By Stephenie Craig
Do you ever look back at the way you used to be with judgement? Maybe you are embarrassed about the way you used to look or act in childhood. Perhaps you shame yourself for previous relationships. Maybe you feel angry at yourself about how you handled your work life. Perhaps you are hard on yourself for past mistakes.
It’s easy to be unkind and judgemental toward yourself from your present place of knowledge and understanding. However, what would it be like to consider what those earlier versions of yourself knew when they were making decisions? What did your 8 year old self know when you were deciding how to manage growing up in your family of origin? What did your 15 year old self know when you chose who to date? What did your 20 year old version of self know when you were choosing a career? In most cases, these earlier versions of yourself were making decisions that made sense at the time with the current developmental information and understanding.
Rather than being unkind to yourself, consider that every version of you that came before the current version was an important part of your journey to the present. Each of these parts of yourself made decisions and have been working hard for years trying to protect you and to get you to today. While the life strategies of these parts of you may not have always panned out positively, they were trying to help you to cope and to survive. What might it look and feel like to shift from being mean to yourself to talking to yourself like someone you love deeply like a child or a dear friend? How would your words and approach be different?
Your words and tone create cycles with lasting impact. Often, the negative voice in your head originated from a critical parent or other authority figure who did not know how to be kind to themselves. When you learn to honor and speak kindly to yourself, it creates a natural result of you speaking more kindly to others. Similarly, when you are critical and shaming of yourself, you are more likely in times of stress and hurt to speak unkindly to others resulting in you becoming the unkind voice in someone else’s head. And beyond human relationship, the unkind voice in your head often unhelpfully gets attributed to God, creating an impatient and angry idea about how God sees you when in reality, you are deeply loved and valued.
So, how do you shift your inner voice from judgement to kindness?
7 Ways to Talk to Yourself with Kindness
- Notice when you are being harsh with yourself. “I’m not being very kind to myself in this moment.”
- Seek the source of the voice. “Where is this judgement coming from? Am I talking to myself the way someone talked to me when I was younger? When do I first remember talking to myself in this way?”
- Acknowledge earlier parts of self. “I see you, 8 year old me. What can you show me about your concerns and your strategies for getting my needs met?”
- Validate earlier versions of yourself with grace. “I can see that you started trying to be perfect at a young age in order to get approval and I can understand why you needed to do that at the time. I can also see why you sometimes still want to do that now.”
- Show appreciation to earlier versions of self. “I really appreciate that you have been trying to help me along in life by trying to be perfect.”
- Talk to earlier versions of self like you would talk to someone you love. “I understand that you started trying to be perfect as a way to survive. I am here now and I see you and I care for you and I will help you figure out some different ways to feel okay.”
- Develop an ongoing friendship with earlier versions of self. “I am here and will be here for you every day to talk you through the hard moments.”
While this approach may seem a bit unusual, incorporating loving, kindness into your inner voice creates a positive impact on how you feel about yourself, how you treat others, and how you understand your spiritual life. You love others better when you know how loved and valued you are. Connect with us along your journey for counseling and coaching support at Journeybravely.com.
