I was recently talking to a patient who had picked up smoking again after successfully quitting. He was off cigarettes for a while, and then picked them up again during a period of high stress. He was so angry with himself. “Why the $%# would I do this to myself?” he asked me. “I know better, I hate these things, and here I am addicted again.”
His reaction is understandable. We all do things that are not in our best interest, and end up in a place where we are frustrated and disappointed in ourselves. As a result, we often become harsh with ourselves, berating ourselves for being stupid, weak, idiotic, or some combination of those. We curse ourselves, scold ourselves, and demand that we do better.
This approach rarely works, almost never makes us feel better, and is generally not a helpful strategy for changing behavior.
Rather, this harsh approach tends to land us in a stuck cycle, where we scold ourselves, promise to do better, fail again, and then repeat the cycle over and over again. Even more troubling, with each successive cycle, with each successive failure, our self-recrimination and self-hatred increases. The new narrative is not just about the failure, but about the repeated failures. “I’m such a f%#-up. I’ve tried ten times to stop, and yet I keep doing it. What’s my problem?”
A big part of the problem is how we talk to ourselves. I talk to many people in the office who think that in order to demonstrate seriousness or accountability to themselves, there must be harshness. The only way to change is severe self-flagellation.
Problems arise when we lean on this pattern of shame and self-criticism. First, as a strategy for change, it’s not effective. Next, constantly berating oneself likely raises the risk of anxiety, depression, difficulties with emotional self-regulation, challenges with navigating other medical problems, and difficulties in our relationships. It is hard to live a good life when there are such punitive, judgmental thoughts constantly floating around in our heads. Lastly, it is difficult to be kind, caring, compassionate, and loving towards others while also being cruel to oneself.
The alternative is to try to be kinder towards oneself. Kindness turned inward can be a difficult, nebulous idea at first. Putting it into practice, particularly if it is not something we are used to doing, can be challenging. The best way I’ve encountered to help people with this is the advice is to talk to yourself as you would talk to a friend. When friends fall short, our instinct is not make them feel worse. Instead, our move is to be supportive. We do not want to ignore the failure– that would be patronizing. Instead, it is to help by offering understanding and support. For example, if a friend started smoking again, we might say something like. “That’s really frustrating, especially after you worked so hard to quit. I know this is not something you want to continue to do. The good news is that you’ve proved once already that you can quit, which means you can do it again. I believe in you.” That type of message we might naturally say to a friend we can practice turning inwards, and we can say it to ourselves as well.
Sometimes, people express reservations about this idea of self compassion, because kindness is often conflated with a lack of accountability, or a lack of seriousness. This is not the case. We are often acutely aware of our shortcomings– we do not need to amplify them. Again, think about a friend that has fallen short. When talking to that person, the idea is to have accountability in the kindest, gentlest way possible– while still maintaining an attachment to reality.
Kindness turned inward comes up in the clinic all the time– weight is another example. We tend to be really harsh when we talk to ourselves about our weight. If we were talking to a friend about being overweight, we would not be doing anyone any favors by pretending that weight is anything other than it actually is. Instead, we might empathize with the frustration that comes with being overweight, and offer help and support towards making changes. Perhaps we’d offer to be an accountability partner with respect to exercising regularly, or eating healthy foods. Accountability and seriousness are not antonyms to kindness. Quite the opposite, it is difficult to be kind to someone without also speaking the truth. But when speaking to a friend, the goal is to be truthful in as kind a way as possible. That idea translates into how we relate to ourselves– how can we be truthful with ourselves in as kind a way as possible.
Understanding ourselves with kindness, looking inward with kindness, also allows us to build bridges with others, and to strengthen our relationships. When we can view our own sadness, shortcomings, anxiety, and difficulties not as failures but as a part of the human condition, we can then also realize that these feelings and experiences are not unique to us, but universal parts of being alive. Recognizing our own shame and embarrassment as a part of what everyone experiences can help us build a bridge between ourselves and others. When we see others feeling disappointed with themselves, we can empathize, and recognize in ourselves what that feeling is like. In this way, the suffering we feel no longer becomes something we berate and isolate, but rather becomes an avenue to connect with others, and strengthen our bonds to each other.
Treating ourselves kindly is a skill like any other– fixing a car, riding a bike, throwing a ball. We tend not to do it not because we are somehow inherently bad, but instead because we have never learned the skill. Fortunately, that also offers a way forward. LIke any skill, being kind to ourselves is something we can practice, improve on, and get better at. Like any skill, it might feel awkward or strange at first. And like any skill, the more we practice it, the better we get at it.
Love,
Doc