Have you ever been caught in a spiral of self-criticism? When was the last time your inner critic took over your day?

We all have stories we’ve created about ourselves – some of them positive and some of them negative. If you suffer from low self-esteem, your story may include these types of narratives: “I’m a failure,” “I’ll never be able to do that,” or “if only I were smarter or more attractive, I could be happy.”

Dealing effectively with your inner critic doesn’t happen overnight, but if you learn compassionate, evidence-based and actionable skills to handle all those stories, to relate to them skillfully, you can learn to accept yourself as you are and not as who you wish to be.

Key Takeaways

In this conversation, Dr. Joe Oliver, Ph.D. and I discussed:

• What is self-esteem
• How to handle self-criticism
• Defusion: thanking your mind
• How to notice when you’re entangled with your mind
• How to notice and catch your playing-it-safe moves
• Dealing with the monsters of the negative stories with dignity and respect

About Dr. Joe Oliver, Ph.D.

Dr. Joe Oliver, Ph.D. is a distinguished Clinical Psychologist, Associate Professor, and Program Director for the University College London Post-Graduate Programme in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Severe Mental Health Problems. He is the Founder of Contextual Consulting, an organization providing training, supervision, and therapy in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Joe is also the previous Chair of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) ACT Special Interest Group, which promotes and develops ACT within the UK, by offering professional development opportunities, grants, and training workshops. In addition, he regularly provides ACT and contextual-cognitive behavioural therapy training, both nationally and internationally.

He is the author and editor of several books introducing groundbreaking approaches to promote patient’s recovery through ACT. He has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles, and currently, leads randomized control trials in ACT and mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions.

For many people struggling with anxiety in one form or another, self-criticism is a classic playing-it-safe move.

We criticize ourselves as a way to think that we will be able to control the situation, control ourselves, and control the circumstances of the moment.

How does it really work for you when you spend hours and hours criticizing yourself? How does it really work when you try to motivate yourself by being harder and harder with yourself? Do you do more or less with your life?

Self-criticism doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. It is a habit that is learned; it’s a playing-it-safe move that has been reinforced many times. These self-criticizing thoughts may have come from how other people have spoken to you, from watching the way others speak to themselves or others, or may be the way that you started talking to yourself when things were hard or went south.

What if instead of spending hours and hours criticizing, negatively judging, and putting yourself down, you learn skills to treat yourself with kindness, gentleness, and care as you would treat others?

In this episode, I interview Dr. Dennis Tirch, Ph.D.

About Dennis Tirch, Ph.D.

Dr. Dennis Tirch founded the Center for Compassion Focused Therapy in the USA. He has been described as one of the country’s foremost experts on CFT and the psychology of compassion.

Dr. Tirch is an author of 6 books and numerous chapters and peer reviewed articles on mindfulness, acceptance, and compassion in psychotherapy.

With Dr. Laura Silberstein-Tirch and others, Dr. Tirch is currently developing a research protocol involving behavioral science and CFT for treating anxiety, worry, and fear-based difficulties through compassionate courage cultivation.

Dr. Tirch serves as:

• President of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS)
• President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation of North America
• Fellow of ACBS
• Founding President Emeritus of The New York City Chapter ACBS
• Fellow & Certified Consultant & Trainer for The Academy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Fellow and Past-President of The New York City CBT Association

Dr. Tirch’s work has been covered by numerous media outlets, including: The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Post, NPR, WIRED, and O Magazine.

Self-criticism is a classic playing-it-safe move.

• What are the harsh criticisms that your mind come up with?
• How do you handle them?
• Do you try to replace them with positive thoughts?
• Do you do more with your life?
• Do you try to prove yourself that you are an okay person?

I ask all these questions to Dr. Christopher Willard, an expert on mindfulness and self-compassion.

Key Takeaways

In my conversation with Dr. Christopher Willard you will hear about:

• The purpose or the function of self-criticism. Why do we do it?
• The difference between self-compassion and self-esteem
• How to handle thoughts like “harsh criticism motivates me or I don’t deserve to be kind to myself”
• The difference between gratitude practices and toxic positivity
• How to practice gratitude
• What the default mode network is
• Chris’s upcoming book on resilience
• How to develop perspective-taking

About Dr. Christopher Willard

Dr. Christopher Willard is a psychologist and an educational consultant, specializing in mindfulness. He serves on the board of directors at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, and is the president of the Mindfulness in Education Network. He is the author of Child’s Mind (2010), Growing Up Mindful (2016), Raising Resilience (2017), and eight other books for parents, professionals, and children. He also teaches at Harvard Medical School.