Episode 3: Overcoming Self-Judgment: Why Are We So Hard On Ourselves?

Join Dr. Mary in an introspective and transformative episode where she explores the depths of self-criticism and its profound effects on our lives. Through her own personal experiences and professional insights, Dr. Mary delves into the notion of why we are often our own harshest critics. She shares her past tendencies to judge others as a projection of self-judgment and discusses societal influences that shape women’s perceptions, reinforcing negative self-talk around beauty and body image.

Dr. Mary emphasizes the importance of recognizing and challenging these internalized societal beliefs as a pathway to healthier self-perception. She introduces the concept of neuroplasticity, illustrating how intentional practices can help shift deeply ingrained negative thought patterns. Throughout the episode, Dr. Mary encourages embracing joy and cautions against getting trapped in shame spirals.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into identifying negative self-talk, methods to shift mindsets, and embracing joy and happiness. By sharing her struggles with complex PTSD, self-criticism, and the impact of societal pressures, Dr. Mary provides a relatable narrative that underscores the importance of self-compassion and internal validation.

The episode also touches on the subconscious brain’s role in harboring beliefs and self-talk patterns from past experiences, necessitating conscious recognition and growth. Dr. Mary advocates for a mindset shift from seeking external validation to accepting self-worth and fostering natural relationships and experiences.

Through her mission to bridge the gap between medical and realistic perspectives on self-criticism, Dr. Mary offers actionable advice and heartfelt encouragement to help others overcome similar challenges. Tune in to this enlightening episode for a heartfelt discussion on self-compassion, the significance of positive self-talk, and the journey toward a more joyful and fulfilling life.

***
Episode Timestamps

00:00 Lost joy; need understanding to find happiness.

05:06 Inner critic exhausts, debilitates, prevents fulfillment.

07:49 Fear-driven friendship approach drains authenticity.

13:32 Inner critics often stem from childhood bullying.

14:36 Absorbing abuse led to negative self-perception.

18:59 Positive affirmations don’t work, change requires self-awareness and inner work

23:25 Recognizing biases reduces their control over us.

27:17 Redirect thoughts, embrace joy, overcome old patterns.

30:12 Connect with intuition to pursue genuine happiness.

33:36 Practice self-awareness for more joy and peace.

If you have any other questions or topics you want to talk about, send me a message on Instagram. And if you loved this episode, please leave me a rating and a comment with your feedback. Please share this with your friends and loved ones, too!

I’ll see you in a week!

