This week in The Brain BS™ Blog and Podcast, we are gonna talk about how we treat ourselves when we feel like we have come up short in some way. For the purpose of this post, I am going to make three primary suggestions for when we don’t like the behavior we chose the day before. It could be we drank that extra glass of wine, maybe we ate that extra cookie, perhaps we got triggered again by something our spouse said despite our best intentions...or all of the above! Here you go!

· Stop beating the crap out of yourself

· Stop beating the crap out of others

· Remember, change takes place one step at a time

Stop Beating the Crap Out of Yourself

First of all, I just want to point out how counterproductive it is that whenever we do something we wish we did not do, the first thing we do is beat ourselves up over it. I cannot tell you how many times I plan on being super disciplined when we come to California and I never am. 😂 I don’t mean to say I am not disciplined at all, but so far I have not been able to mimic the same healthy behaviors here that I implement in IL with very little effort on my part. For whatever reason, my brain wants to refer to Cali time as play time which means I adopt some vacation behaviors. Now I know vacation behaviors is total Brain BS and can entail anything but for me, it means more indulgence and less discipline. Translated that means more wine, more sweets, and less effective mind management. I think when we start to spend more time here it will finally kick in that home is wherever I am, and my healthy habits are what best serves me. Ain’t quite there yet though.

So until I do get there, I have decided I am no longer going to judge myself so harshly and get so annoyed when I do not do what I intend to do. It is crazy how I can lose sight of everything I do “right” and just zero in on the few things that I am not doing the way I want. As I have mentioned many times, our thoughts trigger feelings, those lead to actions and give us our results. If we are totally dwelling in negativity, we are not going to create the new results we desire. Brains just love to try to make us think we are not enough and that we are doing something wrong all the time. When those feelings get triggered, it starts a negative commentary in our brains that lowers our vibration and sends the Universe the message that we want more of the same.

For example, how many of you are familiar with the thoughts I feel like a fat pig, or I feel soooooooo gross after an evening, week, month, or years of overindulgence? I am guessing most of us have been in this frame of mind at one point or another. When we feel that way, we are not inspired to change our behavior and do something new. In fact, we are more likely to try to escape the uncomfortable feelings we are experiencing by indulging in more of the same behavior. This can go on for quite some time if we do not manage our minds properly. Some of you might argue that being hard on yourself is effective because it gets you to a point where you are willing to change your behavior, but I am going to challenge you on that. The truth is it is a new thought that sneaks in that gets you to finally change your diet or exercise routine. It could be as simple as I don’t want to feel this way anymore or that it is just time to start taking care of yourself. This is why it is so important to understand your Brain BS™ and how your noggin is working. If you don’t, you will never learn how to create the results that you want on purpose.

Just in case I have not made my point yet, I am going to give you another perspective of how this can play out to bring it on home. Sometimes beating ourselves up can come in a less aggressive way, and be more repressive in nature. This presents as I want to get help with my emotional and mental health, but I am too afraid to make the leap. Or it could be I know I keep saying I am going to get therapy, but I am just not quite ready yet. When we do this over and over again, year after year, we begin to lose faith in ourselves to follow through with what we said we were going to do. We could have a million judgments about ourselves that we are resisting and not even aware of consciously, and they usually center around the same old BS…fear of not being good enough, so and so will always be better, I am too much of a coward to face my fears and really look at myself, I will never be able to do this, I am never going to get it, I will never be able to speak up for myself, I am never going to find a good partner, and on and on. The repressive way to beat yourself up is to settle and determine that your life is just fine and who are you to complain? Fine? Really? We do not necessarily acknowledge all of our thoughts and that our relationship with ourselves is lacking integrity, but our energy and subconscious feels it and knows it is real. This can turn into in a case of low-grade depression or general dissatisfaction with life because we are stuck in indecision, apathy, and unacknowledged regret. While this kind of beating the crap out of ourselves can be less overt, it is just as impactful because it sends a message to the Universe that we are not worthy, and we do not love ourselves enough to have our own backs.

This brings me to the last thing I want to say here and that is if we do not treat ourselves with love and respect, we do the opposite and create circumstances and situations that we do not want. Many of us do this repeatedly in automatic mode for our entire lives because we are not self-aware. This is a horrible way to live and holds us back in major ways. If we can give ourselves some love and compassion, we are much more likely to be inspired to do whatever it is we truly desire. The reason for that is because it is coming from our higher selves and that will always trump anything the ego has to offer if we are aware enough to realize that and manage our minds. So if you really want to achieve something different or step out of your comfort zone to do something exceptional, you must be in a positive state that will inspire you to take the necessary actions. If you want to stay small and avoid change, keep beating yourself up.

