Episode Transcript
Welcome back. And thank you for listening and joining me today for this special episode of the alcohol tipping point podcast.
This is how to stop beating yourself up and start practicing. Self-compassion when you're changing your drinking. This, I think this concept of being more self-compassionate and kind to myself really helped me change my drinking. I, I was the biggest, like self-flagellation self punishing person out there. Whenever I drank the next morning, I would.
Make myself get up and do like a punishing workout. I would just have this shame spiral, this shame over instead of a hangover, I call it a shame over. After a night of drinking. When I said I wasn't getting a drink and I just was in this constant mode of beating myself up, treating myself like an asshole and just not being kind and compassionate.
And so when I could finally learn. To be more compassionate towards myself. I started changing my drinking. I started making bigger changes in my life to. And I know that it seems like you should beat yourself up and you should be really hard on yourself because you're not doing what you said you should do. And so you need to like beat yourself with a sticker or whatever.
It just, it counter-intuitively does not work that way. It works when we can be kind and compassionate to ourselves. Some. I wanted to share. Part of a presentation? I did. I teach a class called mindful a F because it's all about mindfulness and the concepts of mindfulness. And it's a really helpful class. They may teach it again and in the fall, I'm not sure. Let me know if you're interested.
Um, but a huge component of mindfulness is compassion. And so I'm sharing part of, one of our classes that we did. That talks about the inner critic, which is that voice that beats us up. And then it talks about how to stop beating yourself up and what compassion is and what self-compassion is. And how you can use that to change your drinking and just stop suffering.
So I am. Really delighted that I get to share this with you again, it's just an expert from the course, and I think it's really going to help you. And I also want to offer, if you do want help changing your drinking, you can always sign up for the next alcohol a day. That is a month long break for changing your drinking and we use self-compassion and I'm a huge component of it.
We really focus on practice, not perfection and just being kind to yourself as you're changing your drinking. So next alcoholic day, it starts the first of every month. So I'd love to have you join that. You can go to alcohol tipping point.com/alcoholic day. Uh, also put a link in the show notes, but just want to put that out there to you as another option for changing your drinking, using science and compassion based tools.
Hope you enjoy this recording. About compassion. Thank you again. welcome. Welcome to session six. This topic is all about compassion which is I think, one of the most important components of mindfulness because it really allows us. To heal, especially self-compassion. So we're gonna be talking about the opposite of compassion, which is that inner critic, that inner critic, that kind of angry voice that we tend to turn towards.
We all tend to do that but we're gonna talk about how to manage that inner critic and then how to become more self-compassionate and use mindfulness for compassion.
. So first we'll talk about the inner critic, and that is that voice in our. That a lot of us find that kind of tends to beat us up.
Right. And before we dig into the inner critic, I just wanna do this exercise with you where you just take a moment and imagine yourself in a situation where you were disappointed. With yourself. You know, maybe you made a mistake or you failed to reach an important goal, or you messed up in something.
You know, it doesn't matter. It can be small, but it was just something where you were disappointed in yourself. And I just want you to think about that moment and think about what were some of the words that you used to speak to yourself. What was kind of the inner voice when you made that mistake, and how did it make you feel?
So what happens is we notice a lot of the times. When we are disappointed with ourselves, we may find that we are very accusatory. You know, we're reproachful, we are attacking of ourselves. Oftentimes our tone is really hard and angry and disappointed when we mess up. And then we have these feelings, that feeling of failure, shame, guilt, the inferiority, the fear, they all come out from the inner critic.
And what happens is we tend to talk to ourselves inside our voice. Inside says some things like, what's wrong with me? How could I let this happen? And why me and why can't I get it right? And, and when am I ever going to get this? , we see this all the time when we are looking to change our drinking.
You know, when we end up drinking, when we don't want to. We tend to beat ourselves up over it and, and just feel really frustrated and angry at ourselves and, and some of these thoughts spin through our minds the next morning, like, when am I ever gonna get this? Why am I stuck? What's wrong with me? That's one you hear again and again.
