Building Self-Compassion: Learning to Detach from Self-Judgement

Together in this post, we will learn how to detach from self-judgement. 

I did not anticipate it would take me this long to write a post after my last one, alas life happens, and I am finally back at it again. The ability to detach from self-judgement was helpful for me when the thought of my "tardiness" showed up. Being able to detach from self-criticism or self-judgment is an important step to building self-compassion.

There is no quick fix to stop self-criticism/judgment, however with practice, these thoughts will have less power on us. To do so, we need to notice and name these thoughts, to let them show up without trying to push them away or distract from them. 

With time, we will recognize the pattern of these words and the stories we tell ourselves. Some common examples of automatic thoughts that show up are "my life sucks", "I am not good enough", "I'm the worst parent", "what's wrong with me?". Sound familiar? It happens to all of us, you are not alone.

The key is to acknowledge these automatic thoughts when they show up as patterns of words we have developed over time, no need to get stuck on analyzing whether these thoughts are true or false. When we make room for these thoughts, without judgement, just naming them, for example "here is my not good enough story again", they have less power on us, we begin to see them as unhelpful habits we developed over time. Remember this is just our mind trying to protect us, being overly helpful, because it does not want us to get hurt. 

A.C.E. (visit my first post for details) is a helpful skill to use when self-criticism/judgement shows up: 

1) Acknowledge the thoughts and feelings; 2) Connect with your body - breath, get up and stretch, drink some water, for examples, 3) Engage and continue to do what you were doing in the present moment, before the unhelpful thoughts showed up. 

Will you give this a try? Perhaps write down how self-criticism/judgement shows up for you, notice any patterns or common themes?

Remember you are not alone, you are human with a mind that is trying to be helpful in a not so helpful way.

Until next time, I wish you well,

Ory