How to stop self-compassion turning into self-sabotage

0:02 A listener production. Hello, and welcome to another solo episode of Crappy to Happy, Happy to be with you today and doing something a little bit different today. I am answering a listener question and I love that this has become interactive. Somebody has emailed me with a personal challenge, and I'm going to do my very best to give a full response to this because I understand that this is an issue that comes up a lot for people, and could I just say if you have a question, by all means, please email me hello at castdon dot com or talk to me at castd dot com. Both of those email addresses will find me, so please do submit your questions. Disclaimer, I can't give individual advice, but I certainly can give broad general information that is hopefully helpful to all of you. So I'm going to call this Listenerill. That is not her real name. And Jill has written to me and said, I'm wondering about this whole idea of being kind to myself. Listeners know that this is something I bang on about all the time.

1:11 I'm going to paraphrase here, but essentially what Jill has said is I keep hearing about this over and over the years. You mention it a lot. However, I find that when I practice this, it becomes an excuse for everything. I e. I'm tired, so it's okay to get takeout. I've had a huge week at work. I don't really need to worry about working out today doing my exercise. I haven't had chocolate in a month, therefore, I deserve to eat whatever I like this week. So this seems to keep leading to self sabotage for me, and then my motivation for losing weight or making sure I exercise, or being social or whatever just seems to stem from a negative place. So the self kindness option is basically leading to all of these making excuses to not do the things that she says she to do, and therefore she finds the only way that she can really follow through and do the things she says she wants to do is for it to come from a place of self criticism and being really hard on herself. She says, it seems so much powerful because I seem to do more, but I can recognize that it's unhealthy. I feel miserable all the time and lonely, and nothing I have done has helped me to break this cycle. Jill, you are not alone. This is so common. So it would be very easy for me to tell you, as I have told you many many times before, that self compassion is positively associated with goal progress. Self criticism is negatively associated

2:42 with goal progress. I think that in theory you get this, and for some of you that is obviously not enough. That's not translating into being able to use self compassion or self kindness to support you to achieve your goals. I would like to address this in a couple of different kind of segments. One is the kinds of goals that you're setting for yourself, the expectations you're setting for yourself and why. And the other is your definition of self kindness or self compassion and how you might be able to reframe it so that it is more helpful to you. And all of this obviously wrapped up in the context of an individual who is high on self criticism, because that seems to be what is going on here.

3:22 So let's start with if you have an intention to do something, for example, be kind to yourself, offer yourself some self compassion, be less self critical. If you have an intention to do something, whether or not you go ahead and proceed to do that thing is impacted by the strength and the direction of your intention. So there is a theory in psychology called the theory of planned behavior. It's not the be all and end all. It is just one theory, and it says that the strength and the direction of your intentions is largely influenced by a whole lot of beliefs that you have about that particular behavior, and those beliefs can be broken up into three areas.

4:03 One is your beliefs about the behavior itself. So in the case of self compassion, for example, let's just use that as an example. Whether you believe that that will be a good thing or not, and how you think you will feel if you do that behavior. Obviously, this theory applies to any behavior, so later on you can think about this in terms of a whole lot of other intentions or goals you might have. But let's just talk about self compassion for now. So how you think you will feel if you offer your self self compassion and whether you just generally feel that self compassion or self kindness is a positive thing or a negative thing, right, So that's your thoughts and feelings about the behavior itself. The second layer is what we call normative beliefs. So what's the norm amongst the people that you associate with, What are your beliefs about what do you sort of expect or perceive that other people would think about you doing this behavior? What would other people think, your friends, parents, if you were to be kinder to yourself, if you were to act with more self compassion, And what do you perceive other people are doing around you? Do you perceive that other people behave this way or treat themselves with kindness and consideration and compassion. Do you see other people behaving in this way? So that's going to impact your intention as well. And the third one is called control beliefs. That is, whether you believe you actually have the capacity to do this, whether you feel confident you could follow through and you could engage in this self compassionate,

5:33 self kind behavior should you wish to. So they're the three level of levels of belief. There are other things, obviously, as I said, that can come into it. There's another kind of belief about your thoughts about the type of person who does this thing, like the type of person who is a self compassionate person, Like whether you on the whole have a negative or positive view of that kind of person. There are social cultural beliefs as well, like what you feel is the norm in your social cultural environment, and also whether you feel you are deserving of self compassion. So that's an interesting one too, isn't it, Because that is going to go back to family of origin, staff and messages you've grown up with. So there's a lot to unpack and explore there. And remember, you can think about this in the context of any goal that you might be pursuing. But let's just talk about self compassion for now. We'll talk about your other goals in a little minute, So for now, what we know for sure from the research is that people who are very self critical, people who score highly in self criticism, really struggle with self compassion, and that is at least partly because of their negative beliefs about self compassion. People who are high in self criticism are really kind of suspicious about this whole concept of self compassion and self kindness.

