What does your inner voice sound like? If it’s a harsh critic, you’re not alone, but it may be time to make a change. At Highland Hospital Behavioral Health in Charleston, West Virginia, we provide inpatient mental health and substance use treatment. We spend a lot of time helping our patients to be more compassionate toward themselves.
Impact of Negative Self-Talk
Just as constant, harsh criticism from a parent can hinder a child’s happiness and success, if you’re constantly sending yourself negative messages, it can impact your mental health. Research has found that people who show themselves more compassion have lower levels of anxiety, depression, and fear of failure than people who are harder on themselves.
The Difference Between Self-Esteem and Self-Compassion
For a long time, it was thought that building self-esteem was the key to helping people become happy, successful, and well-adjusted. The downside of high self-esteem is that it often encourages selfishness and a need to feel superior to others. This leads to distance between people, which actually undermines happiness and connectedness.
Self-compassion, on the other hand, does not promote comparison against other people. It encourages people to focus on showing themselves kindness and not judging themselves for making mistakes. It encourages connection and mindfulness. Rather than telling yourself to “suck it up” or that you are a failure, showing compassion to yourself might have you saying, “I did the best I could with the information and resources I had. I will do better next time, because I know more now.” and “Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. I am only human.” This type of mindset has been linked to happiness, optimism, curiosity, and connectedness.
Do Unto Yourself as You Do Unto Others
Most people understand that showing love and kindness toward others can help them to heal and blossom, but they may struggle to extend that same courtesy to themselves. How you do this can take many forms:
- Caring for your body by eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, drinking plenty of water, getting enough sleep, making time for exercise, or getting a massage
- Sharing gentle words with yourself by writing yourself a letter about something you have gone through, acknowledging your pain, without placing blame on yourself or anyone else
- Being your own cheerleader when something goes wrong, think about how you would support a loved one through this same challenge. Instead of the usual harsh words, talk to yourself like you would talk to someone you love.
- Engaging in mindfulness by meditating, trying yoga, and recognizing mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow
Teaching Children Self-Compassion
Seeing a child being overly tough on themselves can be painful to observe. As a caregiver, it’s natural to want to help them learn to be kinder to themselves. It may be helpful to recognize what could be fueling this harsh self-criticism:
- Temperament. Some children are more prone to judging themselves unkindly, but this does not mean that this is an unchangeable fact.
- Environment. Kids pick things up from what is happening around them. It’s possible that they are reflecting back at you what you’ve been showing them.
- Anxiety. Children who develop anxiety disorders are more likely to see small setbacks as major disasters and to blame themselves for failing because they believe there is something wrong with them or that they are a bad person.
- Social pressures. How young people engage with their peers can cause them to feel bad about themselves and their ability to handle challenges.
- Media influence. What children see in movies, TV shows, social media, advertisements, etc., can impact how they see themselves and what expectations they have for their own futures.
Recognizing how children become critical of themselves may help parents to know which steps to take to teach more compassionate approaches:
- Model self-compassion in front of your children. Say your inner talk out loud, but keep it positive and non-judgmental.
- Help your kids practice reframing negative thoughts about themselves. The unwanted thing didn’t happen because they are awful, but because things go wrong sometimes, and we don’t always know how things are going to turn out.
- Celebrate efforts and learning over achievements.
- Practice positive affirmations with your children.
- Build a family that values resilience, growth, and self-acceptance.
- Connect your child to mental health supports, so that they can receive therapy that will assist them in finding more positive ways of thinking.
At Highland Hospital, we help children, adolescents, and adults who are coping with behavioral health concerns. Our trauma-informed, evidence-based services are tailored to meet the unique needs of each patient we serve.