Transcript

0:37

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to TMI talk with doctor Mary. Today, we're gonna be talking about why am I so hard on myself? This is something that I have struggled with my entire life. This constant nagging feeling of just not enough. Right? Can't do enough. Everything has to be perfect. Talking down to myself, not taking compliments, and just really blocking any type of joy coming into my life, essentially. And I didn't realize for me how much this was impacting my life in every aspect of my life. And on top of it, I had no idea where it was even coming from. And I got you know, I started looking up a lot of stuff. And what you hear is say positive affirmations. I'm like, fuck that. You can't just positive affirmation your way out of talking down to yourself and feeling like shit about yourself. Right? There's a process. Yes, you can redirect, but blatantly saying that to somebody like myself who has worked through complex PTSD, it really discounts the pain and a lot of the inner talk that is going on, and we have to look at it from a deeper point of view. And so in this episode, I want to talk to you about, you know, I'll always share a little bit about my story because I never want to come off like some guru or somebody that seems like they know it all. I just went through this and I experienced it. And I believe that I went through some really hard times in life in order to help other people. So as my life's mission, I want to share what I've learned from a point of view from a medical background and also, like, a realistic background too. I feel like there's a massive gap there. And so you'll learn to start identifying ways that you are talking to yourself. So first we have to identify it, then different ways on how you can shift it, and then learning on how to lean into joy, to allow yourself to feel good and to finally feel happy again. And I lost that for a long time. I lost feeling happy. I lost laughing. I lost joy. You know? I think all of us at some point, especially the last few years, it's really hard. It's been really hard to see the good in in in life and in things. And, you know, when we look at things from just more of, like, a material standpoint, right, a lot of us have realized, especially since COVID, that working super hard and making all this money or the success or having this relationship or that car or this or that. We get it. Right? And then you're like, okay, what's next? Right? And so then you're in this fucking hamster wheel of constantly chasing something external to you. And so first, I mean, we have to understand this, this unconscious talk that we're saying to ourselves. Right? So you can't shift something if you don't know why or what's going on. And when I say shift, I mean, in order to make a change in the way you talk to yourself, we need to first identify how we're talking to ourself. Right? So a lot of that's stored in our subconscious brain. You'll hear me talk a lot about this. And so in our subconscious brain are a lot of thoughts and beliefs and things our body has absorbed over the years based on data collection. Right? So over that time, our bodies just kind of adapt to that. And then without redirecting, we kinda stay down this pathway that maybe isn't serving us anymore. For example, if my reaction to myself is to be hard on myself. Right? So I that that served me back in the day. Like, it helped me become a real a pretty decent athlete. Right? It allowed me to push myself in school and do these things. But maybe that served me at the time because it was the only thing I could focus on because I wasn't in a good space. But after a while, that just eats at you because you can't even enjoy the fruits of your labor. And so if you stay down this path, your body, essentially, well, just in my experience, it collapsed. Right? I had developed cancer, and these chronic illnesses that were debilitating that, again, Western medicine just couldn't figure out. And I just wish that I knew that this how exhausting this is and how much this this inner talk and this inner critic can just debilitate you and and be a thief of joy. Right? And so if I stay down that path and I don't shift it, shift it down another path, I'm gonna continue staying down that path and never be fulfilled. It doesn't matter how much money I have, how great of a life I have on Instagram. What the fuck ever? It just will never end up in happiness because I am fueled by fear, self hatred, and anger. And I have had had a spiritual awakening, last year. It's more of a spirituality aspect, not a specific religion, but I believe that I have a higher self. Right? So somebody that, like, I want to be or oh my gosh. Let me cut that out. But I believe that overall, when you live in abundance and you live in love and you live in kindness, kindness, you are rewarded with that. And if you can think about any experience you've had in your life where you chose the higher road, right, you chose integrity, you were rewarded for it. And if you're listening to this and you're like, I wasn't rewarded for it, well, you haven't been rewarded yet. Right? It might not be immediate. It might be years down the road. It doesn't necessarily mean it didn't isn't gonna happen because it's happening now. And so if I achieve a goal, right, so say I want to have an abundance of friends. Right? So I want to have an abundance of friends. If I go out and I meet people and I have one of 2 mindsets. Right? I go out and I have my people pleasing mindset. I can make a lot of friends that way because I want everyone to like me. So I'm gonna kind of gauge everybody's mood, and I'm going to hope that everybody likes me. Right? And so I'm living in fear at this point. I'm scared that if somebody doesn't like me, I'm gonna be upset at myself. So that's fucking draining. Right? So