My Article “Are You Your Own Worst Critic” is now on All Things Healing. If you haven’t read it yet, make sure you check it out!
Many of us consider ourselves to be our own worst critics, and I used to think so, too. I was always so hard on myself to the point of perfectionism. Then one day I began to see things differently. I started to realize that other people’s opinions of me and what they thought I should be doing were so embedded into my mind that their expectations became stronger than my own wants and needs. I inevitably realized that the self-criticism that tortured my mind for years was not in response to my voice. In actuality, it was self-criticism and self-punishment for not living up to expectations of others. Slowly I began to eliminate their opinions.
If you have felt this type of guilt and thought this way, the truth is, you’re not really disappointing anyone through your actions. These people are only disappointed in you (when your actions differ from their vision of what you should be doing) because they are losing control of you. These are not friends, nor are they people you should be taking advice from.
Think back to the things you always beat yourself up over. Do you beat yourself up over failures that caused you disappointment or are you being hard on yourself for not living up to other people’s desires for who you are and who you should be? I guarantee that the majority of failures and things you hold against yourself belong to the latter category.
finding the balance is the hard part. i don’t want to beat myself up all the time for my failings but at the same time i don’t want to let myself off the hook to easy. when i hear people say they have no regrets i think either they are liars, sociopaths or have lead charmed lives. i know i have made stupid mistakes and blunders and people have been hurt as a result. i may have not intended to hurt anyone like the drunk teenager who kills someone while driving. it was not the teen’s intention to hurt anyone but as a result of his carelessness someone did get hurt. guilt and regret are the way one learns from the experience and to avoid a repeat in the future. most of us are not that bad but we are also not that good either.
When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.
Albert Camus