How to Like Yourself

On the 4th of July, we went to my mother-in-law's house near Lake Travis to spend a few hours on a boat and enjoy every American's favorite pastime: a few dogs on the grill (No? Just me?).

While out on the boat, we saw a few teenagers jumping off a cliff into the lake. They seemed to survive, so my man Wyatt and I thought, "Why not us?"

We were immediately filled with regret as we climbed up the side and made our way to the edge. What looked like a puddle jump at the bottom now felt like being on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Wyatt thought we were about 60 feet up. I thought we were going to die. But with a potent mix of the sunk cost fallacy and the male ego, we jumped.

The moment I hit the water I was walloped with physical pain. I had the wind knocked out of me and immediately felt pain in my tailbone, back, and neck. My self-pity and loathing only added to the mix. It felt like I was in a car crash. Only where I made the conscious decision to crash the car beforehand.

Why would I do that? I'm a 200-pound grown man with responsibilities. I pay taxes and insurance. I can't be out here jumping off cliffs with 17-year-olds. I spent the rest of the afternoon berating myself for the dumb decision. 

We Love Self-Criticism

Although a benign example, it's the freshest reminder I have that chastising and criticizing ourselves runs deep in our culture. It's almost as if the pain of the mistake isn't enough. We need to tar and feather ourselves to ensure the lesson is driven home.

I've worked with hundreds of individuals over the years, and although it's not often that people explicitly express self-loathing, it's implicit in many conversations I have. 

More and more, I'm dealing with people who are extremely critical of both themselves and others. People who think they should be doing a million things that they're not currently doing.. and then feel guilty about it. People who struggle to sit alone with their own thoughts. There's this implicit dissatisfaction with themselves and their lives.

Their solution? Be even harder on themselves. They call themselves stupid, ruminate on mistakes, and "should" all over themselves (I should be doing this… I should be doing that..). We think this self-criticism is useful – it motivates us; it helps us learn – but in my experience, negative emotions (guilt, shame, remorse, being self-critical) aren't helpful to the change process at all. 

The Shadow

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung had a concept he called "the shadow." The shadow is the part of the self that we keep hidden (oftentimes, we even hide it from ourselves). It's all the qualities we try to deny about ourselves and repress: our weaknesses, our taboo desires and impulses, fears, or anything else we deem negative.

The problem is that the more we ignore, deny, and repress it, the thicker it gets and the more destructive it becomes.

• We make questionable decisions

• We lash out and project onto others

• We latch onto destructive behaviors

• We have emotional turmoil that keeps us stuck 

• We sabotage ourselves and our relationships

Jung believed that real growth came from being aware of and accepting of our shadow as a part of us. He believed integrating the shadow was essential to becoming a whole and self-realized person. 

This meant first having the courage to confront the shadow. In his book Greenlight, Matthew McConaughey talks about the fear of reviewing his journals to curate content for the book because of the certainty that he'd have to encounter all of the difficult emotions and memories of the past. Most of us can't even muster the courage to look.

Then, we need curiosity and compassion to understand our shadow. We need to be able to have some levity with ourselves—to be able to laugh at ourselves, admit our shortcomings and mistakes, and have a healthy dose of acceptance and kindness toward our innate humanness.

Lastly, Jung suggested that we need to find a way to integrate these aspects constructively into our personality. For instance, your tendency to rebel got you in trouble in middle school, but it could be a huge asset toward a political cause you care about. Maybe your tendency to be "Mr. Nice Guy" can be channeled into volunteer work instead of when it's time to fight for a promotion.

Unfortunately, this isn't how most of us handle our shadow. Rather, we add insult to industry and verbally assault our shadow, or put it into the Harry Potter closet under the stairs and bolt it shut. Luckily, modern science is finally catching up to Jung, and the findings are crucial to our ability to live a good life.

Something More Powerful Than Self-Criticism

Kristin Neff, an associate professor at the University of Texas, has spent her career studying ways to deal with our shadow. She discovered that instead of self-criticism, we can use a far more powerful tool to make better decisions, be more emotionally intelligent, and sustain change. 

In fact, Neff has run a smorgasbord of studies on this tool and has found the benefits to be overwhelming. This one tool:

• Increases feelings of interconnectedness. 

• Is associated with less depression and anxiety

• Leads to higher life satisfaction

• Increases self-esteem, motivation, and self-control 

• Decreases feelings of self-centeredness and absorption

• Improves self-awareness 

• Enhances romantic relationships

• Results in fewer injuries from cliff jumps (just kidding.. my tailbone still hurts)

This tool? Neff calls it self-compassion. I also call it self-compassion. 

Self-compassion is the practice of being kind and understanding of yourself rather than being self-critical. A Buddhist concept, it’s believed that it is as essential to feel compassion for oneself as it is for others. It’s about taking an understanding, nonjudgmental attitude toward one’s inadequacies and failures. It entails acknowledging that suffering, failure, and inadequacies are part of the human condition and that all people deserve compassion.

Seems logical on the surface, right? But, like the verbal beating I gave myself after the cliff dive, we all do the exact opposite. 

We call ourselves “fatty” after overindulging..

We yell that we’re stupid after forgetting olive oil at the grocery store..

We ruminate on all the ways the world is against us..

We judge ourselves for being a grown man who feels the need to jump off a cliff…

Can you imagine talking to a friend like this? How would they react? How would you feel if a friend spoke to you like you talk to yourself? We have a word for this: asshole.

Yet when it comes to talking to ourselves, it’s perfectly acceptable to yell, name-call, judge, penalize, and critique. It’s a misconception that we need to be hard on ourselves to achieve or to make positive changes. People think that self-compassion will make them lazy or avoid responsibility. 

Neff’s research shows that’s not the case. We actually become more motivated, which makes perfect sense. When we are genuinely compassionate with ourselves, that means we want the best for our own health and well-being. Therefore, we’ll start to take steps to improve our circumstances. And frankly, we’ll enjoy our own company more. 

So this is my request to you and a reminder to myself: stop being an asshole (to yourself). It doesn’t help. Practice extending kindness and understanding to oneself rather than harsh self-criticism and judgment. As my mom always says, “Just be freaking nice.” Start to see yourself not as an island unto yourself – I’m not the only grown man to regret jumping off a cliff – and instead, see one’s experiences as part of the larger human experience.

We are all flawed. We are all doing the best we can. We are all going to continue making mistakes as long as we live. It’s a feature of the human experience. So we might as well deal with these things in ways that work and are, frankly, just a more enjoyable way to live. As Kristin Neff says, “Who is the only person in your life who is available 24/7 to provide you with care and kindness? You.”