? It can be exhausting, working so hard to not feel rejection or judgment. In all of the hustle and bustle, it’s easy to lose track of our authentic selves.

The practice of radical self-acceptance provides an alternative perspective from which to view ourselves. It’s a way to interrupt the voice of self-judgment that comes from the “person behind the curtain.” Clinical psychologist Tara Brach writes that “wanting and fearing are natural energies. … But when they become the core of our identity, we lose sight of the fullness of our being.” (2003, p. 20) Brach points out that having feelings or fear, anxiety, jealousy, and envy is natural; it’s part of being human. Experiencing these feelings is not something that we need to be ashamed of. In fact, when we judge them and try to push them away, we can become stuck in a cycle of self-judgment. From a perspective of radical acceptance, internalizing these feelings into our identity can inhibit our ability to fully be ourselves, our ability to be authentic.

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In the story of Wicked, Elphaba spends her life as an outcast because of her green skin. This experience of suffering impacts her view of the world and who she grows up to be. Because of her differences, Elphaba cannot live behind a curtain as easily as the wizard. By accepting herself and the things that have happened to her, she is an example of the practice of radical acceptance. Elphaba never tries to be perfect or to be someone who everyone likes; instead, she tries to be her whole self.

Accepting our whole selves is not a cop-out to justify not making changes in our lives. Carl Rogers points out, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” (p. 38) The act of acceptance is a powerful one, and a difficult one. The practice of radical self-acceptance acknowledges and holds lovingly our whole selves. This includes the parts of us that we don’t like, the parts that we’re ashamed of, and the parts that we don’t want to share with others. What if it were OK that we’re not perfect? What if we strove instead to be whole?

How a story is told changes the meaning of what we hear. In Wicked, we’re asked to see things from a different perspective, and we learn things about the villain in the story that change everything. Suddenly, good and bad are harder to determine. Real life is like that, too; it can be messy, murky, and beautiful all at the same time. In our own lives, we are the authors of the story. We get to decide how we want to see ourselves. Challenging our self-judgments and accepting all parts of ourselves can help us stay connected to our own authenticity.

Reference:

Brach, T. (2003). Radical acceptance: Embracing your life with the heart of a buddha. New York: Bantam Bell.

woman-expressing-frustrationChoices have consequences. Seems obvious, right? Choose well and we get to enjoy the positive consequences. Choose poorly and we usually suffer the negative consequences. Often the consequences—good or bad—teach us lessons or reinforce what we already believe. Generally, when we accept the consequences as natural results of our choices, accept responsibility for them, learn what we need, and move on, we can feel remarkably at peace about even some of our seemingly poorest choices. What I often see in my practice are the ways in which people get stuck in a place of judgment, often punishing themselves above and beyond the natural consequences of their choices.

I see this dynamic play out regularly. There’s a cycle of choice-consequence-judgment that perpetuates unhealthy beliefs and attitudes. For example, I had a client share with me a story about a dinner out with a friend. The friend wanted to order a particular dish to share, but my client knew that this particular dish, while delicious, would probably make her feel sluggish and headachy in the morning. She was torn. On one hand, she wanted to be accommodating, and the dish sounded really good. On the other, she wanted to take care of herself. She ordered the dish.

In the morning, as predicted, she felt sluggish and headachy. That could have been the end of the story. She knew what consequences that choice would bring, weighed them against the pros of ordering something that would taste good in the moment, choosing something that could be shared with her friend, and avoiding feeling like she was “difficult”—something that doesn’t feel good to her. She made her choice; she suffered the consequences. Done. Except it wasn’t. To all of that physically icky feeling, she then added a layer of judgment. These thoughts included, “I’m weak-willed. I can’t believe I did that. What’s wrong with me that I can’t make better choices? I’m a terrible person. I will never learn/get better/make good choices.” She came to see me feeling lousy both physically and emotionally.

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This is but one example of many I see on a daily basis. People who make ostensibly poor choices kick themselves when they’re already down. It is not fun for them. It’s demoralizing. More importantly, it is unnecessary.

The truth is we all make poor choices sometimes. We do things we know aren’t great for us. We know that the consequences aren’t likely to be great. We may have very compelling reasons for making those choices. We might not—we might just do/say/eat something simply because we want to. As long as these activities don’t threaten significant permanent physical or emotional damage to ourselves or those around us, those choices truly are ours to make. If we own those choices, if we are deliberate about choosing and accepting the consequences, there is no need for the shame that comes with self-judgment.

So why do we do it?