6:58 They tend to believe that it will lead them to lower their personal standards, that it will decrease their motivation to grow as a person. I'm actually taking this from a research article, and thus fail to achieve their personal goals. People tend to associate self compassion with negative traits such as weakness, selfishness, irresponsibility, and self indulgence. Checking with yourself whether this is all ringing true for you? And again, some people believe that being self compassionate goes against family or cultural expectations, or that they don't deserve self compassion. So the interesting thing about this is that we also know for sure that self compassion is positively associated with achieving goals and self criticism is associated with lack of goal progress. So there is a mismatch going on here.

7:49 I guess the important thing to say straight up about that is that for somebody like Jill, who is listening to this, she is nodding her head, I would imagine saying, well, this is all true. This has been my experience. When I try to be kind to myself, I do do things that take me away from achieving my goals. She's saying, well, I've got all of this evidence that that is actually true. And that's why I think we really need to unpack the definition of self compassion, the true definition of self compassion, and we also really need to look at the personality factors this idea of and the kinds of goals you're setting and why you're setting them, and then we can look at the role of self compassion versus self criticism.

8:32 So when we talk about pursuing personal goals, whether you want to eat better, lose weight, save money, be more social, less social, pursuing goals involves two very important factors. One is personality, that is the type of person you are. The other is your motivation. So the who and the why. A big part of that is whether you are a person who is self critical, whether you have a lot of perfectionistic concerns, whether you're extroverted introverted. There's a whole lot of personality factors that will influence that. And the other is the why. What is your motivation for pursuing your goal and whether it is autonomous that is freely chosen by you, or whether it is what we call controlled motivation. And controlled motivation refers to whether your goal is driven by either an external perceived or real external pressure or influence or an internal pressure. And that internal pressure could be a feeling of guilt or what we call contingent self esteem, that is, whether you feel good about yourself only as a result of doing this behavior, whether your self worth your sense of self worth is contingent on your doing this behavior if you are a highly self critical person. The research also shows that oftentimes if you're a person with very perfectionistic concerns, then often your goals are less of an autonomous motivation and more of a controlled motivation. In other words, they are often

10:05 driven by concerns about what other people will think, or some internal pressure of feeling guilty if you don't do it, or your self esteem your self worth being contingent on you achieving it. People who are high in self criticism hold themselves to impossible standards, make no room for mistakes. They often abandon their goals in the face of a setback. As soon as they have a slip up or a setback, they have that all or nothing thinking, which leads them to abandoning their goals completely. Often their goals are not even intrinsically motivated at all. They're based on other people's expectations or the world's expectations, society's expectations, or some sort of fear of judgment or guilt, or your self worth being dependent on achieving this particular goal, and then in the face of setback, they are unlikely to be kind to themselves. They really struggle for themselves self compassion. So where does this leave us? Then? I think what it leads to is that Number One, we have to look at the kinds of goals you're setting and why, And then we have to reframe this whole idea of self compassion and self kindness because we know for a fact that it is only coming from a place of self kindness and coming from a place of goals. Being driven by your intrinsic motivation, autonomous goals, freely chosen, and your self worth not being contingent on the achievement of those goals, is going to lead you to eventually achieve the things that you want to in life. So let's just start

11:37 with goals. And let's say your goal is to eat healthier and to be physically fitter and stronger and more agile and mobile. Let's just frame it in those positive terms. Having said that, that's a perfect example. Is your goal, the way you phrase your goal and what you want to achieve for yourself, is it coming from a negative critical place? Are you setting goals because you fundamentally believe that there is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed or changed before you can actually accept yourself. Do you fundamentally not approve of yourself as you are and you are driven by this feeling of inadequacy, that you're broken, that you're flawed, that you're Do you have a whole lot of negative self talk going on? Are you very judgmental of yourself? And is that what is the springboard for setting these goals and wanting to make these changes? If you are high in self criticism, I dare say that is the case. I did an episode a little while ago before Christmas about talking about approach versus avoidance motivation. If you missed it, please go back and have a listen to it. Whether you are motivated fundamentally by moving towards something that you consider to be desirable, pleasurable, beneficial, meaningful, inspiring, expansive, or are you fundamentally driven by wanting to avoid something you considered to be negative judgment, fear, a negative outcome, a something bad happening being criticized. It's a whole different mindset.

