Defeating the Cycle of Psychological Violence Towards Yourself
When you actively judge and criticize others, you are exercising and practicing this perspective. You are exercising and practicing this way of thinking and being.
Image by Harsha Navalkar from Pixabay
Over time, you’ll find it easier and easier to judge others and you’ll also find more and more fault with yourself.
Judgment and critique are mindsets which are harmful to not only others, but also to your relationships, as well as to yourself.
You are what you practice. Where are you putting your attention, focus and energy? Is it to tear people down or to build them up?
Consider the consequences of being that person who throws around judgments and critique. The person who always has something negative to say about others behind their backs. Do you honestly believe that such a person feels good about their actions and who they are? Or, is some part of themselves appalled and revolted by their own behavior?
Image by Harsha Navalkar from Pixabay
Let’s look at the other side of this. How do you think the person who is always looking for the good in others feels? The person who lifts other people up. Who encourages people, who builds them up. The person who speaks lovingly about people behind their backs.
I bet that person sleeps great at night and feels great about themselves! Chances are that if they can find the good in others, then they can also find the good in themselves.
The next time you want to jump to judgment or criticize someone consider that you are limited in your own knowledge and understanding. You can never assume to know what is in the mind of another. Just as no one can assume to know what you are thinking. You may not know the motivation behind a person’s words or actions.
You can’t assume others see and understand things from your perspective. As such, you can’t judge them using your perspective.
If you are feeling driven to judge and criticize, ask yourself: Why is that? What is really going on? Do you have a wound that you need to address? Do you need to heal? Do you need to engage in some self-care? Do you need to love yourself more? Where is this anger and negativity coming from?
Image by Harsha Navalkar from Pixabay
It is not natural to go around wanting to hurt others.
Always act in a way that will facilitate the growth of your own self-love. If you act in a way you loathe, it will be harder to love yourself. If you fall out of self-love you will also fall out of self-acceptance. Once that happens, the harsh self-critique and self-judgment begins. You’ll enter into a self-defeating cycle of psychological violence towards yourself. This will in turn affect every aspect of your life and it will adversely affect the quality of your life.
Chances are that the more you critique and judge yourself the more you will do the same to others. This pattern left unchecked, will self-perpetuate.
What is worse is that when we judge and critique others, we propagate and encourage this behavior in others as well. If it is OK for them, it must also be OK for me. They deserve what they dish out. Who do they think they are? They’re not perfect either! It’s just a downward spiral from there. Just like respect breeds so does disrespect.
Is this really something we want to advocate for? Is this what we want to put our time and energy into? Is this the impression we want to leave in this world? Is this our legacy?
Image by Harsha Navalkar from Pixabay
The answer is a clear “No”. It is up to us to be mindful of our words and actions. We must hold ourselves responsible and accountable for both our actions and the consequences of those actions. We must exercise some forethought. Not just for the well-being of others but also for our own well-being. We owe it to ourselves to act in our own self-interest. Sabotaging ourselves is not acting our best interest. We deserve better!
Take the time, invest energy into self-care.
Do the work. Heal your wounds. Learn to love yourself again. Practice forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance of yourself. Celebrate what makes you, you. Put aside your self-judgment and critique.
You will find that when you learn to love and accept yourself without judgment, without critique, that you will also find it much easier to do the same with others.
Lastly, if this has been a pattern for you, start with forgiveness for yourself. Don’t make matters worse by beating yourself up over things already done. If you can make amends, make right a wrong, do that. But if there is nothing you can do, let it go!
Don’t harbor resentment against yourself. None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. We are all learning and growing. It is OK!
One of the best and most meaningful ways to apologize is to engage in changed behavior.
-Akiroq Brost
Check out my other articles:
Shifting from a Scarcity Mindset to an Abundance Mindset
Meditation for Beginners
How I Got Rid of My Excuses and Started Living.
Who do you surround yourself with?
Simple Common Sense Ways to Happiness and Self-Love.
Getting to know yourself - A Journal Exercise.
How to Find Your Way Through the Impossible Maze of Struggle.
How to use boundaries to improve the quality of your life.
