When Your Harshest Critic Is Yourself
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Do any of the following phrases sound familiar to you?
“I’m so stupid! Why did I do that?!?!!”
“I can’t believe I forgot to call! I’m such a bad sister!”
“I can’t believe I failed! I can’t do anything right!”
We all say things like this to ourselves. Some of us more than others. Some of us loudly for the world to hear, and some of us only in the quiet of our own minds. Most of us don’t think much about it. In fact, it’s pretty acceptable in our culture to be hard on ourselves.
Sometimes, it’s even viewed as a sign of modesty and humility. People like humble people. You don’t want to come across as conceited. It’s good to admit when you mess up, right?
That’s what I accepted too, without even really thinking about it.
As a woman especially, you grow up saying negative things about yourself, and then usually a friend, mother, or sister will affirm you with something like “Oh, of course not, you look great today!” or, “No, you’re great at that! Now listen to how bad I am compared to that!”
Until one day I screwed something up and naturally reacted by saying, “Oh man! Why did I do that!?!? How could I be so STUPID?!”
And my husband shouted across the room, “HEY! Don’t talk to my wife that way!”
Well, that stopped me in my tracks.
I had never, before that moment, considered that I needed my honor defended—from myself.
In this Catholic culture of ours, chivalry is nowhere near dead. We value and uplift men who are protecting their women from harm, always ready to leap to defend them against people’s harsh actions or words. And this isn’t just the men. We are all taught to speak well of others whether they are present or not. We all know that we need to speak kindly and treat people with respect.
So why do I say such offensive things to myself? Why would I say things so harsh that my husband leapt to my defense against words from my own mouth?
I know I’m not alone here.
Would you speak to someone else’s sister, husband, wife, son, daughter, friend, grandmother, or grandfather the way you are speaking to yourself right now? I doubt it. Why are you so hard on yourself compared to other people? There are usually only two reasons:
1.) You know how to forgive others, but haven’t figured out how to forgive yourself yet.
You may be struggling with self-hatred and maybe low self-worth. In which case, know that I hear you there. Loads of people struggle with this.
Remember: you are made and deeply loved by the Father just like everyone else, and no amount of sin, abuse, or trauma changes that. Go to confession and tell the priest you’ve been hating yourself or treating yourself badly, and need to forgive yourself. Soak in the TRUTH that Jesus loves you—yes YOU!—so much that he died for you.
2.) You tell yourself you “expect more of myself” or “hold myself to a higher standard”. Which, sorry to break it to you, just means that you think you are better than other people in some way.
OUCH. Hold on, hold on! Don’t come for me! As a person described as “disciplined”, “driven”, and “responsible” many times during my life, I know how to leap to the defensive about my “high standards”. After all, striving to do the right thing IS the right thing. Right? . . .
We are supposed to do the right thing. But when we make our flaws and failings a big deal, we are committing the sin of pride and/or the sin of self-hatred or self-abuse.
Don’t believe me?
Watch this video in which Father Parks explains self-accusation and what happens when we start to believe the words we say.
He words it so well. To summarize, he explains that when we fall, “the reason we get so hard on ourselves is because we have such a high opinion of ourselves. It’s actually because of pride.”
He proposes that the goal is to become spiritually small because the smaller you think you are in the spiritual life, the shorter you have to fall, and thus the quicker you can get back up again.
How revolutionary is that??? In order to “fix” our flaws, failings, and sins more quickly, it’s not about trying harder. It’s about needing to not take ourselves so seriously. We need to see ourselves as small. As John 3:30 said so simply: “He must increase, I must decrease”.
The beautiful dichotomy of this “becoming less” is that even though we view ourselves as small, that doesn’t mean we view ourselves as worthless. Why? Because we belong to someone.
Because we belong to husband, wife, family, church, but most importantly to Jesus. We are still important. We are still valuable. Because of our identity in Him. Because you are a son or daughter of HIM.
Being important means respecting yourself. It means speaking to yourself the way your good and holy Spouse would speak to you in that moment.
So how do we live that out? Simple. If your spouse (whether physical or Divine) wouldn’t like someone speaking to you that way, don’t speak to yourself that way.
Here’s a few tips to start tackling this pervasive self-talk.
1) Find someone who will call you out.
I’m very thankful that I live with a husband who will call me out on this. He even picks up on when I’m just thinking mean things about myself, and reminds me of the truth then too. Choose someone who knows you well and is around you a lot. Or on the phone with you a lot. Explain to them why you want to work on this. They’ll probably be thrilled to remind you to be kind to yourself the way they love to be kind to you.
2) Confess self-hatred and self-anger.
Confession. Confession. Confession. The priest will remind you that you not only need to love others, but yourself too. Soak in the love of Christ’s forgiveness and strive to forgive as he did, including yourself.
3) Remind yourself.
Surround yourself with scripture verses that remind you about speaking kindness and your identity and value in Christ. Tell God about the struggle in prayer. Go to Mass and adoration and realize how loved you are, how respecting yourself as a temple of the Holy Spirit is actually respecting God’s creation. However long it takes, you need to train your brain that this new habit of speaking respectfully to yourself is rooted in the Truth.
4) Remind others.
You’re probably really good at this already. Most of us know how to be kind to others. But maybe when you are reassuring that friend, coworker, or spouse that they’re OK and there’s nothing wrong with them, you can start suggesting that maybe they need to respect themselves in their speech a little more too.
Always remember: “You are not your own. You were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians, 6:19-20).
It’s time to start talking like this is true. I’m working on it too.
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