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It’s said that our actions make us who we are. That’s probably the best way to find out who someone else is. But, I think a better gauge of finding out who you are, as a person, is your motivation for doing those actions. Actions can deceive true feelings.  Actions can overcompensate. Actions can downplay.

Most “bad habits”, or harmful behaviors, are actually safety mechanisms. I’m not a psychologist nor do I have any kind of training in this area. I’m simply speaking of what I’ve found to be true for myself. What I mean by safety mechanisms are, habits or thought patterns we follow that keep us from feeling threatened. These mechanisms usually guide responses toward “rewards” (good feelings) and help us avoid punishment (bad feelings).

The problem is, these safety mechanisms often straddle the line between healthy and unhealthy. Sometimes they work just fine. But they can very easily spill over onto the unhealthy side without us even noticing, getting us into trouble, mostly with ourselves. The more this unwanted behavior or thought pattern compounds the harder it is to dig ourselves out. Actions can be healthy on the surface but driven by underlying beliefs that have become unhealthy or even harmful. That’s why getting to the root of the action, the motivation, is a better tell.

You ever felt stuck? Like you’re a prisoner to your own habits? Like you’ve always responded this one way and it’s no longer working for you but you forgot how to change? (Hand raising emoji).

One of my most deep seated safety mechanisms is the over-development of my inner critic. One of my biggest fears is not feeling like I’m getting better. I was (am?) literally scared to take days off. My inner critic was (is?) the loudest voice in my head. The hard exterior, drill sergeant voice, demands that I do all of the things on my to-do list in the most efficient way possible. And if I don’t, I’d be worthless, a failure, unlovable. Even on days when I “checked all the boxes” it’s not like there’s this big redeeming wave of accomplishment. It’s more like “yeah, business as usual, but can you do it again tomorrow?”

It’s hard to feel comfortable and settle in with this mindset. It’s a constant contest with my inner critic as judge, vigilantly assessing how I measure up to my own expectations and to my peers. My inner critic has developed incredibly high expectations. Which, again, good thing, but also unhealthy at times. These expectations play right into that feeling of “I’m not good enough”, “where can I improve?”, “how can I get better?”. This quote from Radical Acceptance summarizes this feeling well:

Our trance deepens as we move through the day driven by “I have to do more to be okay” or “I am incomplete; I need more to be happy.” These “mantras” reinforce the trance-belief that our life should be different from what it is. When things are going well, we question whether we deserve it, or fear that now something bad is bound to happen. No sooner do we take a bite of our favorite flavor of ice cream than we start calculating how much more we can eat without feeling too guilty or piling on the pounds. We stand in a beautiful landscape and worry because we have run out of film or start thinking that we really should move to the country. When we are meditating, we experience a delicious stretch of tranquility and peace, and then immediately begin wondering how to keep it going. Our enjoyment is tainted by anxiety about keeping what we have and our compulsion to reach out and get more.

My inner critic also has other manifestations. The minimizer is a close companion. He makes it near impossible to switch from the demanding voice telling me to “get better”, to the congratulatory voice telling me “job well done, now enjoy it.” The minimizer keeps me small, he keeps me hidden. He’s the one that tells me my leukemia isn’t that bad. His refrains are “it’s not that big of a deal, though” or “it really doesn’t matter to me”. The minimizer wants to avoid conflict, he wants the truth to stay hidden, cause god forbid he upsets someone.

The twin brother of the minimizer is the people pleaser. Similar to the minimizer, the people pleaser says yes to everything. He tells people it’s not that bad. He bites off more than he can chew because he wants everyone to like him, even if it comes at the cost of liking himself.

The minimizer is often mistaken for humility, while the people pleaser is misidentified as kindness. But you know what’s really humble and kind? Advocating for yourself and setting strong limits on what you’re willing to do.

My inner critic thinks complacency is the enemy. My minimizer thinks accuracy is the enemy. And my people pleaser thinks boundaries are the enemy. But, really, if I’m being honest, I make enemies out of these things because I fear them. These parts of myself want others to like me more than they want me to like me. I tend to jump to extremes in these situations. Thinking that if I cancel plans and lay on the couch all day because I’m sick, that I’ll be viewed as lazy, a bad friend, and someone who only thinks about himself. In reality, nobody ever feels that way. And there is no enemy, it just takes practice to see it that way.

With all this being said, I know that my inner critic is just trying to keep me safe. He wants me to strive and to achieve because he’s figured out that that’s where I get a lot of satisfaction. He thinks that’s the only place “good feelings”, admiration and self-esteem exist. He really does have my best interest at heart, he just gets a little over zealous sometimes.

