Tag: self-denigration

Dealing with the Inner Critic through Self-Compassion

Clare Bowditch – singer, storyteller and actor – recently released a biography titled, Your Own Kind of Girl.   In the book, which she had been attempting to write since she was 21, Clare discusses how she dealt with her inner critic which was all encompassing and destructive.  Clare writes that the book is “about the stories we tell ourselves, and what happens when we believe them”.  She lived in hope that someone would tell her that she was “more than” her grief, her failures and the negative stories about herself that she constantly carried in her head.  Clare explained that the title of the book is drawn from a song she wrote in 2008 and, to this day, she is immensely moved by the lyrics in the second verse, including the words, “You are fine, you’re more than enough”.  The book is about her painful journey to come to this realisation – a journey that is a common story for many people, particularly women.

The debilitating effects of the inner critic

In an earlier blog post, I spoke about the negative self-stories that we perpetuate, partly because our brain has a negative bias but also because of social pressures and the materialistic values that are propagated on an hourly basis through intrusive advertising and image making in videos and films.  Our self-stories can undermine our self-esteem, entrap us in a sense of helplessness and create a negative spiral leading to anxiety and depression.  These stories, often based on irrational fears, can become deeply ingrained and extremely difficult to shift.  They can blind us to creative options, block the realisation of our potential and harm our interpersonal relations.

Self-compassion to overcome the inner critic and negative self-stories

Tara Brach recently released a book titled Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and the World with the practice of R.A.I.N.  This meditation practice involves four basic steps – recognise, accept, investigate and nurture.  Tara provides a brief example of this process in a 9-minute, guided meditation, Reflection: Healing Self-Blame.   Below are some of the key points in this meditation that is based on the R.A.I.N. approach:

  • The starting point is to recognise some aspect of your life where your inner critic is active.  It does not have to be a major example of self-denigration – it could be some relatively minor self-critique, e.g. focusing on your failure sometimes to really listen to someone or diverting a conversation to establish your credentials.   The important thing is to have a focus for this meditation.  More complete self-awareness can grow out of recognising even a small aspect of the inner critic in our life – this can puncture a hole in the wall of self-protection that blocks our self-realisation. 
  • As we progress in the meditation, we come to a point of self-acceptance. This involves acknowledging what we say and do but also accepting that we have an innate goodness and that we are not defined by our thoughts – that we are “more than” our negative self-evaluation.  In Clare’s words, “You are fine, you’re more than enough”.
  • Our investigation of the impacts of our inner critic extends to recognising bodily sensations as well as feelings that flow from the inroads that negative self-stories make on our sense of self-worth.  We can experience tension in our muscles, pain (e.g. in our arms, neck and back), headaches or a nervous twitch when our inner critic is running rampant in our thoughts.  A body scan and progressive tension release can help here.  The key thing is to experience the impact of our negative self-story in a holistic way – this builds awareness and increases our understanding of the negative impacts of our inner critic.
  • Lastly, we reach the stage of self-nurturing in the meditation process.  This can be expressed physically by placing your hand on your heart or mentally through naming the self-criticism and countering with expression of self-forgiveness, acknowledgement of your positive contributions and achievements and gratitude for all that you have in life – opening yourself to what is good in you and what is wonderful in the world around you.

Reflection

Our inner critic is deeply entrenched and can be very damaging to our self personally, and to our relations, both at work and at home.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and especially the R.A.I.N. meditation, we can become more aware of our inner critic (negative self-stories), understand its impacts physically and mentally and develop strategies to counter its inroads into our sense of self-worth.  As both Clare and Tara point out, dealing with the inner critic can create a new sense of freedom and realisation of our true potential.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

The Hidden Challenges in Self-Compassion Meditation

In the previous post, I explored what happens when a negative experience continues to recur because of our habituated behaviour, even after employing the R.A.I.N. meditation process.  I then focused on using self-compassion to break the bonds of negative self-evaluation that inevitably occurs.

However, self-compassion, being kind to ourselves, brings up its own challenges and resistances.

Challenges embedded in self-compassion meditation
  1. The evasive end goal

How do you know you have arrived?  When can you say you have reached the end point – completed the journey of self-discovery through self-compassion?   There is no single end point – only a deeper level of progression into our inner world and what lies below the surface.

2. The defences we have developed

We avoid pain at every opportunity and self-compassion meditation makes us vulnerable – we have to visit the centre of our internal hurt.  We ward off this vulnerability by convincing ourselves that we must be doing it wrong because this keen sense of vulnerability should not be happening.

3. Failure to recognise the pervasiveness of our negative self-evaluations

There are typically so many moments and situations where we view ourselves as not measuring up or “falling short”.  It is so easy to deny or dismiss these negative self-evaluations with a flippant and groundless self-belief that “I am not like that”.   Yet the sense of “unworthiness” can impact every facet of our life at work, at home and in the community.  We lack trust in others because we are concerned that someone might find out what we are really like.

4. “False refuges” 

When we think we do not meet the expectations of our peers, family or society generally, we may employ strategies that Tara Brach calls “false refuges” – ways of numbing the pain of our shame or of competing to deflect self-examination and self-realisation.

5. Unable to give ourselves self-compassion because it is too big a challenge

People may say that they can’t experience the real sense of vulnerability nor give themselves self-compassion.  Tara Brach suggests that, in these situations, they at least should think of someone else who would be able and willing to offer them loving kindness.

Self-compassion requires vulnerability

Tara Brach, in the  Power of Awareness Course,  suggests that the beginning of self-compassion is:

To be able to see clearly that place of vulnerability and pain – that place of self-aversion, turned on ourselves.  The alchemy of self-compassion is to touch the place of vulnerability – to really feel the “ouch”, the place inside us that is really hurting.  In that place is a natural tenderness.

So, self-compassion is both feeling the pain and hurt of self-realisation and offering ourselves kindness and acceptance.  It is not a passive stance, but an active one of entering the pain zone while fortified by our own deep kindness and self-care.  It involves breaking down our defences, being open to the extent of our self-denigration and avoiding the “false refuges” that are forever a temptation to avoid pain.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation practices, we are better able to identify and remove our defences, to cope with the pain of realisation and to reach out to ourselves with loving kindness.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of Curriculum_Photografia on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.