13:06 It got a whole different energy about it. And as I said in that previous episode, approach motivated goals, you're likely to be more successful. You're likely to have a more positive mood, more upbeat, more quality of life, happier, just a fuller, richer, more expansive experience of life. To be honest, were versus an avoidance of motivated goals, all these goals being driven by fear of negative, fear of other people's judgments, internal feelings of guilt, pressure. They make you feel small. They do not encourage growth and taking risks. They're all about avoiding something negative. They are often associated with lower mood, more stress, anxiety, and lower likelihood that you're going to achieve what you want to achieve. Anyway, when you think about what you want to achieve, first and foremost, is it coming from a place of needing to fix or change something about your self, feeling that you are fundamentally flawed, Or is it coming from a place of you valuing yourself enough to want the very best for you, to want to broad and enhance your experience of life, to want to be the best version of yourself that you can be, to be inspired towards living a life of meaning and purpose and contributing full, rich experiences, being able to go out and do things and even if we are talking about physical fitness and health and well being. Is it because you want to have energy to get out and explore and really live life to the full. Or is it coming from this really small minded, fear driven, self critical, self judgmental place

14:40 of thinking that there is something that needs to be fixed or change. Just really think about that. Because I've given you opposite extremes, maybe you're somewhere in the middle. Can we, first and foremost start with we need to be setting goals that are freely chosen, that are based on your intrinsic values, that are going to enhance your quality of life. That is number one. The second thing is that as you move towards those goals, if you have a slip up or a setback, then how do you respond? And this is where we get to this self compassion piece, this self kindness piece, and the way I want to talk about this now, I want to just shift gears a little bit and think about the best way that I can describe this or explain this is to think about parenting. And now, even if you're not a parent, that's okay. Maybe you've got a pet or maybe you can just consider what it would be like to be a parent or if you were a parent, and that shouldn't be hard because usually I find that people who aren't parents already have a lot of beliefs about parenting, a lot of ideas about parenting based on what they've witnessed in terms of other people's parenting. So, if you are a parent and you really want what is best for your child, and you really want them to be healthy and happy and strong, and you have good friendships, it's all we want as parents. When you think about self kindness when it comes to your child,

16:10 doesn't mean that at the end of the day, if they had a tough maths class, that you let them have all the ice cream for dinner. Is that what you consider to be self kindness. Sometimes as a parent, we do things and we encourage our children to do things that they don't want to do because it is really and we know that it is in their best interests. They don't like it, they don't want to do it, but we know that it's what is best for them, and so as the compassionate, loving, supportive parent, sometimes the choice that we have to make for them and we have to help them make, is to do the thing that doesn't feel comfortable in the moment. It's not the easy option. It's not the easy way out. Being a kind, compassionate, supportive, loving parent to your child doesn't mean that if they don't feel like going outside, that you let them sit on the screen for twelve hours a day. We don't do that. That's not in their best interest. It might be what they want, it might be what feels good in the moment, but we know it's not what is best for them. Therefore we encourage them to do something different.

17:16 We don't shame them, we don't belittle them. We just really actively encourage them to do the thing that is going to be in the long term in their best interest. I take my dog to the vet. She hates the vet, you know, she gets poked and prodded, and she really wishes that I wouldn't take it to the vet, But I take it to the vet because that's what's in her best interest. What we have to do to be kind and compassionate, and when we really want the best for somebody is the thing that doesn't feel good in the moment. Self kindness is not just letting the kid eat the ice cream for dinner every night. We make them eat the vegetables. We make them show up for school even if they don't want to go to school, because that's what they got to do. And if we could just take that idea and apply that to ourselves and see self kindness and self compassion as fundamentally valuing ourselves and our well being so much that we sometimes make ourselves do the thing that we don't want to do because we know it's in our best interests. And relating that back to goals, if your goal fundamentally is comes from a place of wanting what is best for yourself, valuing yourself, having your own best interests at heart, being able to ask yourself in the moment, what do I really need right now? What is really in my best interest right now? And then having the willingness to follow through and do that thing now. Having said that, maybe there are sometimes when your kids had a bad day and you do let them have the pizza that night,

