Episode 020: The Simplest Most Challenging Advice to Living Happier
How to deal with your inner critic...the simplest most challenging advice to be happier and silence those Mongers.
+ Read the Transcript
Hello there and welcome. Today I wanted to talk about a couple of different topics. First, I wanted to give an update back in December. I had done an episode called, I think I'm addicted to my cell phone, and I wanted to give an update on that because I'd had a couple of people email me to hear how that was going.
I'm happy to say that December went well as far as not using my phone and not being as addicted to my phone. One of the great saviors for me was the ultra-power saving mode option on my cell phone. By doing that, you only have access to your phone and texting, which are the only two things I have to use on my cell phone regularly.
Every morning, I'd put it on ultra power-saving mode, and I leave it there throughout the day. And that was amazing in helping me stay less connected to my phone. Because it is hard to get it out of the ultra power saving mode, I wouldn't check it all the time. Now, sad to say that in January, I went back into super use of my cell phone and my iPad, but I have pleased to announce that I've come back to somewhat of a middle where I use the ultra power saving mode, but not all the time. I'm not sitting on the couch all the time with my husband, playing on my iPad while we're watching TV. I allow myself to play a certain number of games at the end of the day. Because it's a great way for me to wind down, and I enjoy it. It's become more balanced for me. Probably a little heavier on the addictive phase, but better than it was back in November, where I practically had the phone in my hand all the time.
When we leave the house now, I tend to leave the phone at home more often. If you are struggling with this, I encourage you to try to break that habit a little bit because it is just a habit, and it has definitely helped my anxiety level because I'm not constantly looking at my phone. I'm more engaged with what I'm doing. I'm more present. And I, now I can notice when I start going crazy with checking the phone, and I can be like, okay, what's going on here? What else is happening? Having that pause has helped me a lot.
Today I want to talk about the simplest, most challenging advice to living happier.
Recently, I've been doing a lot of work with the inner critic, which I call a monger. I did a podcast about it last week about your 4:00 AM visitor. I wrote about it on my blog a couple of times, and it's something I'm working on a lot with clients. I would say since I started working more with the inner critic and talking about that more in my work and with clients, my inner critic has been more intense for whatever reason. I don't know why. But my Monger has been there screaming at me a lot, and I've had a really hard time disconnecting and putting into practice the stuff that I teach.
In my desire to learn more about the inner critic, I've taken out a lot of books, and I have read a lot of blogs online, just figuring out what other people are saying about quieting the inner critic. It is similar to what I've written about in the past that you're supposed to notice your inner critic and separate it from yourself and give it a name and talk to it lovingly and ask it to leave and all these wonderful process things that you're supposed to do.
And I've done that ad nauseum. I have talked to my inner critic a thousand times. I think yesterday, when I was particularly getting hammered by my inner critic, I think I talked to it 50 times. And finally, I just was like, I'm going to practice kindness, and I'm just going to be kind to myself.
And it reminded me that's the bottom line. The bottom line is we need to be a little kind to ourselves. And once I was able to practice, just being kind and compassionate to myself, the Monger went away. Every time it would pop up, her head back up, or every time she would tell me how much I suck. I would think I'm going to practice a little kindness right now. And I think, wow, this is a tough day, and you're struggling right now. And that's okay. Let's keep plowing ahead.
I wanted to throw out that challenge. It is the simplest, most challenging advice is to be a little kind to yourself. When I say to clients, we need to be kind. Clients say I am kind. I'm a very kind person. But we're not kind to ourselves. When you think about it, yeah, I do a lot of kind things to others, but internally I'm downright cruel to myself, and I know my clients are downright cruel to themselves, and I would venture to guess if you're listening, you are downright cruel to yourself.
The life-changing realization is that the anger and the cruelty that we have with ourselves does nothing. When we're unkind to ourselves, we're not serving ourselves. We're not serving the universe. We're not serving anything but our stuckness. And that's what I've been feeling a lot lately is that stuckness, and that stuckness keeps us unhappy.
