Thea Jolly, Author at One of Many

How to get rid of self-critical thoughts for good

October 23, 2018 By Thea Jolly

This article is by Thea Jolly, one of our Certified Coaches and part of the coaching team on our the Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

Thea’s mission is to help women feel at peace with themselves – because only then can they make their biggest and boldest contributions to their families, communities and the world.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you knew how to get rid of self-critical thoughts for good? Can you imagine how serenely you could float through your day without the self-doubt, self-criticism and rumination that normally goes on inside your head?

No stressing over meeting your work deadlines, no beating yourself up for saying the wrong thing, no recriminations for that parenting fail – again! And no sick feeling of shame as you reach for the bottle of wine, the chocolate or Netflix boxset at the end of a hard day when you promised yourself you wouldn’t.

And no wondering why you can’t pull it all together like other women can.

Let’s get real here: all of the women I know, including me, and including all the wildly successful ones we see on social media, have a head full of doubts, shoulds, oughts, disappointments and feelings of failure. Not all the time – but pretty much every day.

All humans have self-critical thoughts – they have been fundamental to our survival as a species. To ensure we stayed within the security of our tribe our brains evolved to prioritise social connections, fitting in and working together.

That is why our brains spend so much time and energy analysing and prioritising fitting in – it’s how we measure our safety. Which explains why how many likes you get on Facebook feels so important!

So the first thing for you to do is to acknowledge this. There is nothing wrong with you because you have self-critical thoughts. It’s perfectly normal and human. In fact, it would be more worrying if you didn’t have these thoughts: sociopaths and psychopaths spring to mind.

So our task is to manage these thoughts so that they stop affecting us so much. It’s all a matter of awareness, attitude and attention. Training your mind in these areas will lead to a more confident, emotionally resilient and happier life.

1. Awareness

One of my favourite sayings is: ‘Knowledge is Power’. The more we know and understand about ourselves, the more control we have over how we think and behave.

To reduce the frequency and power of self-critical thoughts we need to get curious about them. It’s time to get up close and personal, get dirty and involved in what’s going on in your head. Be a detective, take notes and ask questions. Like Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple notice, notice, notice. If you have to wear a fake moustache or pastel cardigan to get into the part then do so!

The questions to ask include:

What are you actually saying to yourself?
When do these thoughts come up?
What is the story you are telling yourself about your situation, other people and yourself?
What are you making assumptions about?
What emotions are you feeling?
Where do these emotions come from?
What fears or beliefs are underneath your self-critical thoughts and feelings?
How are these self-critical thoughts affecting your behaviour, and your relationships?
Can you notice any patterns?

The more you find out and understand about yourself, the more power you take back.

2. Attitude

Your attitude while you are noticing what’s going on is crucial. Self-critical thoughts are judgemental and harsh. You have to step aside and be the observer of these thoughts from a non-judgemental, compassionate and accepting place. Don’t get sucked into them.

We wear judgement like a pair of sunglasses that we’ve forgotten to take off. Everywhere we look is tainted by our fears, hopes, preoccupations, likes, dislikes and unconscious beliefs. Again, this is normal; it’s what our brains do, but it’s not conducive to a meaningful and happy life.

Compassion and acceptance are equally important here. Without self-compassion and an acceptance of how things are now, we can’t bring sustainable change into our lives. Being motivated by fear and judgement only gets us so far. Our creative problem-solving abilities are shut off when we are in threat mode, so we have to use compassion to bring those parts of our brain back online. Without compassion our ancient emotional impulses run the show – which is why we end up behaving in ways we know aren’t who we truly are.

One word on acceptance: many women don’t want to accept themselves as they are. They think that acceptance means never changing or growing. The paradoxical result of accepting yourself, is that you can change more effectively than when you are beating yourself up.

3. Attention

When we are conscious with our attention – what we are focussing on in any particular moment – life seems to slow down enough to allow us to make more mindful choices.

When you are aware of what is going on – with yourself, with your children, with your co-workers – without judgement, you can act with so much more integrity and compassion.

Furthermore, if you are aware of situations that challenge you, you can intentionally put your focus on your thoughts and choose to talk to yourself in a more helpful, compassionate and empowering way in those situations.

Putting it into Practice

The critical thoughts you are noticing are just thoughts. Nothing more.

The emotions you are noticing are only emotions, nothing more.

You can notice them without attaching judgement to them, without adding a further emotional reaction to them (as much as possible) and without needing to act to change them.

You are simply there to notice what is going on, like watching a scene in a drama.