that's an a draining way for me to build friendships because I'm actually not showing up as myself because I have these goggles on or these glasses of fear and scarcity. While on the other hand, if I go out there and I say, you know what? What is meant to be will be, and the right people will find me or I will find them when it's the right time and when it's supposed to be. And if I behave as myself and somebody doesn't like me, that's okay. Right? That's just more information. That is no reflection of me. That's a reflection of whatever that person is going through. They project that onto you. Right? So maybe I remind them of somebody that hurt them in the past, and they don't even know that I remind them of that. They just don't like me. That has nothing to do with me. And that is something that I was completely unaware of, how I was focusing so much on this fear and wanting everybody to like me that I just became exhausted because I didn't like myself because of the way that I was talking to myself. So I had to almost prove to other people that I was worthy of love because I didn't believe so. Meanwhile, the mindset I'm shifting to, and I have to keep reminding myself is, hey, I'm worthy of love. Love. We are all worthy of love. We all deserve happiness and joy and to live in an abundance. Right? And it's something that we have to kind of understand from a subconscious aspects or subconscious brain are things that maybe that really drive our narrative of day to day that maybe we're completely unaware of. And then our conscious brain is like, I'm fine. What are you talking about? I don't, I don't feel that way. And it's easy to not even know how we talk to ourselves because we're distracted by our phones, social media, what our neighbors are doing, keeping up with the Joneses. Right? Like everybody else. So we're looking external. Right? So I'm looking external to fuel my happiness. And so when we're looking external, right, we're constantly comparing ourselves to other people. And it's almost worse with social media because social media can be a blessing and it can be a curse. Right? And so I try to use it more as good because I can get messages like this out into the world versus saying, hey, look how, you know, look how great my beautiful house is and look how hot my partner is and look at all this money I made. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. And, gosh, so like, if you start seeing there's, there's, there's a really big difference there between the way to use these tools. And so if you're, if we're constantly like for me, if I'm constantly like looking at like, what other people are doing in my industry and be like, oh, I'm not doing that, or I'm not doing enough. Okay, I'm looking for my validation externally. Right? So I am looking for validation externally, versus internally versus, hey. I'm on my own journey. I'm on my own path. I don't have a timeline, but I didn't know that. And I was just kinda kept feeling like, oh my gosh. I gotta catch up on behind and behind and behind. I don't have enough time. You know, everybody else is doing all these things, and I can't do it, and I'm not doing enough. And, gosh, I can't even do x, y, z. Right? And so then that fuels me to then almost be like to start being productive in fear mindset. And when I'm productive in fear mindset, no shit gets done. Like nothing gets done. Life doesn't get done. I don't enjoy things. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. And I am just, you know, not myself. Meanwhile, if my inner dialogue says something along the lines of, hey. You know, you're on your own path. The voices you've heard in your head or the the the inner critic, that's not you. Those are experiences you've had in the past of somebody else saying that to you. And maybe you were in a vulnerable state, and it sunk in, and that almost became my inner belief system, if that makes sense. So I'll give you an example. I didn't realize how much how bad I talked to myself until I worked started working with a new therapist, about a year ago. And I learned so many different things about myself. So I'll give you an example. Picture yourself in this, you know, when like I said, when I say my stories, I would have dishes in the in the sink. Right? So I'd have dishes in the sink, and then I'd look at the dishes. If they were there for more than, like, 5 or 10 minutes, I'd say to myself, damn, Mary. You can't even do the fucking dishes. You don't have kids. You just have a dog. How come you can't even take out carry your house? Everybody else has children and and maybe a bigger home or more responsibilities than you, and you can't even do your dishes. And I'm like, damn. I'm talking to myself like that all day, every fucking day. And then I'm like, why am I tired? Why am I cranky? Why do I not, you know, why do I not want to do anything? Why am I just completely exhausted and just wanna sit at home by myself? Well, yeah. If you hear that inner critic all day, every day, but we have to understand where that inner critic came from. Right? And so for me, when you're exposed maybe at a earlier age to a critic. Right? And so I was bullied a lot growing up, in in school every year or every other year, just a lot of bullying and, you know, a lot of other experiences that I had where people would put me down. And over time, you hear these people putting you down over and over and over, and you start to believe it's true because you're like, oh, well, I heard it more than once, so this must be fact because all the data I have right now is that I'm getting picked on. Nobody is saying otherwise. I am, you know, a kid, so I don't know. My brain's like a fucking sponge, and so I'm absorbing that. And over time, that became the way I talk to myself. So, basically, I absorbed all of the bullies, all of the childhood abuse I