Calming Your Inner Critic to Release Body Shame

When it comes to having a healthy relationship with your body, one of the most challenging obstacles to overcome is your relationship with your thoughts. Do you notice what goes through your mind when you look in the mirror, when you look at a picture of yourself, when you are trying on clothes in a dressing room? If you struggle with body-image, most likely there is an inner critic who has some less than kind things to say.

Body shaming often starts very young and is deeply engrained into the fabric of our culture. Commenting on other people’s bodies based on size and shape has happened forever in the media, and this is not likely to change. However, for many people who struggle with body-image, the shaming most likely began within familiar environments, such as at home or in school. Sometimes the body shaming could look like a parent commenting negatively about their own body, their child’s body, their partner’s body, their neighbors body, and so on. For many people, the body shaming happened in school, where kids are often bullied for how they look. Sometimes the shaming came directly from parent or caretaker to child, where the parent constantly commented on their child’s body, and even made decisions about food for their child based on how their child’s body looked. All of these experiences often leave a residue of shame, feeling not good enough, resulting in trauma, and the development of a very unkind inner critic.

When a child feels shame, they internalize the negative language said to them and then begin to say these unkind things to themselves. This happens as a protective measure in our psyche to help reduce the suffering of when it’s heard from an external source (especially a parent/caretaker). This is where the inner critic is born. This is where this part of ourselves develops and sinks its roots in deep. It begins as self-protection, this is a maladaptive coping mechanism that served a purpose for the child to reduce emotional discomfort. This then becomes the language of our own thoughts, creating opportunities to develop perfectionism as a way of managing inner fears and anxieties.

The inner critic starts as someone else’s voice, and then becomes our very own. The words it says are unkind, even cruel, and cause hurt, pain, suffering, and increased feelings of shame. Shame triggers the belief that there is something wrong with us, such as not feeling good enough, unworthy, or deeply inadequate, which causes tremendous psychological pain. This pain limits how much we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, open, to feel deep connections, and even limits our experience of finding joy.

When we can learn to see our inner critic as a part of ourselves, not our true self, we can begin to heal it. When we get to know this inner critic part, it often is a very young, child-like part of ourselves, and we can more easily begin to understand why it is there, how it came to be there, and what it’s trying to protect us from. With this information we can begin to develop the capacity to lean into healing and self-compassion by working with this part. We work to give this part a new job that is supportive, healthy, and useful.

To begin to get to know your inner critic more intimately, it requires listening, and then getting curious about why it says what it says. Curiosity becomes the anecdote and where the healing can truly unfold. The next time you hear a self-critical thought about your body— or anything else really—try going through this process:

• Acknowledge your inner critic, and see it as a part of you, not your true, authentic self.

• Get curious, ask it what it wants you to know? Does it have a specific message for you?

• Ask it how old it is, when it learned to speak in this way.

• Ask it if it would be willing to reframe and shift into more self-compassionate language, just to see what happens? If it’s willing, try it out and see, if it isn’t, ask it if you can try again later. Let it know you want to get to know it, to understand it, and to validate its fears and feelings.

• Ask it if it might consider a new task, as this one it has learned to do so well is no longer serving you, in fact, it’s causing significant harm. If it’s open to that, offer some suggestions, or get ideas from it. If it’s not, let it know that change is difficult and you will try again later.

• Thank it, let it know that it is worthy of being seen and loved unconditionally.

• Practice reframing, reframing is looking realistically at the fear based negative thought and using mindfulness to answer what is really true right now. (If you want a deeper dive into thought work you can read a blog I wrote about examining your thoughts here).

• Try this reframing example, if the inner critic said something like, “you look terrible today, you don’t deserve to be in the pictures” try reframing with, “although I am having a bad body-image day, I still deserve to have the memories of this event and to be in the pictures.” Or, “Even though I don’t feel my best, I am going to choose to be in the pictures to remember this event.”

Over time you will be able to create a new inner language with the assistance of your inner critic. The more you get to know your inner critic, understand its role, you will get better and better at reframing. This process of reframing will help your inner critic to find—and get just as good at—a new job internally. This new job will be non harming, supportive, and a job that most importantly increases your capacity for self-compassion, and self-love.

