Perhaps you’re someone who expects a lot of yourself. You try to do the right thing, take responsibility for your actions and treat other people with kindness and understanding.
But when something goes wrong, you can be remarkably hard on yourself.
You replay conversations, question your decisions or find yourself thinking that you should have handled things differently. Maybe you become frustrated with your own emotions. You know that getting angry or anxious isn’t helping, yet you still find yourself reacting in the same familiar ways.
And then you criticise yourself for reacting. It’s a pattern that can become so familiar we hardly notice it anymore. But what if self-criticism goes deeper than the critical thoughts we’re aware of? What if, sometimes, it has become part of the way we experience ourselves?
When self-criticism becomes something we hardly notice
Sometimes we’re very aware of our self-criticism. We hear the familiar inner voice telling us we should have done better, tried harder or handled something differently. But often self-criticism is much less obvious.
It can become so deeply embedded in how we relate to ourselves that we hardly recognise it anymore. Perhaps you feel anxious when someone seems disappointed in you. Perhaps a small mistake leaves you with a lingering sense of inadequacy. Or perhaps you find yourself constantly trying to get things right, without quite knowing why it matters so much. There may be no obvious critical thought. Just a familiar feeling that somehow you’re not quite good enough.
Over time, through our relationships and experiences, we can develop deeply learned ways of understanding ourselves and what we need to do to feel safe, valued or accepted. Perhaps we learned that making mistakes led to criticism, that expressing anger threatened connection, or that being helpful and accommodating brought approval.
What may once have been an understandable way of adapting to our circumstances can gradually become an automatic pattern. And eventually, we may no longer recognise it as something we’ve learned.
It simply feels like who we are.
Why being hard on ourselves can feel necessary
Many of us have also come to believe that self-criticism serves an important purpose.
Perhaps we feel it keeps us motivated, helps us avoid mistakes or prevents us from disappointing others. Without it, we might worry that we would become complacent, irresponsible or selfish.
In this way, self-criticism can become a form of protection. It may be trying to help us avoid failure, rejection, embarrassment or the painful feeling of not being good enough.
But there’s an interesting paradox here.
The very thing we’re using to protect or improve ourselves may also be making it harder for us to change. We feel anxious, then criticise ourselves for being anxious. We become angry, then feel ashamed of our anger. We make a mistake, then turn that mistake into evidence that we’re somehow inadequate.
Instead of understanding what’s happening within us, we become caught in a struggle with ourselves. And the more we struggle, the harder it can become to hear what these feelings might actually be telling us.
Why can we be so compassionate towards others, yet so hard on ourselves?
Think about how you might respond to someone you care about who is struggling. Perhaps they’re frightened, overwhelmed or disappointed in themselves.
You might listen patiently, try to understand what they’re experiencing and offer them kindness and reassurance. But what happens when you experience those same feelings? Do you offer yourself the same understanding? Or does another voice appear, telling you to pull yourself together, stop worrying or simply get over it?
There’s an interesting paradox here too.
We may find it relatively easy to feel compassion for others, yet struggle to extend that same compassion towards ourselves. And perhaps this has consequences beyond our own wellbeing. When we find it difficult to accept our own fear, anger, shame or vulnerability, we may also struggle to remain compassionate when we encounter those same qualities in others.
Someone becomes angry or critical, and something within us reacts. We become defensive, frustrated or judgemental. And perhaps afterwards, we criticise ourselves for not being more understanding. Even our desire to become more compassionate can become another reason to be hard on ourselves.
This can happen even when we’ve spent years working on our personal or spiritual development. Perhaps self-compassion isn’t simply about feeling better about ourselves.
Maybe it can also help make our compassion towards others more resilient, particularly when relationships become difficult.
Why intellectually understanding ourselves isn’t always enough
We might eventually recognise where our self-criticism comes from. We understand how our childhood experiences, relationships or expectations have shaped the way we see ourselves. We can recognise the patterns and explain why we react as we do. But even with that understanding, the emotional response may remain.