experienced or all these different things. Right? And then I created this narrative that I was unlovable, that I couldn't be myself because when I would be myself, I'd be put down because I had to be a good girl, right, and not curse or not, you know, not be funny, not be crude because ladies don't do that. And so over time, I just kind of sucked into myself and just stopped being myself because I was told that that wasn't okay. And when you start recognizing who is that inner critic, right, who is that person saying those things? And I've been in and and and what happens with this though is it then perpetuates. Right? So it perpetuates and it leaks into your relationships. So I kept going and dating people that treated me like shit because I treated myself like shit. So what did it really matter? And then it gets to this point where I just perpetually kept dating people that didn't treat me well. And over time, it wore on me. And then finally, I just woke up one day after I got divorced. And I was like, this is I'm done with this. Like, I'm not I have to fig I have to break this cycle. I don't know how I'm gonna break it, but I need to break it. And the way we do that is to start understanding ourselves. And so it's funny because there's this whole thing about self love and self compassion, all these things. Hey, yes, that's where we wanna go. But, like, you can't for me, I couldn't just sit around hugging myself and be like, I love you. I love you. I love you. You have to learn to love yourself. And that's what I had to learn to do. And part of that was adjusting how I talk to myself. So I just started noticing, so bringing it to the conscious level. Wow. I just said that to myself and I say it out loud and I keep saying it out loud all day, every day, or whenever I think about it. Right? Because sometimes we don't even know that we're saying it. You might notice it after the fact. So just say it out loud when you say after the fact, because we can't shift anything that we don't know is happening. So my inner thought so it goes, my inner thought, right, is caused by an inner belief, which then my brain perceives as truth, and then I allow myself to be my life to be dictated by that thread of self doubt and self hatred. Right? So from the outside, it might look, oh, look at this person. Like, for me, it's like, oh, she started this business. She's doing this or that. Or, oh, wow. How was she able to do that through cancer treatment? Well, it wasn't from a good spot. It was from fear. It was from scarcity. It was from anger and self hatred. And so when I started doing is noticing that I was talking to myself that way. And over time, as I started really noticing it and it became more of a habit for me to start recognizing that I was talking to myself this way, that then I started saying, oh, no, that's not truth. That's an old pattern. And I say to myself, like, thank you, body, for helping me during that time, but I'm okay. Right? Like, I am that is not truth. That is an old thought. Right? Our thoughts are not who we are. Our thoughts are merely thoughts. They don't control us unless we let them. And so we can only let them if we're unaware of them. If we're unaware of them, we can't change them. And so over time, as, you know, I have some dishes in my sink right now. I see them and I go, I'm not gonna talk down to myself. Right? So with that, then I'm able to make that shift over time. And it takes a lot of practice. It's like flexing a muscle. Right? If you go to the gym and you lift weights, you can't expect to have a bunch of muscle the next day. It takes time and consistency and building up. And so it wasn't until recently, I mean, really working on this, even just the past year, where I finally feel like I'm talking nicely to myself and allowing myself to feel moments of of joy and experience them and be happy, you know, like, be in those moments. And so but it's still something I'm constantly working on. And this is why positive affirmations don't necessarily work, right? They work if you can recognize how you're talking to yourself. For instance, like, if I just say, I love myself and this and that, and I don't change anything, and I don't recognize my behaviors, and I don't change how I talk to myself, then nothing's gonna change. I'm just gonna go more into a shame spiral, which I'm already in anyway. Right? Because I can't change it. Look. I can't even change my positive to positive thoughts. So who the fuck am I to think that I can do this? Right? And so it has to be understood of recognizing when we're doing it, just recognizing patterns, trying not to judge ourselves when we're doing it, and just noticing it. The other aspect of of this includes judgment. Right? So notice how you're judging others. So this is something I am not have been notorious in the past. I've been very humbled recognizing this and being told this, that I judged a lot. I judge people's actions and behaviors, and I'm not proud of it, but I did. And we have a dog friend here. She just wanted to come up, but and I did. And so with that, what I realized over time is I wanna stop judging people. Why am I judging people? Like, I, you know, why am I judging myself so much? Like, this is exhausting. Well, if you're judging other people, that's a projection. At least for me, it was a projection of how I was feeling about myself. Right? So there's a belief that I have where I am judging somebody else's actions because I think that maybe that's an inappropriate action, I guess, if that makes sense. So it's like, what about that person made me wanna judge them? I'll give you an example. When somebody is doing something that, like, I wanna do from a career standpoint or a life goal or a destination or whatever it is, right, a relationship, I go, ew, gross. And I I try to find some way to put them down in my