Through this work you can create a deeper appreciation for your body, just as it exists within this moment. Your body deserves this, this hurt protective part of you deserves this, you deserve this. You are worthy of creating a new language within, and shifting from inner criticism to inner kindness and inner peace. If you feel overwhelmed with where to begin or as though your inner critic is unmanageable, you may benefit from EMDR therapy, IFS therapy, or an EMDR intensive. With this work you can reprocess the traumatic memories that have created or reinforced the negative beliefs that have given your inner critic so much power. Healing is possible, you deserve to release the internalized shame and feel your best in mind, body, and spirit.

Compassionate Eating: How to Be Kind to Yourself Through Emotional Eating Struggles

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines compassion as, “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Being compassionate means to suffer along with someone, to understand it, and to offer support to help release the suffering.

When talking about compassionate eating as a concept, I am not asking you to suffer with your food, or to feel any sort of distress about food or eating. Compassionate eating is more about how to be with yourself if you struggle with emotional eating, and the ways that compassion can offer relief from some of the suffering you may experience as a result of emotional eating patterns. If you struggle with negative self-talk, or if you experience any other internal distress as it relates to the process of eating and food choices you make, engaging with compassionate eating as a practice may help to alleviate some of the internal suffering that you experience.

Many who struggle with emotional eating, or any sort of disordered eating pattern, often feel a sense of persistent guilt and shame based on their food choices. The negative self-talk can be a precursor to eating, something said while eating, and most certainly following a food choice that is eaten out of emotional distress and not deemed “the right choice” or “perfect.” For example, prior to eating, negative self-talk might sound something like, “I shouldn’t eat this.” Negative self-talk during the process of eating might sound like, “I shouldn’t be eating this,” and after eating it might sound like, “I shouldn’t have eaten that…” 

There is a lot of overlap with each of these negative self-talk circumstances—and it all comes down to the shoulds. When we Should ourselves, we are immediately putting ourselves into a place where we are subjected to experiencing guilt and shame. The message of the emotion guilt signals to us is, I did something wrong, where as the message of the emotion shame signals, I am something wrong. If I tell myself, I shouldn’t be____________ (fill in the blank with anything) I am signaling through emotion (guilt/shame) inherent internal distress.

If I’m saying to myself “I shouldn’t be doing this,” no matter what “this” is, it signals that it must be wrong, bad, shameful, embarrassing, or I’m weak, and so on. The emotional discomfort that follows can lead to painful and really cruel thoughts about ourselves including not being good enough, not in control enough, not perfect enough, not enough just as I am. These feelings can trigger a negative thought loop and an internal shame spiral that may trigger more emotional eating, or any other negative self-soothing behaviors out of this feeling of deep internal suffering that something is wrong with me.

This is where compassionate eating steps in to help alleviate this pattern of deep internal suffering. Internal negativity and shame, inducing negative self-talk, is a form of suffering. The negative beliefs (e.g. I’m not good enough) that are internalized and reinforced become a pattern of low self-worth due to feeling not good enough, or feeling like a failure, or any other negative internalized belief. Self-compassion is the ability to suffer with oneself in a hope to relieve the suffering in a way that neutralizes the negative self-talk. When you offer yourself true self-compassion, you are allowing yourself to hold space for your feelings and experiences in a non-judgmental way. This can have a neutralizing or releasing impact on the discomfort you are experiencing. Giving yourself compassion allows the experience of becoming sympathetic towards yourself—with a desire to alleviate that suffering. 

Kristin Neff, who literally wrote the book on self-compassion, (which I highly recommend) breaks down the process of practicing self-compassion into these three elements:

1. Mindfulness

2. Self-kindness

3. Common humanity

The first is about how when we bring mindful awareness to a feeling or experience we are seeing it more broadly and without judgment, versus the felt state of over-identification with the suffering (e.g. I am not good enough, or I’m a failure) that triggers the negative self-talk. The second element of self-compassion is self-kindness. This process helps to release the self-judgement, I am ok versus I am a bad, weak, or a not a good enough person. The third element is creating a sense of common humanity, bringing in the awareness that the feelings and experiences are universal. This opens us to the understanding that suffering simply cannot be avoided if one is a human, and allows a feeling of not being alone in the suffering and discomfort of one’s own experiences, emotions, and behaviors.

Practicing self-compassion in a form of compassionate eating when struggling with emotional eating might look and sound something like this:

1. Mindful awareness of the feeling/experience: “I feel shame for eating something when I wasn’t hungry despite my attempts to be more mindful of my hunger and full cues, I want to change my emotional eating patterns and I feel really sad when I feel as though I’ve failed.”