And a lot of the times to the outside world, we will say things like, I look like a fat cow in this dress. Right? I can't, I can't do computers to save my life. Right? I have the worst sense of direction of anyone I know, or I'm the worst cook on the planet. I wonder how many times I've made them this mistake before.
Like, we are, we've become the standup comedian, right? It's, it's almost like. We're trying to beat the other person to the punch, right? We're trying to criticize ourselves before they can. So you'll notice that you have this inner critic, this voice inside your head but you'll also express it outside as well.
And a lot of the times that comes in disparaging remarks or just like humorous remarks too. And there's usually three messages that our inner critic is telling us. We get a lot of the shoulds, right, that should like you, you should know better, you should do better. You should try harder, you should work harder.
You know, we start shoulding all over ourselves. , we also just, you know, we have all these disapproving thoughts messages and feelings and behavior. Just feeling weak, feeling like you're not good enough feeling the shame and the guilt. And then we end up with some negative predictions like we're, we're never going to get.
If I continue like this, no one's gonna love me or, you know, I'm gonna end up dead or whatever. Like we do end up with these really fear-based predictions too. And, and remember when we're talking about the future, it's a construct. We don't know what's gonna happen in the future. So again, that's where mindfulness comes in.
Like it brings us to the now. So those are some of our messages from the inner critic, and it has some internal consequences. You know, people that have that inner critic, they tend to have more depression, social anxiety, addiction, and eating disorders. That's what the research has found. Right? And then there's also the external consequences.
So if you score high on being self-critical, it's been shown that these people have less friends and they're less satisfied with social support. You know, they're more negative after a stressful event. They have lower levels of trust. And it just makes life. It just, it really makes life harder. They definitely have shown research that it is related to how you grew up, how your family, what your family situation was.
The thing about our inner critic that's so important, and I'll kind of come out when we talk about befriending your inner critic. It's, it's actually there to protect. It's actually there to help you and, and help guide you. It it thinks that it, it is doing a good thing, right? And sometimes we haven't learned any other ways of addressing when we make mistakes, a lot of the times we.
Are judging ourselves and comparing ourselves to society. And so then we do get an inner critic that comes as a result of the environment. You know, I'm thinking about body issues is a huge one that's kind of based on what's going on in society, right? So family, environment, all of that can play a role into how we talk to our.
Yes, but it's very normal. Everyone has an inner critic. It, it's definitely something that we have. It's just how do we, how do we listen to it and use it in a more constructive way instead of a beating ourselves up way. Right. So, because the opposite of the inner critic is, is having more self-compassion with our.
This next slide is about befriending the inner critic. Because remember, a lot of what we're doing with mindfulness is we are, we're not resisting, we're allowing.
Cuz a lot of the times we're trying to push things away. We're pushing feelings away. We're allowing them without judgment and we're allowing them with compassion and just as they are. Right? And so when you do notice that negative voice come up, you know, you, you can welcome it. It's, it's just like a me.
Right, because all of our emotions are trying to tell us something. You know, you can even be like, oh, hello, hello. Shame voice. What are you trying to tell me? Right? And then listen, because a lot of the times it's looking out for you, you know, that shame voice, you know, say you did drink again and, and you, you have that critic that's like, oh, you drink again.
You're never gonna get it. What's wrong with you to say, oh, hello? Hello. Morning after voice. Like, what do you have to tell me? And behind that voice is concern, right? It, it still is. Like, I want you to get this. I care about you. I know you deserve this. You are worthy of this, right? You're just listening to like, what does it have to say?
And then, thank it. Thank you. Thank you. Morning after voice. Thank you for sharing that with me. Right. And then allowing it with self-compassion. So again, that's back to the not resisting, just letting it be processing. It just helps you process that emotion and that voice and allow it without judgment like, And then I'm gonna do this, right?
Thank you for your message. Here's a cup of tea. Let's chat together. Right? You know, befriend it as you would. And a friend that is going through a hard time. You know a friend that does come to you the morning after that is concerned about you. Like, oh, I can really see you care. If you didn't care, you wouldn't say anything.