Things you could say to yourself are:

‘Ohh, that’s interesting…’
‘Mmmm, I’m feeling …… And that’s OK.’
‘I’m noticing I wish I wasn’t so impatient/angry/annoyed/tired. I can feel the judgement here and the desire for it to be different, and that’s OK. I’m human. I wonder why it means so much to me to be more patient/calm etc?’
‘I am noticing that this feels awful and I want to cry/shout/run away. And that’s OK.’
‘I’m noticing that I’m calling myself a bad mum/fat/useless again. Why did that come up now?’
‘What’s the story I’m telling myself here? Oh, yes, I’m worried about my work deadline and am taking it out on my children. Deep breath, it will get done. I want to focus on being connected to my children instead.’

Nothing will change if you don’t extend some compassion to yourself here.

Yes, you may have shouted at your 4 year old when he was pushing boundaries like every four year old does. But you also did a full day’s work, had to deal with a grumpy husband, fielded 500 ‘why’ questions from your 7 year old, and your period started. Is it any wonder that your patience ran out?

This is where you need to take a deep breath, and instead of listening to those critical thoughts, tell yourself it’s all OK. This is a human reaction to a demanding situation. Then you can enquire gently about what’s underneath, what’s the story you are telling yourself here, what do you and your child need to feel better, and how can you set intentions and practice reacting a different way in future?

Exploring this with non-judgemental curiosity might reveal that you feel guilty about going back to work fulltime, even if you know it’s the right thing for you. Or maybe you’re just exhausted and need a good sleep, a night out with the girls or weekend away on your own (bliss).

Maybe you are blaming your husband for not helping more, and realise you actually need to ask him for help rather than alternating between Superwoman and Martyr without actually talking to him about what you need.

Self-critical thoughts are trying to help

Our self-critical thoughts are trying to keep us safe and beyond judgement from others. This is impossible, because we can’t control what other people think of us. Knowing that it is our hard-wiring that is motivating those critical thoughts is incredibly liberating. It means we can stop taking them so seriously.

When we don’t take our thoughts, emotions and ourselves so seriously we don’t get so triggered and injured by them. When we are not so affected by them we keep our emotional equilibrium more easily, have a more positive outlook on life, and can focus on the good stuff instead.

Making the world a better place – which is the vision of One of many – starts with changing your internal world. Every person who learns to manage their automatic, fear-based critical thoughts and behaviours creates a positive ripple effect within their families and communities, workplaces and society. Self-awareness, a compassionate attitude and mindful attention are the foundations for this.

How about you?

Do you experience self-critical thoughts? Do you have any other tips or advice to share with others, or questions to ask about Thea’s process?

How to get over mother guilt

September 13, 2018 By Thea Jolly

This article is by Thea Jolly, one of our Certified Coaches and part of the coaching team on our the Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

Thea’s mission is to help women feel at peace with themselves – because only then can they make their biggest and boldest contributions to their families, communities and the world. And today she’s sharing 5 simple ways to get over our guilt.

How much time and energy do you waste feeling bad about your parenting? Do you second guess your decisions, worrying about saying no and upsetting your children, or do you try to please everyone, despite it compromising what you believe in? Or perhaps you experience a constant low-level guilt about not being the ‘Perfect Mother’ and being able to Do-It-All.

Welcome to modern motherhood – and indeed, modern womanhood. Even if you’re not a mum, the steps I’m sharing with you today are incredibly powerful when you apply them to any situation you find yourself feeling guilty about.

Often our guilt is in direct proportion to the expectations we have of ourselves, of the bar that we set ourselves. And in some areas it’s just too high.

When we are at our best we are light-hearted and happy, following our intuition, allowing life to flow and opportunities for growth and nurture to unfold. Guilt gets in the way of that.

So how do we stop? And how do we let our softer, natural, more effective Mother out to play?

5 ways to deal with mother guilt

1. Call it out.

The first step towards change is to notice what is going on. As the saying goes, knowledge is power, and self-knowledge is the ultimate power.

Start noticing whenever you feel guilty about something and instead of ruminating, say to yourself:

‘I’m noticing I’m feeling guilty about x, and that’s OK. I’m a human being feeling a human emotion.’

This labelling helps you to distance yourself from the guilty thoughts and emotions – like an observer who’s not so personally involved – which reduces their power over you.

2. Notice your stories.

Every second of the day we are interpreting the world around us, through our bodies and minds. None of those interpretations are true – they are just one of many realities that we create depending on our mood, our beliefs and a million other filters and factors that affect our neural connections.

When guilt strikes, ask yourself what story you are telling yourself.

For example, I’ve noticed that I often feel guilty about feeding my children processed pizzas. If I stop and ask myself what story I’m really telling myself the answer might be:

I’m telling myself that good mums never feed their children pizza, and that because I’m not making time to cook meals from scratch, I’m a bad mum. I’m telling myself the story that all other mums cook healthier meals than I do.

