Are you hard on yourself or kind to yourself?

thelad95

Do you give yourself a hard time or are you nice to yourself? A lot of people seem to beat themselves up over every little thing but recently I've started being kind to myself and giving myself a pat on the back occasionally even for small stuff.

It's actually made a big difference, it's improved my self esteem and confidence no end and as well as not being hard on myself I've found I'm generally a nicer person to be around as I come across as stressed out a lot less.

ToddyDoody

I think many people wouldn't know how to answer such a question?

wally1990

thelad95 wrote: »

Do you give yourself a hard time or are you nice to yourself? A lot of people seem to beat themselves up over every little thing but recently I've started being kind to myself and giving myself a pat on the back occasionally even for small stuff.

It's actually made a big difference, it's improved my self esteem and confidence no end and as well as not being hard on myself I've found I'm generally a nicer person to be around as I come across as stressed out a lot less.

Beat myself up over studying and exams and hate myself afterwards thinking I did terrible or didn't out enough effort it

As for everything else... I don't beat myself up over anything

Zenify

This made me smile. Being nice to myself sounds like a really good idea. I'm probably hard on myself but after reading this I'm gonna try and be nicer - starting right now!

Thanks, you should pat yourself on the back for making me a better person

me_irl

What, like in a David Carradine way or Buddha way?

The_Valeyard

I'm amazing.

Lisha

I love myself.....

zl1whqvjs75cdy

Pretty hard on myself. Always looking to do more. It's a double edged sword.

Barry Badrinath

Hard, deservedly because I'm an asshole.

stimpson

Hard on

/giggles like a schoolgirl

Turtyturd

wally1990 wrote: »

Beat myself up over studying and exams and hate myself afterwards thinking I did terrible or didn't out enough effort it

I was the same all through college. For essay's I would literally leave everything till a day or two before and put myself under immense pressure and pull all nighters to meet the deadline and once it was handed in I would be convinced I had done terrible and that next time would be different and I'd start the whole process as soon as I got the assignment. Come next assignment and I would repeat the whole process over again. Same thing for exams, spend the week beforehand pricking about at anything that wasn't related to the course and then the day before/morning of an exam cramming and berating myself for not starting sooner. Did ok though as I was constantly hovering around a first.

In general I'd be my own worst critic and fairly harsh on myself over almost everything. Anytime I have to write reports I'd always be second guessing it and restarting certain that it wasn't good enough until I had no choice but to turn it in. I'm even the same with conversations, constantly going over them after they have happened and scrutinising them. I am trying to change it though.

mad muffin

My left hand is very nice to me…

MilesMorales1

I have to be overly critical with myself, or I'd never get anything done.

the evasion_kid

Hard...I whip myself with fresh birch branches daily

FizzleSticks

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tomwaterford

I'm possibly normal.(:pac: )..but when deos being kind to yourself lapse over into lying to yourself??

BBDBB

I put the lotion in the basket

Aongus Von Bismarck

There's a wonderful meditation practice called Loving Kindness that can be used to develop a strong sense of self-compassion. It's useful if you have a tendency to self-criticise or be hard on yourself.

tomwaterford

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

There's a wonderful meditation practice called Loving Kindness that can be used to develop a strong sense of self-compassion. It's useful if you have a tendency to self-criticise or be hard on yourself.

How does that work
(Being genuine here)

Aongus Von Bismarck

tomwaterford wrote: »

How does that work
(Being genuine here)

Rather than try and explain it in detail I'll just post a link.

https://jackkornfield.com/meditation-lovingkindness/

There's also a large number of video and audio resources that you can use if you're a fan of guided meditations. Insight Timer is an excellent app that I use daily.

JupiterKid

I tend to be hard on myself but am slowly learning to be kinder to myself.

MarkAnthony

Sometimes I'm kind to myself and give the girl a little extra to be very hard on me indeed... :pac:

Lady is a tramp

My counsellor says I'm extremely hard on myself, I think I'm nowhere near hard enough!

FizzleSticks

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Speedwell

I used to be extremely hard on and unkind to myself. Then a kind therapist (I'm an American; of course I saw a therapist lol) managed to get it through to me that my overbearing father had been dead for almost 10 years and I did not need to continue his abuse. It honestly had not occurred to me that was what I was doing, but it was. I had been stretching every nerve to "prove" him to be the big always-right adult and me the small, bad, unworthy thing deserving of constant criticism.

Now I'm only slightly overly hard on myself. I'm figuring it out.

EFT "tapping" is a free and effective self-help modality that works in at least part because of the small buried crushed part of you that still loves and wants to care for you. I have other, less fluffy ideas about why it works, but it does work. Check it out online.

Speedwell

FizzleSticks wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

You do the best you can to match your answer to what you know about reality (and I do mean KNOW, as in something you have examined and evaluated for yourself, not "know" because you got it secondhand from someone who swore it was The Truth).