Right. You wouldn't even have that reaction afterwards, but you do care. Well so we're gonna talk about compassion and self-compassion. So compassion that basically is defined as the sensitivity to the experience of suffering, and then coupled with a deep desire to alleviate that suffering. You know, we wish the best for other people and we wish that they don't suffer.
And with compassion comes acknowledgement of pain. Understanding that there is pain and suffering that is part of life. Having empathy and having acceptance of the person who suffers, accepting them as they are and, and having a wish that that suffering may decrease. And so when we talk about self-compassion, that's just turning compassion.
It. Relating to ourselves as the objective care and concern whenever we are faced with the experience of suffering. Because we all suffer at some point. You know that, that's that 50 50 rule, right? Sometimes life is awful, sometimes it's awesome. So when it's awful and suffering, you know, it's basically pain, right?
And emotional pain. Sometimes physical pain too. I mean, when we think about suffering maybe from cancer or illness or something But it, it's just recognizing that we can care for ourselves and have concern about ourselves. And so there are some misconceptions when it comes to self-compassion. Some people think maybe it's selfish.
Right. Maybe it is just doing too much for ourselves. We should be taking care of others, right? But it's that whole put your oxygen mask on first before you can take care of others. And it really does make it easier for you to take care of other people especially kits. And parents.
If you're the caregiver for a parent or or friend, like it makes you show up. You can show up better to take care of others when we take care of ourselves. And some people think maybe it's sugarcoating, right? Maybe it's, it's not acknowledging what is going on, not acknowledging that there is cancer, that there is a drinking problem, that there is whatever suffering is there, right?
We're not sugarcoating it. We, we are allowing it and we're acknowledging it. Self pitiful. You know, it's not being, feeling sorry for ourselves, it's not being a victim. We're recognizing, okay, I'm going through a hard time and I'm gonna take care of myself and take steps to improve that. And it's not passive.
It doesn't mean you're just being complacent, right? It doesn't, you know, a lot of people when I do health coaching, especially at the hospital, a lot of people have like weight loss goals or something, and they think, well, if I'm not hard on myself, then I'm not going to do the goal. Like, I'm not gonna show up at the gym, right?
If I'm not like, hey, Get your lazy ass into the gym. Right. They've actually done a lot of research on this and they show that when we are more of like coaches and cheerleaders, then we're more likely to be motivated and we're more likely to spend time on self-improvement than if we're like cracking the whip and, and being that authoritarian just hard ass.
Right. It's okay to be your own cheerleader. In a positive way. You don't have to beat yourself up to get anything done. And I think we, we know that intuitively Like you were talking about , a lot of what I talk about is having self-compassion when you're going through changing your drinking. You know, we, we cannot hate ourselves to recovery.
We can't shame ourselves to recovery. We can't hate ourselves to love. It's only when we can actually start really caring for ourselves. Having compassion for ourselves when we do drink. If we do end up, you know, drinking more than we wanted to, if we're not where we want to be, it's more helpful to be compassionate to ourselves, un beat ourselves up.
And, and so one analogy is, The hammer, right? So when we do something physically to hurt ourselves, say we are hammering something. Obviously I'm not doing a lot of hammering. I'm not very good at this analogy, but say I'm out there building something and I hit my finger and I get a wound, I get a physical wound.
We take care of that wound. Right. Say you're chopping up vegetables and you cut your finger, you don't just like cut it again. You don't hammer yourself again. We take care of it. We stop and we care to the physical wound. And so self-compassion is stopping and it's caring for the mental wound. Right.
And that's something we don't always do sometimes. We beat ourselves up again. Sometimes we have a mental wound, we have something, you know, we make a mistake and then we beat ourselves up again after the mistake. There is this Buddhist teaching about the second arrow, and what it refers to is that emotional pain is the same as being hit by an arrow, right?
You can heal from this, you can take care of it you can allow it to, to heal itself, right? But sometimes what we do is we shoot ourselves with a second arrow. And so the second arrow represents all the thoughts, the feelings and reactions to that painful event in our life, right? That injury from the second arrow, it's actually magnifying the first arrow.