I’m painting a black and white picture where pizza is bad and no-pizza is good. I’m telling myself that my children will get obese, and develop diabetes and die early from cancer because I’m not a good enough mother and it’s all my fault.

I’m also telling myself the story that it’s too hard to do anything else and that I’m stuck here feeling bad about feeding my kids pizza every Friday.

Written down, I’m sure you can see how untrue this story is. There are elements of truth – processed pizza isn’t the healthiest of meals – but the extrapolations and meanings I’ve taken from it are not true.

I won’t kill my children with pizza. There are hundreds of habits and factors that will affect my children’s health. There are thousands of moments that will contribute to my parenting, and most of them will be nurturing and positive.

Start questioning the stories you are telling yourself and make a conscious choice about whether to believe them or not.

After a while you will notice your favourite stories, and will be able to say to yourself: Ah, that’s my ‘I’m a bad mother story’, ‘I can’t cope story’, or ‘pizzas are evil story’ and let it go.

3. Know your values and boundaries

Sometimes guilt is a response to actions that occur because your boundaries are being crossed or your values are being compromised.

For example, I’ve realised that for me personally my pizza story was a sign that I wasn’t living in line with my values. I believe in fresh, wholesome food and while my family generally eats this way, I know in my heart that the balance has slipped more towards convenience and extra treats than I’d like.

And so I have to ask myself: what could I do that will make me feel more in integrity with my values around feeding my family, while also acknowledging that I’m busy and don’t always have the time or inclination to cook?

Then, because I know that I’m working towards a better balance I can reassure myself when the tabloid ‘Bad Pizza Mum’ guilt rears its ugly head.

4. Get into your Queen PowerType.

One of the biggest surprises for me when I started working with the 5 Women’s PowerTypes™ was how effective being in the Queen PowerType is for the difficult moments of parenting.

The 5 Women’s PowerTypes™ are the powerful role models we use at One of many to tap into our strongest feminine leadership, and the Queen is just one of them (the others are Warriroress, Sorceress, Lover and Mother).

A Queen just knows what to do. She leaves all the self-doubt and second guessing to others and calmly and confidently states what is needed in any particular situation.

And she doesn’t do guilt. She looks after her needs, is aligned to what she wants for herself and her family and knows what the right action is.

So when guilt strikes, stepping back and asking ‘What would a Queen do/say?’ is often enough to reassure yourself that what you are doing is the right thing.

When my children complain about not liking certain meals I cook, I can go into Queen, align myself with my values of health and vitality and calmly say ‘This is what is for dinner today.’ No drama. No guilt.

5. Let go of responsibility

This might sound weird for a mum, but honestly, if there is one thing I’ve learnt during my parenting journey it’s that we are not responsible for our children’s happiness.

As harsh as that sounds, it is not our job to manage their emotional well-being.

Obviously we do our best to be compassionate, caring, inclusive, loving, nurturing and all those wonderful qualities of Mother, especially when they are young.

We can encourage them along the way to managing their own emotions – but we only hold the space for their journey, and cannot force it to play out a certain way.

When we try to cajole, influence or control the well-being of others so that we can feel better it can be counter-productive. You can only lead with integrity, not force your family to follow you.

Next time you are feeling guilty ask yourself: ‘Is this my responsibility?’ Quite often the answer is no.

Are you simply feeling bad because, naturally, you don’t want your child to feel bad?

You are responsible to act in accordance to your highest values of behaviour (i.e. respect, love, enthusiasm, integrity etc.) and to the vision you have for your family.

How your children respond is not your responsibility, it’s their opportunity to learn and discover themselves.

My children are now 16, 14 and 11. They are old enough to know what foods are good for them and make their own decisions. I can teach, model and provide a balanced healthy diet but ultimately I have to gift them the responsibility to look after their own bodies and health.

I can also choose to acknowledge with compassion, that this letting go is sometimes scary, extremely annoying, fraught with arguments and mistakes on both sides, but that ultimately it’s what being a mother is all about.

Finally, it’s important to note that sometimes guilt is appropriate.

Maybe you’ve behaved in a way that wasn’t your best self. That’s OK. Guilt is there to prompt a response: to make amends, apologise or change a habit. But when guilt itself is a habit, linked to who you are, not to how you are behaving, it might be slipping into the arena of shame – which is not useful for parenting in any way (but that’s a whole other blog post..).

How about you?

Do you experience “mother guilt”, or do you recognise some of what I’ve described here in your life outside of motherhood? We’d love to know your experience of guilt and whether you find these strategies effective when it comes to coming past it – leave a comment and let us know.

Thea is one of our Certified Women’s Coaches, and is an in-house coach on our Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

To find out more about Thea, and how you can work with her, click here.

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