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From Inner Critic to Self-Love | Your Inner Voice | Gabriel Ellis, PhD · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

• 0:01
  Welcome to the Curious Mind podcast.
• 0:03
  My name is Gabriel Ellis. I'm a psychologist, A
• 0:06
  psychotherapist, A Buddhist scholar and a philosopher.
• 0:09
  And today I want to talk about a topic that is of immense
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  clinical importance. It is the self talk that we
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  employ when we reflect our lives, when we refer to
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  ourselves in and throughout our days.
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  We talked throughout the day with so many people, with
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  colleagues and friends and our partners.
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  But the most important conversation usually happens
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  unnoticed, and this is the conversation that you have with
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  yourself. So how do you actually talk to
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  yourself? The first step is an honest
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  assessment. If you want to do that over the
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  next few days, actively pay attention to the words you use
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  when you think about yourself or when you refer to yourself or
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  when you talk to yourself. Sometimes we talk to about
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  ourselves with friends or we even say things out loud when we
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  are alone. So do you use words that are
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  demeaning or dismissive, for example?
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  Oh how stupid of me. Or typical that I missed that
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  appointment again or that I messed that up?
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  Or are those words appreciative and benevolent?
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  Usually it's a mixture, but the overall tendency is what
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  matters. If you are not sure what effect
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  your self talk has on you, there is a simple test.
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  How would you feel saying the same words to somebody else?
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  Or if somebody else would refer to you with those words that you
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  use. So when you see it from that
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  angle, we often have to admit that our self talk is more
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  negative than we thought. I would not say to a friend, oh
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  stupid you were when you did this, or you're a fucking idiot
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  or something like that. We simply would not use those
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  language. And similarly we would not
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  accept such a language from others when they refer to us.
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  But with ourselves, we often enough do it.
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  Why does the choice of words matter?
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  There was a philosopher, Austrian philosopher at the
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  beginning of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was one
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  of the most important language philosophers of our times.
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  And he taught us that the meaning of the words that we use
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  arises from the the Hughes, the usage, and that Hughes was not
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  invented by us. We don't have our private
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  languages, it's basically determined by the society in
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  which we grew up. So if you have a negative self
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  talk, but you say that you don't mean it this way or it's not as
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  negative as it sounds, consider this.
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  Can you really mean something positive if you use negative
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  words? I think this is a bit of a
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  stretch. We usually cannot do this unless
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  it's in very distinct cases of irony, for example when we
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  clearly mean the opposite of it. But there is a certain honesty
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  when we employ self talk and when we curse at ourselves, when
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  we are demeaning to ourselves. There is truth to it, whether
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  you have strong emotional reactions about it or not.
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  Words are not empty shells. They do shape the space in which
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  we move, and if our inner vocabulary is toxic, it becomes
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  quite impossible to live a mentally healthy life in the
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  long term. A simple conclusion from this
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  would be to just use positive language.
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  So is it enough to simply repeat positive affirmations as it's
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  often recommended, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world in the US?
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  No, of course it's not. Self positivity is more than
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  just cosmetic word corrections. It is about a more fundamental
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  question. What is your real attitude
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  towards yourself? Is your fundamental intention
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  intention in this life that things go well for you?
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  Do you genuinely wish the best for yourself?
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  And there's an interesting question because often when I
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  bring this up in therapy, people have to admit that they don't
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  think in this way. They don't reflect the basic
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  assumptions, the basic foundations of their self
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  reference that just assume that it's kind of positive, but they
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  don't spell it out to themselves.
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  And this is what I encourage you to do.
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  Do you genuinely wish the best for yourself if your general
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  attitude towards yourself is unspecific?
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  So like for most people who don't define or don't pay a
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  close attention to how they refer to themselves, this in my
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  experience is a slippery slope. Because in that case, negative
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  events that we always have to deal with in normal life, they
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  begin to act like a subtle poison over time, stressful or
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  unpleasant experiences, then drag yourself image down with
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  them. Because we interact with the
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  outside world in negative ways, we have to deal with stress and
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  if we don't pay close attention that the way that we respond to
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  ourselves gets dragged down with it.
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  For example, if we have a difficult day, let's say at
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  work, or we come from some office that we wanted to deal
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  with something and it didn't work out.
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  Sometimes with this irritation, we enter a social interaction,
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  for example with friends or with our partners.
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  We are snappy with them, we are kind of irritated by them.
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  And this is just an example of how dealing with negativity in
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  our daily life can shape, can make more negative interactions
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  with people, with friends, with partners.
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  And so in a very similar way, we are also irritated when we
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  interact with ourselves as a consequence of negative
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  interactions with the world. So it's important that you
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  understand that a positive relationship to yourself is not
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  just about affirmations, and it's also not about esoteric
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  manifestation or wishful thinking.
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  It's about a genuine form of self empathy.
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  You have to clarify the positivity you have
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  instinctively within yourself, because after all, you are the
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  person closest to yourself. So, can you feel the same joy
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  for yourself that you feel for a good friend?
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  Can you wish yourself the very best, just as you would for
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  somebody you love? Some of my insights about this
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  topic arose in meditation and from previous videos.
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  You might remember that I have been practicing meditation for
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  over 20 years now in my life and experience shows not just with
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  me, but many people who, for example, do their first
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  retreats, that in silence everything reveals itself.