This has been especially true since my diagnosis. Pre-diagnosis my inner critic needed to be shown, by my actions, that I was worthy on a daily basis. I couldn’t believe it without. But the taking away of some of that ability broke me down and made me question everything. “Well, if I can’t be my striving self, than who am I?” Luckily, I found the work of some wonderful teachers; Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brach, Kristen Neff and most recently Jerry Colonna, who reminded me that I don’t have to do anything at all to be worthy of love. I have that gift bestowed upon me simply because I exist. So do you. And I’m not talking about others loving me. My parents, brothers, and friends all loved me regardless. I’m talking about loving myself, my whole self, not just the good parts.

As I wrote about in my last post, The Physical, I wake up feeling deficient most days. This puts my inner critic in overcompensation mode. It already feels crappy so its’ desire to feel good begs me to achieve. Underlying this is that pesky belief “If I can’t prove my worth through action, I’ll feel worthless”. Good Morning world!

I’m usually able to stop this before it gets too far. Hugging the critic with positive, empowering, accepting tones while reminding myself that 1.) I’m sick, so calm the f down and 2.) While I appreciate you looking out for me, what you’re suggesting might not be true or in my best interest.

It’s weird because the things that I do on a day-to-day basis are not that much different. The words haven’t changed. But the source has. The origin of words say more than the words themselves. My inner-critic acts out of fear, fear of myself, fear of not being good enough. But my inner-lover acts out of compassion, understanding and acceptance. It acts out of knowing, that even when I feel my worst, I am enough.

I think it’s really hard to grow up in today’s world and not feel this way, at least sometimes. Perfection is social currency. It’s hard not to force feed ourselves this perfection obsession. We boost our own, and our peers’ self-esteem, by smashing like buttons and commenting on social posts about how perfect our lives are and how jealous we are of our friend’s. Okay, yeah that’s nice, but it also reinforces the idea that we constantly have to be this “perfect self” in order to get love.

Not to mention that we were literally conditioned, through self-esteem being preached in our schools, to be this way. Self-esteem says that we have to be the best, that we have to be above average to feel good about ourselves. We’re taught to always strive to be the best. And let me be clear, that’s a really good thing. And I’m in no way blaming anyone for reenforcing self-esteem, because, like I said, it promotes a lot of good.

But, there’s no safety net. There’s no lesson on “what do I do if I don’t succeed?” or, “how do I respond when something bad happens?” or, “how do I cope with feeling like shit in a healthy way?”.  The answer is always, try harder, do something different, get better. Find your weak spots and correct them. Implicit in these messages is that our previous efforts weren’t good enough. And that something is wrong with us for not being the best.

I’ve become exhausted by chasing my worthiness. This conditioning leads us round and round on the carousel of never feeling good enough. Here’s your permission to jump off the ride and stop placing your worth on actions and judgements. Embrace your inner-worthiness and lovability just as you are. We’re all worth it and it’s all worth it.

These safety mechanisms are a paradox. One of the hardest things to do is to believe two contradictory ideas that are simultaneously true. For me, it’s the beliefs that I can love myself exactly as I am and still want to get better. In the past, it’s been a one or the other type deal, skewed heavily towards wanting to get better. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As the sage Robert Thurman said, “wisdom is tolerance of cognitive dissonance”.

We feel like we need to get rid of our faults and round out our rough edges. Then we will like ourselves, then will we be able to accept ourselves.  That’s not it. The way that we can become whole is by creating space within ourselves for all of these opinions, for all of these thoughts. Wholeness is not found by taking in the preferable and dismissing the ugly. It’s not found by rejecting things we don’t agree with. It’s not found by forcing away anything at all. It’s found by understanding the dark, annoying crevices of our intentions. It’s found by making ourselves big enough to hold it all.

It’s easy to forget that love is not a finite resource. There’s a well-spring of it within each of us.  We just have to give ourselves permission and remember how to tap into it.

I wanted for a while to get rid of my inner critic. To banish him with the rest of my bad habits. I’m learning that that’s not only impossible, it’s unwise. I’m learning that I can meet him with grace and ease, and welcome his suggestions. Because a lot of the time he is right. And it’s really admirable that part of me wants to strive and be the best person that I can be. I’m working on creating that space to hold that inner critic, while also being wholly content with where I’m at.

I put major work in a couple months ago on understanding my inner critic and reigning in my expectations, I even wrote about it here and here. But this default state came back, as my health has struggled through much of the summer. I was left, again, feeling like I had to prove myself and feeling like I was failing at that because no matter what I did, I still felt like shit. I thought I had taken care of this. But I realized that this thought process is literally a proxy for this entire way of thinking. I thought “okay, got my expectations in line, what’s next? How else can I get better?”. My expectation for fixing my expectations was exactly what I was trying not to do! HAHAHA!

I’ll leave you with this quote from Pema Chödrön’s “When Things Fall Apart”:

Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It’s such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we’re doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We’re letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint.

Thanks for reading!