18:48 that's okay. Maybe there are some days when everybody's a bit tight and you do let them have a little bit more screen time. That's okay. So how is that not okay for you as well? How is it not okay for you to sometimes just kick back on the sofa and order take out and watch Netflix because you have had a big week, like, that's okay too. This is where the self critical person, when you're coming from that place of judgment and needing to fix and having these perfectionistic expectations of yourself having no room for mistakes or errors or setbacks, leads to this then this negative self critical voice. Every time you do take a night off or take a day off and do something that just feels good in the moment. You can't be doing the stuff that feels good in the moment all the time, but occasionally if you do, that is not a reason to go down the path of judgment and criticism. If you let your kid have pizza on Friday night because they've had a big week and you don't feel like cooking and it's okay, then do you get up the next morning and say to your kid, well, obviously, no breakfast or lunch for you today because you are overdid it last night, mister, too much chocolate for you yesterday, so there'll be, you know, Maggie, one meal for you today. No?

20:02 Is that what you do to yourself? Though? Do you make yourself pay for days to come after you've had an easy night or skipped your workout, after your kid's been on a screen all day. The next day, do you spend the whole day shaming them about what a failure of a person, how lazy and pathetic they are because of the lack of productivity the day before, and now they have to double down today and get some stuff done. Of course, not is that how you talk to yourself, though, I hope that being able to reframe self compassion in that way helps you to offer yourself kindness in those moments. The point that I'm really trying to make there is that when you have a slip up or a setback on the way to achieving your goals, that's really normal, and that's really that's part of the human experience. Like there is no there is not a person on the planet who sets a goal, sets an action plan, and from today makes a decision this is what I'm doing, and then literally goes ahead achieves the goal without ever going off track. It doesn't happen, like it literally doesn't happen, and yet somehow that's the expectation we have of ourselves. So Number one thing is, if you really do stuff up, like if you really do something that you let yourself down on you and you let yourself you know, you feel like you have let yourself down in a big way. Self compassion is acknowledging that, recognizing that, understanding that is human, and not beating yourself up excessively for that, just realizing that this is just

21:34 a moment, a temporary moment, it was a glitch. You don't deserve to be punished, You don't deserve to have to pay for your mistakes, that in this moment, you are a human being worthy of your own patience, tolerance, friendliness, forgiveness, kindness as much as any other person. Self kindness is not an excuse to let yourself off the hook for doing really bad stuff. So the quicker you can get on with it, pick up and just continue the next day without all the shame, without all the self judgment, without all the self criticism, the more likely you are to be able to get back on track and to continue on the path that you're on, and hopefully the path that you are on, having listened to this now, is a path that is focused on doing what is in your best interests, taking into consideration what truly values your wellbeing physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, What do you need?

22:30 Are you willing to give yourself those things because you deserve it? So remember the two takeaways are what are the kinds of goals that you're setting for yourself and why? Are they fundamentally coming from a place of self criticism or are they goals that you are setting because of you? You fundamentally value yourself, You accept yourself as you are, flaws and all, and at the same time want to live the fullest, richest experience of life, achieve the best that you can for yourself. You're allowed to be ambitious, You're allowed to have goals, You're allowed to set yourself challenges. But what are those goals being driven by? Are they fundamentally coming from a place of self criticism? If there is controlled motivation that is coming from a place of other people's expectations or feelings of guilt or your self worth being dependent on your achieving a goal, then that right from the get go, is a recipe for disaster.

23:22 So Number one, let's rethink our goals. Let's frame them in a positive way and make them based on valuing ourselves and also accepting ourselves. Number two. When we think about self compassion and self kindness, this is not an excuse to let ourselves off the hook. Sometimes we actually do need to do the thing that feels uncomfortable in the moment because it is in our own best interest. But again, can that come from a place of fundament mentally valuing yourself, wanting the best for yourself, and being willing to do the thing that you know is going to serve your long term well being, not just what feels good in the moment. You've got any other issues or challenges that you would like my help with, or that are unclear by all means, please do let me know.

24:09 Talk to me at caston dot com is currently the best email to get me on. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of Crappy A happy I cannot wait to catch you again next week. Listener