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  And if there's a hidden negativity towards yourself
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  lurking inside yourself, it would sabotage every attempt to
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  calm the mind in meditation. So silence presupposes A
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  genuinely genuine goodwill when, for example, you meditate.
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  And that it is why meditation is also a very good exercise for
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  becoming aware if your real attitude to yourself is positive
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  or negative. So even if you don't meditate,
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  maybe you can find a guided meditation with enough quiet
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  sequences so that in the attempt to meditate you would notice how
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  you think about your immediate situation, the people around you
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  and about yourself. One complication when we talk
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  about this topic of self talk is that your relationship to
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  yourself not only taking place in your thoughts, it can also be
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  a feeling or a wordless mood that works in the background, or
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  even something that permeates your body.
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  Without explicit words, without explicit feelings that you would
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  notice, it would directly go into the body, which often
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  enough causes what we call a psychosomatic symptom.
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  So keep in mind that even if you don't catch yourself, so let's
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  say you observe yourself and you cannot catch an explicit self
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  talk, you are one of those relatively rare people who don't
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  comment inside their mind what is happening on what is going on
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  in their life. Even then you have to assume
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  that there is an undercurrent of self commentary, of self talk
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  inside of you and you have to sniff it out.
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  You have to find out what that is based on the emotions that
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  you feel because they carry a self commentary inside of them.
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  If it's not explicit strong emotions, it can be subtle
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  moods. And if that is not the case, so
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  people who are very kind of quiet inside, you might see that
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  there tension that you're going through in life is manifesting
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  in the body. Can be in the stomach, can be in
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  the chest, it can be in the chin, it the jaws, it can be in
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  the neck, all those typical places where stress manifests.
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  And then you can try to discover and to find out what's the
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  quality of the reference is that you have towards yourself
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  through those feelings, through those moods or even through
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  those physiological physical symptoms when you are on your
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  own, are you bored with yourself or do you actively wish yourself
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  contentment, peace and happiness even in the daily activities
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  that you do when you don't have anything to do?
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  Are you, is it some sort of a subtle pain which boredom
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  actually is? Do you instinctively go to the
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  phone, distract yourself or can you be with a book?
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  Can you take a walk? Are you basically able to enjoy
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  your own company? Not exclusively, we are not
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  built to do that, but are you able to get into this mode of
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  appreciating yourself, feeling yourself reference when you're
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  alone? OK, now what can you do now?
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  As I suggested in the beginning, you can make you can take up the
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  task to investigate in the next days what yourself talk is, what
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  your the self reference in your emotions and your moods is.
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  You can keep track of your inner swear words, your inner
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  criticism or your praise and the moments when you're proud of
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  yourself. What you can also do is to ask
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  friends or your partner, what do you think?
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  How do I relate to myself? How do I appear?
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  How do I come off when you see me?
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  Do I seem like someone who has a positive self reference or do I
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  come off as somebody who's very self critical?
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  This is important not because other people can read our mind
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  better than we have insight into it, but especially if we are
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  uncertain and we don't find explicit self references, self
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  talk, self commentary into our mind, then the way that we
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  appear can give us a clue. So when people tell us that we
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  seem quite critical towards life, towards other people and
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  also towards our self, it can give us at least an interesting
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  hypothesis and a basis for future self observation.
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  As I mentioned, what you can do, you can use the silence of
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  meditation to detect subtle forms of sabotage.
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  But if you find that the suffering, the self devaluation,
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  the inner criticism, the disappointment.
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  So if you find that all of that runs very deep, then I think
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  it's good to consider therapy to kick start your healing.
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  Because at a certain point it is difficult to get a clear
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  perspective on ourselves. And when we are steeped, when we
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  are lost and self negativity and we don't know how to
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  authentically get out of it without silly kind of
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  affirmations that typically don't work over an extended
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  period of time, then it's good to reflect with somebody who is
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  a specialist in this, who knows what this territory is, who
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  knows the traps and who knows the ways out.
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  I certainly am always grateful when I can work with clients on
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  topics like these because when that starts to change, people
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  can feel immediately the consequences of that shift and
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  they react with quite a relief When more positive self
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  reference, when more positive self talk is filling up the
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  spinner space in which we walk and daily life, we can reflect
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  where this negativity comes from.
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  If it's something that is recent or if it is an internalized
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  criticism that people have experienced for years and years
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  and years, maybe because of the parent stuff rearing their
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  childhood. If it's something that they
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  experience in teenage times, which is another break, another
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  fissure in our development. If it comes from a difficult
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  breakup situation, from job related self criticism.
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  So there's so many sources where those negative voices can emerge
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  in ourselves, where they are rooted in, but most typically
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  the ones that are the most problematic and are difficult to
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  change are the voices that we internalize from our our
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  childhood, from our parents. And so this is certainly a very
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  important topic to reflect when you and if you decide to have a
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  therapeutic journey in front of you.
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  I hope that it was. This was an interesting journey
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  into kind of the verbal, into the linguistic self treatment
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  and self commentary. Again, check out my website if
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  you're interested in working with me.
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  I am certainly grateful to contact you.
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  Ask me questions, write in the comments what kind of
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  discoveries you made when you made those discovery days with
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  yourself. I'm always curious to hear about
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  your personal experiences. I'm grateful for your attention
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  and I hope to see you next time.