We still feel inadequate when someone criticises us.
We still become anxious when we make a mistake.
We still find ourselves trying to meet expectations that, rationally, we know are unreasonable.
That’s because these patterns aren’t held only in our conscious thoughts. They can also be reflected in our automatic emotional responses and in the way situations are experienced within our bodies. Sometimes we experience the familiar sense of shame, fear or inadequacy before we’ve even had time to think about what happened.
And this is why simply telling ourselves to be more compassionate doesn’t always work. The part of us that feels inadequate may not be reached by another explanation or a more positive thought.
It may need to be experienced, understood and met differently.
What if the parts we criticise most are the parts that need our compassion?
We often think of difficult emotions as problems to overcome. We want to get rid of anxiety, stop being angry, become less sensitive or feel more confident. But what if these feelings are also telling us something important?
Maybe beneath our anxiety is a fear of rejection. Perhaps beneath our anger is a feeling of not being heard or respected. Or our constant need to get things right is connected to a deeper fear of not being good enough. And perhaps the critical part of ourselves is trying, in its own way, to protect us from experiencing these painful feelings.
This doesn’t mean that every reaction is helpful or that we shouldn’t take responsibility for our behaviour. But it does suggest another possibility. Rather than continuing to fight or judge these parts of ourselves, perhaps we can begin to understand what they’re carrying.
To approach them with curiosity, patience and compassion.
Not because we need to approve of everything we feel or do, but because understanding our experience can create possibilities for change that judgement alone may not.
From understanding compassion to experiencing it
There is an important difference between knowing that we should be compassionate towards ourselves and actually experiencing that compassion. We can understand the principle perfectly. We can tell ourselves that we need to be kinder, more accepting and less judgemental. But sometimes that simply becomes another thing we feel we’re failing to achieve. And so the cycle continues.
What if, instead of trying to make ourselves more compassionate, we could begin by noticing what’s actually happening within us? Perhaps we notice a tightness in the chest when we think about a difficult conversation. Or a sinking feeling when we remember something we’re ashamed of. Or simply a vague sense of uneasiness that we can’t quite explain.
Rather than immediately analysing, judging or trying to change these feelings, we might become curious about them. What is this feeling connected to? What is difficult about this situation for me.? What might this part of me be needing?
We don’t have to force an answer. Sometimes the important thing is simply creating enough space to listen.
Compassion doesn’t mean giving up on change
One common concern about self-compassion is that accepting ourselves might mean we stop trying to grow. But acceptance doesn’t have to mean resignation. We can recognise that we’ve hurt someone and still approach ourselves with compassion.
We can take responsibility for our behaviour without turning it into a judgement about our worth. And we can acknowledge difficult patterns while remaining curious about what lies beneath them.
In fact, developing a more compassionate relationship with ourselves may make it easier to recognise and work with those patterns. Because we no longer have to spend so much energy defending ourselves against our own judgement.
Self-compassion doesn’t mean that everything we do is acceptable.
It means that even when we struggle, make mistakes or fall short of our expectations, we don’t have to abandon ourselves.
How focusing can help
Focusing can be a little like therapeutic meditation.
It helps us slow down, listen to what we’re feeling beneath the surface, and approach difficult parts of ourselves with greater understanding and compassion.
Rather than working only with our thoughts and explanations, focusing invites us to pay attention to how our experiences are felt within the deepest parts of ourselves.
Often, there is a sense of something that we recognise but cannot quite put into words. By gently staying with this experience, without trying to force it to change, we may begin to discover something new.
These discoveries cannot be forced, and they don’t always emerge in predictable ways. But when we begin to meet these experiences with compassion rather than judgement, our relationship with them can start to change.
Sometimes something that has felt stuck for a long time begins to soften.
This isn’t about becoming perfectly calm, eliminating difficult emotions or achieving some ideal version of ourselves. It’s about learning to be present with more of who we already are.
If this resonates with you, you can learn more about therapeutic meditation, a compassionate way of exploring inner experience, or get in touch to arrange an introductory conversation.
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