Negative Self-dialogue - An Exercise.
Strategies for Coping With Criticism in a Positive Way.
Stop Hiding Behind Your Excuses and Live Your Truth.
Create a Life You Love with the Powerful Intentions.
How Self-Acceptance Will Set You Free.
Create a Life of Peace Through Mindfulness.
Strategic Detachment.
How to Handle Negative Experiences in a Positive Way.
10 Steps to Living a More Meaningful Life.
Changing Perpectives.
It is OK to make mistakes.
Finding your "Why".
Does this serve you? Or does this harm you?
12 Strategies for Improving your Diet.
Developing a new relationship with fear.
Finding Self-acceptance.
How to Find Courage When You Don’t Have the Answers.
Eight ways to increase and maintain your self-confidence.
Tips and strategies to help you get a good night’s sleep.
What matters? A journey into Faith.
Finding your way back to yourself, reconnecting to love.
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Beautifully written @akiroq!
I find myself in a combative mindset sometimes, because of a desire to not have the will or judgement of others be imposed upon me. I don't judge others in a negative way for viewing things differently than myself, but..
When someone's judgment towards me is so profoundly negative, and/or they go out of their way to create problems for me, then I become extremely judgmental towards them, and even hateful.
I can see how this thought process is detrimental to my own perspective of myself, and it leaves me anxiety ridden. Sad to say there are actually people on this blockchain who've contributed to it at times, but I can't claim to know what is going through their mind, any more so than they can claim to know what is going through mine, even if they act as though they can.
Thank you for this post, it really gave me some food for thought.
Yes, it's hard to not take things in life personally, since life itself is a very personal experience. It's important to ask ourselves when we feel combative, what is making us feel that way. The answers are sometimes difficult. For example, why does it feel like someone is imposing their will or judgment upon us? Remember, no one can make another person think or feel anything. We can be in any circumstance, any at all, but we can still exercise a choice as to how we will decide to feel about it, or if we will decide to feel anything at all about it. Remember, trying not to feel something is harder than shifting our focus elsewhere. If we find ourselves in a negative circumstance, we can give ourselves permission to deal with that circumstance while sitting somewhere else with our emotions. So, for example, let's say we are dealing with hateful people. We can still love ourselves no matter how hateful people are. In fact, in those times it is most important that we put our love for ourselves in the forefront of our minds. Take solace in that the only judge of you, is you.
Sometimes, we have to do things we don't like to. Sometimes, we don't get to do things we'd like to. In those times, it is important to focus not on we can't do, but on whatever we can. It's important to constantly try to empower ourselves. After all, we want to be effective in our own lives, right?
Yeah, it's a real challenge to deal with anyone who is profoundly negative. The first instinct sometimes is to anger and lash out, but doing so will also hurt us. It's so important to not only be our own friend but to act in our own interest. Contrary to what some people think, this is not selfish at all. It's absolutely necessary. In each moment of awareness, in each action and word, we can ask ourselves, does this serve us? Or, does this harm us? Many times, this pause results in better decision making.
Yes, it's often impossible to understand why they said or did what they did. Trying to figure that out could drive us absolutely insane! It's not usually a productive use of time.
I really appreciate you taking the time to both read and comment. It's always nice to know that someone is reading. I put a lot of time and care into my writing. I have a genuine desire to try and help others navigate some of the things I struggled with so much in life. We can all help each other right?
Thanks again, @futuremind.
It's indeed apparent that you put a great deal of thought and effort into your writing. I'm humbly grateful to meet a woman with such depth of understanding in the ways of mindful awareness.
I've always subscribed to the belief that others cannot dictate thoughts or emotions in any way, however, I do have a difficult time "living" what I consider to be more than a belief. Upon considering that at any given moment, regardless of the situation, we have the power to shift our thoughts and/or perception however we see fit, it becomes very apparent that this is an irrefutable fact.
So today I am looking at myself, and confronting why I allow myself to anger so easily when I feel hurt by others. I try to consider what is causing the other person to behave in a way which doesn't align with my belief system(s), but again, it's futile, and makes for nothing but wasted time.