head so that way I feel better about myself. But that's a pattern. Right? So I have to go, no. No. No. No. That's inspiration, Mary. That is what society wants us to think, especially this is why I think there's a lot of, you know, women versus women stuff. I think it's because of of that we don't check that. Right? There's this society kind of, oh, cat fights and all this bullshit about women, you know, not getting along. And I think it's almost been kind of ingrained in us to kind of come at each other. And but we have to you know, for me, I had to redirect and go, no. That's that's exciting that that woman's doing something like that. That means it's possible. Look, like it is possible. Because if we only see certain people doing things, then subconsciously believe we can't. Right? And so even if you don't necessarily have, like, a history of family trauma or childhood trauma or some experience where somebody talked to you negatively, there's also society and the way that we perceive women. Right? I mean, if you think about how many times do we see women, you know, hey, just for clarification, I'm not shitting on people if they get plastic surgery or Botox or whatever it is. Right? Like, I've definitely done my fair share in the beauty industry. But the point is that a lot of these messages are targeted to women. How many times do you see a woman, you know, in Hollywood who is stunning, and then they get pregnant and everyone shits on them for being, like, quote, fat in their eyes. And it's like, oh my god. If those women are getting criticized, who am I? What what about me? So then we there's, like, these internalizing of these subconscious ways that we hear people talk about other women. And and then you see a lot of ads and beauty products for, you know, oh, get liposuction or get breast augmentation or get a bunch of Botox or filler, this or that. I don't see a lot of those ads going to men. And I know some men will do that, but it's a majority women. And so we're also being fed from society these things. So the more that we start recognizing it, the less it gets to control us and the the better we can kinda talk to ourselves. Right? So in that, just noticing these behaviors. There's there's so much in our society, though, that I don't think, you know, I don't know. I try not to think it's intentional, but a lot of things were made for a certain size of a man, and stairs were made based on the height of a man, chairs, a lot of furniture that we have. It's these subconscious things that we're just told that we're not, we don't fit into this world. Right? And so those beliefs, and we see a lot of times, like, you know, even in VC funding. So venture capitalist funding, when there's a company that needs funding, maybe a start up, a lot of the money tends to go to men because there's men in these positions that work with other men that they they went to school with and they know each other, and then those places those companies get funding. Right? And, again, it's not shitting on the men that are doing that. I don't think it's an intentional thing. It's just more of not enough women are kind of in these spaces, but why aren't what not enough women in these spaces? Well, that's a multifaceted thing. But my point is that a large amount of media, a large amount of technology, and a lot of things are built around the ideology of a man and not as much about the female perspective. I mean, think about this. It's 2020, sorry, it's 20, 20 fucking 4, and we barely know how to manage menopause. Okay? It's 2024, and we're just now starting to talk about it. And still, it's still the Wild, Wild West. Right? I'm not saying this to make people angry. I'm saying it because we could recognize these things. Right? And say, oh, okay. That is programming. I can kind of start noticing, oh, that doesn't have to apply to me right now when I see things like, oh, do these certain things to your body or suck your fat out of your ass or whatever. It's like, oh gosh, like that's the message that we're getting. Like that's, that's crazy. And so the more you can notice these things, the more you're less susceptible to external validation and more internal validation. Again, I didn't know what any of that meant. So overall, it's really recognizing that that little thread, that little story that we're telling ourself, recognizing who those voices are, allowing yourself to just notice it without judgment, because there's a lot of issues that we have when we, you know, when we say these things, then it's like, oh, well, why do I say myself? And then there's the shame spiral. Right? So in order for us to make a change, we have to recognize it, and then over time, the more we recognize it, or we can start saying, well, that's not true. Like, that's an old pattern. Right? And then over time, you flex that muscle over and over, and those thoughts tend to shift. If you think about, like, it's called neuroplasticity. So your brain, right, your old thoughts are like a 5 lane highway to shitting on yourself. Right? So, you know, oh, I can't do the dishes. I can't believe I can't even do this. Right. Yada yada. That's a 5 lane highway. That was a 5 lane highway for me. Right? And over here is this little dirt pathway to the side that's like, well, that's not true, Mary. That's an old pattern. That is an a belief. That's a thought. That's not who you are. You know, you it's okay to take some rest. You don't have to do anything right now. And over time, I have to redirect that thought so that way that dirt road becomes a 1 lane highway, a 2 lane highway, a 3 lane highway, 45, and eventually kind of starts becoming more of our default than the old patterns. And this is the work that's really hard to do, but it's just continuing to kinda lean into it and allow yourself to move through it versus letting it control you. And