Right. We start to have more negative thoughts. It, it just gets worse than allowing the first arrow, you know, and it's kind of like the data not drama, right? So something happened, we can acknowledge it. Let, let's say we drank and we didn't want to. Well, the suffering and the additional pain is the drama that we layer onto it.
That's that second era where we just start beating ourselves up about it, right? So that's where we want to be compassionate and allow, like there was, there is emotional pain and I'm gonna heal from it and I'm gonna take care of myself. Right now, I'm gonna address this wound.
And so when we talk about the self-compassionate voice this is just a good comparison of, instead of saying like, what's wrong with me? Say, I tried my best. Instead of saying, how could I let this happen? Say I'm human just like everybody else, you know, instead of I can't do anything. Right. Mine never signed a contract to be perfect.
Nobody is perfect, right? If I continue like this, I will inevitably fail. Instead, you can say, I learned something. I learned something from this. Instead of saying like, a child could do it better, say, next time, I will do it differently. You know, that is what the self-compassionate voice sounds like. And so when we talk about three components of self-compassion, this is, this is actually part of the Kristen Neff research and part of the book that we're reading for the holiday group, which is called Self-Compassion.
What we're talking about is self-kindness versus self-judgment. And we're talking about common humanity versus isolation. And we're talking about mindfulness versus over-identification, and I'm gonna get into each of these components some more as with these next few slides. So let, let's go with kindness versus self-judgment.
There we go. So, kindness. Instead of being judgmental and harsh, we're caring and we're understanding instead of attacking the self, we accept the self instead of continuing, no matter what. We know when to stop. We know when to pause. That's a difficult one. That is one that we, we try not to quit. We, we have a real concept of quitters.
Right. Just keep going. You know, it's kind is knowing when to stop. Being hard would be focusing externally to solve the problem and being kind would be turning that internally. You know, what can we do to take care of ourselves? We're not gonna blame anyone else. We're gonna take care of it ourselves.
We're gonna focus on the internal. And when we talk about self-compassion and common humanity a lot of the times, you know, the opposite of common humanity would be isolation. And that's where we feel like, oh, this, this is only me. That's where we feel really alone. Right? This could only be happening to me.
No one. Feels this way. Well, what we know and what you and I all know, especially with our group, is that there is a common humanity. There is a connection. You know, you do realize that, you know, there are a lot of people changing their drinking. You know, there are a lot of people who are making mistakes.
There are a lot of people that are going through this in a similar way, and that helps us feel more connected with each other. That helps us feel not so alone. And that's just so key. So key in healing and changing, just knowing you are not alone. And then when we talk about mindfulness we're talking about pausing, stopping.
You know, acknowledging we're not believing our stories. You know, a lot of us have these stories in the past. You know, I, I, I can't quit drinking, or I'm a lush, or I'm never going to get it. Like, if we're not aware of that, then we can't change it. So with mindfulness, we're observing that story. We're observing, like that's a story I've been telling myself.
It doesn't mean it's true. Right? And then you know, when we're not being mindful, we can go into that judgment punishment phase. And so mindfulness again, is being aware of what's happening without judgment and without punishment. It's just observing. And then that helps like decrease that negative voice that we have, decreases that self-critical voice by allowing.
Hey, it's me again, back on the podcast part of this episode. Wrapped up the presentation from my mindfulness class about compassion. I hope that you found it helpful. I hope that you recognize, like there, there is a purpose to the inner critic voice. We all have it. And you can acknowledge it without beating yourself up about it. And you can use self-compassion to help you move forward and help you change your drinking.
I want to invite you again to join the next alcohol a day. That is our live group that starts the first of every month. And that will give you lots more tools like self-compassion that you can practice while you're practicing, changing your drinking while you're practicing, not drinking. And you can do it all being kind to yourself.
So check that out. I'll call it tipping point.com/alcohol a day. Also put the link in the show notes. We'd love to have you join and thank you again for listening to this episode. And we'll talk to you next time.
