Compassionate Conflict Resolution - WK 7 Working with the Self-Critic

Meditation - What parts do I have that are hurting. Do I have a part that blames myself for bad things that happen in my life and regularly beats myself up for not being or doing what I should be or should do?

What if we just gave compassion to our self-critic for trying to help us? What if we told him or her that being nice to ourselves might be more powerful than being mean and that we want to be nice to that part and see what it feels like.

Let’s just take a minute or two to send love, appreciation and compassion to our self-critic.

Our inner self- critic is trying to shame you into being better so that you will not get in trouble. As a child that gave a sense of control but as an adult, it just traps us in a cycle of falling down, criticizing yourself for tripping (or whatever), beating yourself with shame and/or anger, calm down and repeat. 

As a child we have very little control, when we are yelled at, we learn to yell at ourselves. We learn to try to please those around us (often to avoid getting in trouble), we learn to to hide (avoiding judgment), we learn to blame others and/or blame ourselves, all for false sense of safety. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really make us safe but when we grow up we keep doing this same dysfunctional patterns.

Some of us are more Pleasers, others are more Avoidant, others may be good at placing the blame on others often with anger (as may have been modeled).

The road to healing is through curiosity (why do I feel what I feel and why do I react the way I react) and compassion. As we compassionately understand our behaviors and our wounds, we can bring healing to our younger wounded selves and begin to realize we can develop more effective tools for regulating our feelings and creating better patterns. 

Some things that will help might include, meditation, breathing, massages, regular stretching, walking or other activities. Finding things that are good for us and feel good will help us feel strong enough to face our fears and heal our wounds.

It is a long challenging process but it is much less painful than continuing the cycle of self-criticism, shame and blame that we often get caught in.

for more details see Crisis to Calm Ch. 11.