A few months ago, I wrote a piece on “should” and how it contributes to anxiety. The should messages we tell ourselves generate feelings of dissatisfaction and, often, self-recrimination. Somehow we are not meeting the expectations we or others have set for ourselves. The choice-consequence-judgment cycle fits into this model. We feel we “should” know better somehow. We should always make the “right” choices. We are not able to simply accept that sometimes we make choices that don’t work so well for us. We are not able to see the value in making mistakes or the opportunities to learn from negative consequences. Somehow we’ve internalized the message that we must be right/perfect/good all of the time—even when we are trying something for the first time. Not being right/perfect/good somehow means that we are less than, are weak, are failures. Making poor choices feels like the end of the world. We create meaning to explain those choices—repeating messages we’ve heard or created along the way (I am lazy, I am weak, I’m irresponsible …). We spend a lot of time looking for excuses for those choices, sometimes putting the blame and responsibility outside of ourselves because blaming others feels more palatable than blaming ourselves. When we do blame ourselves, we look for defaults in our characters to explain why we chose the way we did.

Fortunately, we don’t have to do this. There is something tremendously empowering about owning our choices and accepting the consequences. If we weigh the pros and cons of our choices, understand the potential consequences, and accept what comes, we are the agents of our own lives. If we view our choices as intentional actions, expressions of want, not something we passively stumbled into, or worse—attempted to avoid, but were overpowered by—we no longer cast ourselves as victims, helpless in the face of overwhelming pressures. We learn that, next time, we can make a different choice, or even the same choice, for that matter. We learn we have the power to change. We allow ourselves to move forward and on to the next opportunity to choose.

GoodTherapy | You’re NOT Too SensitiveHave you ever been told that you can’t take a joke, that you overreact, or that you are just too sensitive? Well, sit back and find out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You see, sensitivity to criticism is earned. Yes, you read that correctly. No one is born to be sensitive to criticism; one is groomed and nurtured in environments of emotional harm. If you have a history of family members being harsh, judgmental, or verbally cruel, you are more vulnerable to verbal slights, teasing, and criticism than the average person. It’s not your fault, and you are not weird.

Roots in Your Family of Origin
Since you may have grown up in this kind of family, you might think that criticism is normal. Truthfully, I believe any kind of criticism (other than artistic or professional constructive criticism,) is never acceptable, warranted, or okay. Healthy relationships are born of acceptance and tolerance. If a friend or partner can’t tolerate you or your behavior, then they shouldn’t be your friend or partner. If someone is often telling you that you’re too sensitive, that is akin to telling you over and over again that you are not good enough, that you are flawed or inadequate.

These statements wouldn’t make anyone feel good, but it’s especially destructive to someone who came from a family where they were put down verbally, or even silently with rolling eyes and demeaning physical postures. You, the so-called “overly sensitive” person, are actually having a normal reaction to a hostile comment.

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Roots in Mental Health Issues
Did you know that many people who are highly critical of others often suffer from depression and anxiety? Criticizing others is a means of making themselves feel better. They may go on and on about how awful someone is, in order to feel less empty, bored, or depressed. Often, unfortunately, those they criticize buy into these negative comments and end up feeling just as awful as the critics.

If you are in relationships with people who are hurting you with criticism or judgments, you might want to consider why you are surrounding yourself with these people when there are so many kind, accepting, and loving people out there. If you want to perform a little test, a good question to ask yourself after being with a friend or loved one is, “Does this person lift me up or tear me down?” If you have more “Tear downs” than “Lifts” you might want to consider getting some individual counseling. Allowing others to criticize you destroys your sense of being good enough, likeable, capable and empowered.

Roots in Self-Criticism
If you are tolerating this kind of criticism from others, chances are that you are used to talking to yourself like this. Your relationship with yourself could be more loving and accepting. For example, when you make a mistake are you constantly reaming yourself unmercifully for messing up or are you able to forgive yourself relatively quickly and move on?

Self-criticism is actually worse than being criticized by another, as there is no immediate escape from it. So, if you are relentlessly telling yourself that you are bad, flawed, fat, unattractive, stupid, uncaring, lazy, etc., you may have trouble even wanting to get out of bed. You may feel depressed, angry, helpless, or ashamed, because you don’t know how to get out of this cycle. But with guts, patience, compassion, and time you absolutely can change the way you talk to yourself. It is a huge commitment to constantly monitor your mind chatter, but well worth the effort.

Woman meditatingAt first glance, the injunction to bless and release sounds just beautiful, and so evolved. On reflection, it is missing a crucial component: learning from the experience before you let it go. Jumping right to bless and release without first opening to the lesson is like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. You may think you did something helpful, but it’s a superficial solution.

If it were that easy to just bless and release, people would forgive far more readily, and generally move through relationship roadblocks and inner conflicts with ease. As you know, nothing could be further from the truth.

If you take stock of a situation, ask yourself what you could glean from it, and then consciously open your heart, you will be more able to truly bless the people involved and let it go. The psychic lightness you experience as a result comes from true detachment.

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In Buddhism, the concept of detachment is often misunderstood. It does not mean detaching your love and caring from someone; rather, it is detachment from outcome. This requires an understanding of your expectations, even when they are not readily accessible. It’s just another good reason to take time to meditate, as it allows previously buried thoughts and feelings to emerge from your unconscious to your conscious mind.

