What Voice To Listen To?

Many of us have very loud critical voices that run through our heads. Have you ever asked yourself what you gain from criticizing yourself? You might think, "Well, if I criticize myself then I’ll do better, it will motivate me to succeed." If that was true, then why does it make you feel so bad?

Think about getting a tennis lesson for your birthday. Excitedly you arrive at your lesson and the instructor scowls at you and hits a ball to you. You completely miss the ball. The instructor yells “You idiot, watch the ball”, and then they hit another ball to you a little way away from where you are standing and they yell at you “What do you have in those legs? Cement? Move your lazy legs!” How do you think you are going to do with the next ball that is hit to you? Likely, after that lesson you will dejectedly go home feeling like a loser.

Now picture yourself excitedly going to the tennis court and the instructor gives you a big smile, and hits the ball gently over to you and you miss, and they say “That’s alright, what will help is keeping your eye on the ball as it comes to you, and that definitely takes practice so be patient with yourself”, and they hit another ball and you don’t get to it in time, and they smile, and say “Great effort, it takes a while to get the footwork down.” Does it matter how you do on the next ball? It does not because you are learning and you understand it takes practice which you will happily do, and most importantly you are enjoying yourself. You will go home feeling good and looking forward to more tennis.

Sometimes it is hard to realize that you do not have to listen to that inner critical voice! It is 100% your choice to listen to the bully or not. Simply come up with a system “off you go”, or “not interested” to the bully, and engage with your cheerleader instead. You do have 100% control!

A growing Research base shows that learning to be kind to ourselves is one of, if not the, single most powerful antidote to suffering with anxiety, fear, and other forms of emotional pain.

I repeat being kind to ourselves is what we need to do to help ourselves!

If we don’t want to live in a world where people are cruel and unhelpful to others - why would we allow ourselves to listen to a voice that makes us miserable? Don’t we want our world to be a kinder, more empathetic world? If we are kind to ourselves then we are contributing to a kinder, more empathetic world. That is reason enough to be kind to yourself!