Have you ever stopped to think about how many times a day you say and think negative and hurtful phrases towards yourself? Like when you drop a pen and think “I’ll be stupid!” Are you really stupid because you dropped a pen or did you just have a little coordination lapse?
At this moment perhaps more situations are coming to mind; experiences in which you do not treat yourself kindly. This is called self-abuse. In the next article We are going to talk about some of the reasons that give rise to this phenomenon known as self-abuse and how you could solve it. to increase your well-being.
To begin, I am going to propose a very simple exercise for which you only need a pen and paper. Well, here we go… Think of three characteristics of yourself that you like. When you have them, think of three characteristics of yourself that you don’t like.…
Now let’s compare. What have you spent the most thinking time on? The things you like about yourself or the things you don’t? Surely you haven’t even had to think about the ones you don’t like, they have automatically appeared in your mind; However, the features you like will have to take a little more time. Why is this happening?
Why do I identify the negative before the positive?
Each person has a unique life story, in which different aspects of his personality have been positively reinforced and others have been punished.
Furthermore, as we grow, guidelines and objectives are imposed on us (directly or indirectly), such as: behaving well, getting good grades, being good at a sport, being polite… Guidelines and objectives that become more complex and difficult to achieve as we get older.
Receiving these messages while we grow shapes our personality and, little by little, we are integrating these messages into our person, generating high levels of self-demand in different areas of our life. This ends up causing us to end up punishing ourselves when we do not meet our expectations and those of our environment.
Self-demand creeps in little by little subtly into different situations in our lives and, as in the example at the beginning of the article, we end up insulting ourselves because we have dropped our pen. Self-abuse ends up normalizing and we have the whip in our hand all day, leaving very little room for self-care, emotional caresses.
Changing the whip for the emotional caress
Once we have identified the origin and maintenance of this tendency to self-punishment, the next step is to know how we can change this. We are going to give you some interesting guidelines as a start.
The first thing you should do is start identifying those situations in which you insult yourself and undermine yourself.. For this, I suggest that for a week you write down (in a notebook, in your cell phone notes, in your agenda…) every time you think and/or say something negative about yourself, such as: “I’m stupid, I don’t I’m good for this, I’m not going to get it, I’m a disaster, I’m useless…”
The fact of saying these phrases to ourselves in the end ends up generating in us the idea that we are worthless and, in the end, we end up acting based on those messageswhich causes us to position ourselves, many times, as supporting actors and actresses in the filming of our lives.
Starring in your life…
To go from the whip to the caress, It is not only important to be aware of what you say to yourself, but also what you value and express about yourself to the world and how you position yourself and allow yourself to be treated by others.. Every time you lose courage or step aside, you agree with the whip and walk away from the caresses.
This can occur in very subtle ways that we have very normalized, so let’s look at several examples:
These types of phrases that are used almost unconsciously are also a blow to you, because They take away value from what you say and what happens to you. Although, really, if the need arises to tell it, it does matter.
Ask yourself the following: When you measure the importance of what happens to you, what are you comparing it to? You might want to rethink that meter.
Related article: “Albert Bandura’s Self-Efficacy: do you believe in yourself?”
Put yourself in value
Once you have identified these situations, try to take perspective of the situation and ask yourself the following question: Does what I just said/do to myself bring me closer or further away from the good deal towards me?
As you identify these situations, you will become aware of them and, little by little, You will gain perspective more automatically and begin to treat yourself more kindly.; Emotional caresses will become more present in your life.
Finally, we leave you some guidelines that you can put into practice to take care of yourself not only inside, but also outside in your relationships.
And remember, in PsychoAlmería We will assist you and help you both in person and online. In this therapy center you will find psychologists with extensive training and experience who will help you identify those thought patterns and beliefs to adapt new patterns that will generate the emotional well-being you need. You will receive all the help in a personalized way and always meeting your objectives to achieve your emotional well-being. A new stage awaits you to go from abuse to good deal towards your person.