We only have this moment, and I feel serene reading your comment in this moment. Thank you @akiroq, for your kind words and exquisite skills, you rock ;)
It is imperative that we regularly(daily) affirm ourselves so that we never seek(even unknowingly) affirmation from others. For example, if we know our intentions were good, if we know our efforts were good, then there is really nothing emotionally impacting that anyone else can say to the contrary. That is why acting with intent is so very important; to have that knowing. That is not to say we can't ever accept constructive criticism, but rather that we can listen without having an emotional reaction (which is a much more effective way to listen anyway).
That knowing can be held no matter the outcome, even if everything goes sideways. Intent matters more than outcome. We don't know what we don't know. We can't fault ourselves for what we don't know. That would be crazy! If we mindfully, intentionally did our best in the moment, that is good enough. Always. That is always good enough
Self-care, pacing, and balance are important daily practices. If we are not sleeping, if we are not eating right, if we are constantly rushed, stressed, or always working it is likely that we will be more reactive.
Self-love, gratitude, and self-acceptance are also very important daily practices. Are we being kind to ourselves? Do we show appreciation towards ourselves? Are we grateful for ourselves? Do we accept ourselves unconditionally? Many people internalize the negative things that other people say because on some level they believe those things about themselves already. In short, the negative feedback affirms the negative beliefs they already have about themselves.
The work is daily. Daily maintenance of our physical, psychological, and emotional well-being. There is no quick-fix.
When a person is negative, we should be able to recognize that it is them who is negative. Negative people say/do negative things. It has everything to do with them, and nothing to do with us. When we can recognize that, we will no longer feel hurt or angered by their words and actions. We cannot accept responsibility for what other people say and do. We only are responsible for what we do.
And, if we make a mistake; it's a mistake. It's not like people intend to make mistakes! Mistakes are just that, they are unintentional. We can focus on what we can do instead of what we can't. We can't undo mistakes. But maybe we can do something else instead, or at the very least learn something. In the meantime, we can forgive ourselves, for being a normal fallible human who makes mistakes, just like everyone else.
In my personal experience, when encountered with negativity, I often choose to just not engage with it. I see it for what it is, and I leave it there, and immediately focus on something better. For me, the key is to shift my focus elsewhere. Sometimes, people are just looking to vent, or pick a fight, or start some drama. I try and remember that my time and energy is limited and valuable, that helps me to think about what I would rather be thinking about or doing.
Don't be too hard on yourself when confronting yourself. Do it with great kindness and compassion, because you deserve your own love.
Best wishes. I'm here if you have questions.
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Yeah I find people that have only bad things to say have a lot of problems behind the scenes .
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Sadly, that is very hard for many people to recognize, because as you say they already have a lot of problems which they are dealing with, which are in the forefront of their minds. It's a cycle, a self-perpetuating cycle. It's hard for people to not feel a victim when they don't know why things are happening. From that perspective, they are indeed a victim. Unfortunately, many times, they are unknowingly a victim of their own sabotage. What's worse is that when people react negatively to the negative, they themselves become the very thing they hate.
It looks simple from the outside, but it takes actual work and mindfulness to break out of. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a helpful tool. The problem is that you can't lead people beyond their own understanding. Their understanding and awareness must grow first (which takes work, time, patience, etc. etc.). It's an interesting topic.
I had a boss once that used to go out of his way to say good morning to a staff member who would not salute him. So he used to say the happiest Hello to her daily and that made his day better and made hers worse because she hated it . Every day for ten years. Heeeeellllloooo Mary. What a wonderful day. I find that these types of people, they break down easy if anything goes wrong for them .
Really, when it comes right down to it, that would be what the best person could and would do(but with sincerity). Be the kindest and most compassionate to the people who probably need it the most. At least he didn't treat the unpleasantness with further unpleasantness(unless it was snarky). Yes, overwhelmed people are very volatile, because, well, they're already overwhelmed. It doesn't take much to tip them over the edge. It has to be a hard hard way to live. I can understand why people sometimes feel like the whole world is against them. How can you understand the world, if you can't even understand yourself?