Once you are aware of your expectations, i.e., your attachment to certain outcomes, you can work to release them. The first step in letting go is acknowledging the hold they have on you. Is there a pattern of thinking, judging, reacting, or expecting that has dogged you in the past? If so, please resist the temptation to blame yourself. Trust that you were doing the best you could, and refuse to enter the cycle of self-criticism, as it will only impede your progress.

Accepting other people’s different ways of being and behaving is a wonderful goal. Like all major cognitive and heart-opening shifts, it does not happen overnight. A good way to start is by being aware of your thought patterns, behaviors, and physical responses to certain people and situations. If you sense a tightness in your chest or abdomen, ask yourself what you might be thinking about someone’s behavior. Are you judging it? Are you being critical of his or her way of handling something? Are you comparing how you would do things differently? Breathe into whatever tightness you feel. Give yourself a cosmic permission slip to have those initial reactions without resorting to self-condemnation. Then ask yourself: “How would I rather think and feel about this person?”Imagine reacting that way. Use all five senses to really feel the difference. Now, notice any changes in your body.

If you like how you think and feel after that exercise, you may be ready to bless. Following the teaching of the Buddha on metta, or loving-kindness meditation, bless yourself first. To Western minds, this may appear selfish, but it sets the stage for opening your heart to others. Once you feel that positive intention toward yourself, you can bless the other person. A classic invocation is: “May you be peaceful, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering.”

If that felt good, let it all go. This is easier said than done, as humans can’t erase memories at will; however, you can let go of any residual negative feelings, such as anger, resentment, or jealousy, especially if you feel yourself joyfully moving forward.

Letting go is powerful psychological medicine when it is done with a truly forgiving heart. Be patient with yourself as you traverse this new territory, and practice self-forgiveness as it paves the way to being more loving and understanding of others.

Silhouettes of peopleHow many times have you found yourself in the situation of being worried or anxious about sharing a part of yourself with others? Too often we’re forced to choose one part of ourselves that we want to share over another part that might be equally as important. This can be extreme or subtle.

For example, teenagers who are both gay and Christian might feel like they can’t be both at the same time. These conflicting identities create a bind for them. At church the young person might be given a very direct message that being gay is wrong. For these teens they know that if they want to celebrate their Christianity with their community, they need to pretend to be straight. Gay community can be equally as complicated. After years of oppression from churches many people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer have struggled with Christianity. In this situation these teens might not feel able to express their strong religious beliefs within the gay community. For them, there is no place where they feel totally accepted, totally themselves. This example of split identities is very clear; however, sometimes the ways in which we’re forced to hide parts of ourselves is much more subtle.

In my work, I frequently find men who are struggling with a conflict of identity around gender and gender role. What happens when a straight man has interests or beliefs that are labeled as feminine? For example, if he doesn’t want to fight or he prefers conversations with women over watching sports with men. In our culture there is an assumption that men are going to act masculine. Often men are forced to hide parts of their identity that are not seen as masculine enough. This identity bind is much more subtle but still painful.

We face situations like these every day. Our identities have many facets including our ethnicity, race, religion, and sexual orientation as well as other ways we define ourselves, such as pacifist, good listener, or caregiver. Each of us has parts of our identities that we feel comfortable sharing with strangers and other parts that we only want to share with friends. There are things we are proud of and things we are ashamed of. Our identities are multidimensional; they have many layers and many meanings. Sometimes these identities are hierarchical, and one identity may be more important than all of the others. Understanding what our own multidimensional identity looks like can help us in those moments when not sharing our full self makes us feel invisible.

How do you introduce yourself to someone new after you tell them your name? In the United States we often use our professions to describe who we are to other people, “I’m a teacher/lawyer/electrician/therapist/writer.” As a culture we put a lot of value on employment and jobs, so much that sometimes our jobs become our identities. If you could describe yourself to a stranger as something other than your occupation, what would it be? Maybe it would be a description of an important relationship, such as “I’m a dad/mom/sister/uncle/grandma.” These are only two ways in which we might identify ourselves.

Take a moment and list the first five of your identities that you can think of. What made the top five? Are you surprised at any of the ones that are there? Are there any identities missing that you wish were on that top five list? And are there any identities on your list that you have felt you need to hide?

Being proud of ourselves is often much harder than it sounds. We live in a world filled with expectations, some spoken and some unspoken. But just because a part of our identity can’t be seen does not mean that it’s not there. It does mean that you might have to work a little bit harder to give it it’s time in the sun—to find a safe space to share the parts of you that feel invisible. Finding these spaces is an important step towards integrating our identities and feeling whole.

Related articles:
Gender Rules: How Does That Make You Feel?
Learning How to Support Gay Students
The Tiger Hunter

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