It keeps us anxious. It keeps us full of dread and fear. It's downright miserable. I am a big believer that sometimes we need to be stuck because from that place of stuckness comes growth and change. If you're stuck in your life between two choices, you're stuck figuring out what's next, or you're stuck.
In the meantime, that's a place to practice being a little kind to yourself because our Monger comes out in full force when we are stuck, or we're feeling unsure, or we don't know where to go next. The counterintuitive response is to be kind to ourselves. Our first go-to response is to beat ourselves up and to tell us to move on, get a grip, pick a choice, do something, don't just sit here, move along.
But when we're gentle and we take that pause. And allow ourselves to breathe. That's when the real change happens; that's when we can find clarity. That's when we can find a place of love and gentleness. That's where I think the key is to all of this Monger stuff, and this inner critic stuff is to be kind to ourselves, and we can genuinely get in touch with what we want by being a little kind.
I think our Monger comes into play more often when we're feeling unsure. That's the nature of the Monger to come in when we don't know what to do next and tell us how much we suck. Or because the Monger gets freaked out because we're doing something different, something new, or we're on the verge of doing something different and doing something new, and our Monger doesn't like that. She tends to get a little freaky, and she yells at us, screaming at us to tell us how much we suck. When we can pull back and just simply practice kindness to ourselves, that makes a huge difference, and the Monger gets more quiet because she's not panicked about what's going to happen next because she knows there's time and space.
I think that has become more of the key for me. And I know when I practice it with clients, it's easy to get bogged down in these are the things you need to do, for your Monger
You need to label them; you need to name them; you need to come up with all this stuff.
But what if it's really just as simple as noticing the Monger and being a little kind to ourselves.
And I think it might be that simple and challenging to do both because, for a lot of us, our Monger becomes a place of comfort. We get comfortable in that hammering of ourselves because we've done it for so long. We don't even notice that we're doing it. Building that awareness of, oh my gosh, I am hammering myself right now and then flipping that on its head by saying I'm going to be kind. And kindness means I'm going to show up for myself, and I'm going to give myself whatever I need right now. So I'm going to say, yeah, this is hard. And this sucks.
Yesterday my Monger was hammering me because I wasn't feeling well. I have this head cold that is just all wrapped up in my head, and it's making me tired and cranky. I had a lot to get done yesterday. I had cleared my calendar to do writing and record this podcast yesterday, and all this stuff was supposed to happen. And it didn't because I felt so crappy, and instead of just giving myself the kindness and the nurturing to be like, okay, we're going to take a day, and we're going to regroup. We're going to feel better. We're going to relax and enjoy. I hammered myself all day long with how much I sucked because I wasn't getting enough done, and now I'm sick. And that means I wasn't taking care of myself. And I was feeling physically and mentally beaten up because I just didn't feel well, and then I beat myself up for it. And that was when I turned it on its head and said, okay, we're going to practice radical kindness. Here. We are just going to say, whew, girlfriend; this is hard. You're not feeling well; you have a lot you want to get done. That's okay. It's not going to happen today. Let's just try not to be beating ourselves up because we've made the decision to relax and rest, which is what we need. Let's give ourselves that. My challenge to you is to see how you are hammering yourself. How you are talking to yourself and just build some awareness around that. And then do a little kindness, that was the weekly ritual challenge for last week was to be kind, and what's gotten me spinning on this.
Maybe it's as simple and as challenging as being kind. That's my challenge for you this week is to notice when you're hammering yourself and then practice turning that on its head. Head and doing some radical kindness and see what happens.
And that's the show. Thanks for listening.
+ Weekly Ritual Challenge
One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.
This week's ritual: Schedule Time For Yourself
Grab your calendar and make a commitment to yourself. Schedule time to do something you love: read, exercise, watch your favorite show, take a walk, dance. I don't care what you do or how long you do it for but I DO care that you take the time to commit to yourself and honor that commitment.