Being Nicer To Me

One of the teams I belong to is having a challenge for December. It's the Nothing To Lose Holiday Challenge. We have a couple of really awesome team leaders who come up with some great daily challenges and personal reflection opportunities.

Today's question was What Will You Do Differently In 2010?

The Jules1, one of my wise team mates, replied "I am going to be nicer to myself. I am my own worse critic"

That really sparked something in me. I am very hard on myself. I use internal language to scold and ridicule myself that I would never use on someone else. For instance, last night I went to bed and after I got comfortable I realized I'd left my reading glasses in the other room. I said to myself, Paula, you idiot, how hard is it to remember your glasses. Not only would I never say that to someone else, I'd never even think it.

Terry Hefter, a licensed psychotherapist says in an article on her website:

"No matter what the reason overly-critical parents can cause almost irreparable harm to a child's self-image and feelings of self-worth. It is destructive because children's reference-points for self-worth are the people closest to them --- especially their parent figures."

There is no one closer to me than me. What irreparable harm am I doing to my self-image and feelings of self-worth if I talk to myself like that all the time?

I've been talking to myself like this for a very long time. It's going to be very difficult to change, but I'm going to try.

Thank you Jules for opening my eyes.

http://www.hefter.com/a_crit
ical.asp