then finally, experiencing joy. So what does that even mean? When was the last time you belly laughed with a friend? Right? When was the last time you really connected and just were just in the moment and laughing and felt like a kid again? Right? We are just big kids, essentially. And when we are in these shame spirals or we're really hard on ourselves, we don't almost at least for me, I didn't feel like I was allowed to experience joy. It felt so unfamiliar to me to just relax for a moment or not push myself or do these things. I just didn't know that that was possible because everything in my life, so many people around me were doing the same thing that in my eyes, that was normal. Now as you start shifting, or at least for me, as I start shifting, it's it's a bit sad because there's a grieving process. Right? Because you start kind of noticing the way you're talking to yourself, how you're acting, and starting to start wanting to really truly experience happiness in life. There is some outgrowing of friendships and relationships and things that used to line up with that, but now there's this whole other world of opportunity. So we only know what our little ecosystem has. Right? And so if we allow ourselves, even just for a moment, to sit down and just take a breath and allow ourselves to feel that joy, just allow your body, just feel it in your body, Thank yourself for it and sit there and feel it. Right? It might feel uncomfortable. If you feel uncomfortable, that's really good. That means that's growth. Right? That's that new little dirt pathway becoming a one lane highway. When we do this work, there's discomfort. We tend to be fearful of discomfort because we haven't known how to deal with it. Right? So discomfort is growth. Just like if you go to the gym, you work a bunch of muscles, your muscles are going to be sore, so you're going to have some discomfort. It's no different than anything else that we've experienced. Right? So over time, leaning into that discomfort, noticing it, challenging it, sitting with it. Is this true? Is this a thought? Where did this come from? Right? And then if you feel really disconnected from yourself, check out and look like, where have I what have I been doing most of my day? Am I looking externally to see what everybody else is doing and kind of trying to catch up with everybody? Because that shit will never end. Like, that will never end. Or have I taken some time to sit with my thoughts? You know? Even if you're just driving or sitting in the parking lot waiting for your kids to get out of school or in the grocery store, anything. Right? Just start noticing what those inner thoughts are. And the more you do this, the more you connect with something called your intuition. And holy shit, it is so powerful when you start being able to listen to that kind of inner gut feeling, because then we can start kind of noticing and pursuing things maybe in our life that truly do bring us happiness and joy. And the more we can tune into that, we can kind of start deciphering, hey, is this my gut instinct or is this anxiety? Right? Because if if if there's anxiety, then maybe it's not something that is truly best for us. Maybe it's something that is just trying to warn us about something in the past that hurt us. But overall, in general, I truly believe that the way we talk to ourself, a lot of women in general, gosh, the amount of women that come into my clinic, they are really fighting the shame spiral. And it's pretty much most women that I know. And it is incredibly fresh. Like, I know how incredibly frustrating it is. And it makes me so sad that this is something that we're all collectively almost dealing with of this constant kind of perpetual need to prove something in the world that wasn't necessarily made for us. What if we can sit in that and say, yeah, that's what I feel, but also this is truth too. Right? What else can be true? And the more we do that, the more we can push ourselves to lean into that discomfort, challenge those inner critics, redirect that story. It's exhausting. I know it is. I'm not saying I'm perfect at it. I'm constantly working on it every day. And then on top of it, then allowing yourself to kind of experience that joy. It's going to feel uncomfortable. It's going to feel like, Oh, I can't, I can't, I can't just sit in it. Just give me 60 seconds and just at least experience it there. Right? And the more you do that, again, the more we build that network of neuroplasticity to help us be kinder to ourselves and allow ourselves to be happy and experience joy. But it takes it takes time, but it is possible. But I directed for what I was saying earlier, but I truly believe that these inner critics are a root cause for illness, because if you saw or heard the way that I was talking to myself right before I got cancer, not saying if you'd talked down to yourself, you're gonna get cancer. I'm just saying, I had no idea how much I was talking to myself. And so we can do everything physically. Right? I can do exercise. I can eat the right smoothies. I can do this diet or whatever. It doesn't matter if we're talking so poorly to ourselves and we're not experiencing joy. I truly believe laughter is medicine. I truly believe that these moments where we can start redirecting our thoughts and feel good in our body, oh, gosh. I just want everyone to at least experience a moment of that peace. And the more we practice that, the more it becomes a bigger muscle. And so I really hope this helped you guys. And so, you know, again, looking at your inner thoughts, start questioning them, start noticing what else could be true, and allow yourself to sit in that discomfort of joy. So the more you feel more comfortable around that, the more your heart can expand and the more joy you can experience in life and the healthier you'll you'll feel.