Stop Beating the Crap Out of Others

Alright, this second one builds on the first one. If we spend a lot of time judging ourselves for not being good enough and finding ways that we are wrong all the time, we are going to lower our vibration for sure and do that with other people too. All of this will depend on how self-aware we are. If we are pretty aware and have done the work to learn about our brains, we will most likely beat the crap out of ourselves for coming up short, get out of it fairly quickly, and stop there. However, if we are like the majority of humans, we will immediately start finding problems with the people around us too because we cannot help ourselves. We are in such a negative state about the way we feel about ourselves, that we have a sort of misery loves company, why don’t you join me approach. This is because we have temporarily gotten caught up in the ego and disconnected from our higher selves. Trust me when I tell you this is just a diversion so that we don’t have to deal with our own brain BS. Nothing we say or do in this state is going to serve us. It will just add to our suffering and cause us more pain.

Let me give you a scenario to illustrate my point. Say you are having an I am such a pig and so gross sort of day. You have been dwelling in negative judgments and self-criticisms for more days than you care to admit, and you cannot stand the sight of yourself in the mirror. Then your spouse decides to come up and try to get close to you and give you some affection and it pisses you off. You think what is wrong with him? What the hell, I am not in the mood for that. Can’t he tell how bad I feel about myself? Is he clueless? Then you might actually start to think he is full of shit because there is no way you can see that he actually sees you differently than you see yourself. As a result, you snap, you might mope, you may even get aggressive, and it is all based on brain BS! None of it is true but you forgot that because you were so caught up in beating the crap out of yourself. It is almost natural when we are feeling that way, to do it to everybody around us too. So if another family member comes in the room right after this interaction, you might decide to spread the wealth and criticize them for not helping out enough around the house and that causes another negative interaction. I think it is fairly obvious, but I will spell it out for you, this type of behavior is not good for relationships! Nobody is going to want to be around you if you act like this all the time. If you are reading this and it is resonating with you, you might want to take a good long look at yourself. This type of negative spiral goes on and on until we cultivate self-awareness and purposely choose to stop the behavior because we realize it is optional.

Unfortunately, many people do not get to that point in their lives unless they get help understanding themselves. Which means we really do need to know how to deal with the day after, because many of us are going to have to learn to forgive ourselves when we behave in a way that disappoints us on a regular basis. We are going to have regrets about how we treat other humans when we are in such a bad state. It is one thing to be so awful to ourselves, but when we take it to another level and emit that negative energy onto everybody around us, we are not operating in the frequency that is going to get us what we want. This is not good because we are impacting the collective in a negative way and it just feels bad to treat other people so poorly, especially our loved ones! Instead, we need to practice compassion, emit love, and give ourselves grace as we learn how to mange these brains of ours in a way that works for us. We must also remember we are humans and embrace the gifts of imperfection and look forward to all of the opportunities we get to evolve to the next level. They are never ending.

One Step at a Time

Okay, I am including this suggestion because in my experience, most of my clients think they are going to master how to live consciously in a relatively short period of time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Learning to stop beating yourself up the day after you do something you regret, is a process that begins with cultivating a loving relationship with yourself. That process requires learning how to set limits and boundaries with the humans around you and reinforce them. It entails making yourself a priority and to stop people-pleasing which can be quite unsettling if you have been doing it for decades like I did. It is hard work to be sure, and it does require courage, but it is so worth it. Once you establish that relationship and forgive yourself for your imperfections, you have your own back, and you no longer treat yourself so poorly. The beautiful bonus is that you then transfer that love and grace onto your fellow humans. You no longer pick people apart or focus on their flaws, because you no longer do that to yourself. You are insightful about what it means to be a human with a brain. Oh you might forget for a minute, but it won’t last long. You will never go back to how you were before because you are not capable anymore. You just love yourself too much to do that. When that happens, needless layers of suffering are removed from your life experiences. That is when you find out that the extra glass of wine or cookie, is neutral and not that big of a deal. It never was. The reason it felt so bad was because of the horrible way you were judging yourself.

Summary

In conclusion, beating ourselves up when we fall short of our expectations, will never get us what we want. It will also increase the likelihood that we are going to mentally beat up other people too and our relationships will suffer because of it. I am suggesting that instead of being hard on yourself and others, approach your disappointments differently with grace and self-compassion. The first step toward being able to do that is to cultivate a loving relationship with yourself because that changes everything! Join me in The Brain BS™ Podcast to discuss this further.

Now, If you are done with talking and ready to take action, you can sign up for a free 60-minute consult at www.thebrainbs.com We will schedule a Zoom call and discuss what it is you think is your problem and what is causing you so much pain. Then I will use my superpower as a coach and tell you what your real problem is, along with whatever else you need to hear… even if it is uncomfortable. I am willing to risk the relationship with you so that you can hear what it is you need to hear to finally deal with the Brain BS that is standing between you and the life you want. If you are reading this, the Universe is telling you to sign up and start making your emotional and mental health a priority. Who are you to deny the Universe? ❤️