2. Self-kindness is creating an opportunity to speak to yourself as you would a friend, loved one, or anyone you care about. Consider a good friend came to you with the same feeling or experience, you might say to them: “I understand why you feel so disappointed and down on yourself, you have been working really hard to eat more mindfully and intuitively, however, please know that no one is perfect and everyone struggles at times. What you are trying to accomplish is really challenging and takes time. I’m here for you and want to support you as you continue to heal, I believe in you.” Turn the same sentiment inward, say all of this to yourself. If you have a hard time being kind to yourself, imagine that it’s as if a friend, mentor, family member, or even your pet is saying it to you. Really let it sink in and offer you comfort. 

3. Common humanity is the ability to recognize the universality of the feeling, it might sound something like this: “I can recognize that this is a part of the human experience, at times everyone feels shame or disappointed in a choice they make.” This practice of self-compassion is asking yourself, can you be more gentle with yourself? Can you see that you were having a really bad day and struggling and the food felt like the only option you had to feel better at the time? Changing a pattern of behavior is really, really difficult. It takes so much time, effort, focus, intention, and practice to do. The process of self-compassion and being with yourself in this kinder, more gentle way allows you to heal some of the underlying negative mental and emotional patterns that are perpetuating the behavioral patterns. It all works together.

I recommend adding a daily self-compassion practice where you can check in with yourself consistently and begin to offer yourself this three step process. Go through the steps of offering yourself mindful awareness, self-kindness (just like you would to a friend) and giving yourself the opportunity to connect with the felt sense of the common humanity of your feelings and experiences. Remember that you get good at what you practice. This will feel hard at first. Remember that you most likely would never speak to someone else the way you speak to yourself in those negative self-talk moments. So why do you allow yourself to speak to yourself in this way? Most people don’t even notice the level of cruelty they inflict on themselves, and yet they feel the painful impact and discomfort that becomes self-created. Also, many people fear that being kind and gentle with themselves will make them feel like they get a pass, that they’ll never change if they aren’t uncomfortable or unkind to themselves. Maybe they received “tough love” or felt that they were shamed into doing things or being a certain way that was expected of them growing up and then they internalized this way of speaking to themselves. However, this cruelty never works in the long run. Unkindness, cruelty, and meanness lead to shame, pain, and suffering. These feelings usually lead to increased feeling of defeat, depression, anxiety, and fear. True change comes from encouragement, practice, self-awareness, empowerment, and more practice. Self-compassion offers a way of being with yourself that is more grounded, positive, and mindful. Compassionate eating offers of way of being with yourself and your experience with food and eating in a more kind, thoughtful, and empowered way.

The next time you find yourself in a negative thought loop, give the three step self-compassion practice a try and notice what happens for you. The next time you hear yourself saying “I should or shouldn’t be _____________, pause and try more compassionate self-talk instead and notice the outcome. Here’s to finding more inner peace, more peace with food, and more peace with your inner thoughts. Remember, you cannot heal your way out of being a human, but with practice you can love and accept yourself for exactly who you are in this moment.

To Weigh or Not to Weigh?

It seems that weight talk is constantly a topic of conversation. So many people obsess about the latest fad diet, their weight, how to lose weight, how to keep the weight off, other peoples weight and so on and so on… Body image and self-esteem have become intensely intertwined with weight.

So many people have the belief that weight loss will bring happiness and confidence. They believe that being thinner is best and that thin equals health. This simply is not true. This is a myth often perpetuated by the media and even the medical community. People often feel judged no matter what their weight is and believe that others are judging their bodies no matter what size and shape they may be. Many others are comparing themselves to everyone all around them and feeling inadequate and unworthy as a result of this comparison. This is not good!

For so many their relationship with the scale is frustrating and complicated. It feels as though stepping onto the scale will reveal whether they have been “good” or “bad”, which in turn leads to feeling either good or bad emotionally and about themselves. This action of letting the scale deliver how you will feel gives the number on the scale a tremendous amount of power over you and your mood state and self-worth.

When you step on a scale, will you feel happy because the number is lower or closer to what you think you want it to be? When you step on a scale will you feel angry, disappointed or shameful because the number is higher or climbing away from what you believe is an acceptable number to see? If the scale creates anxiety, tension, anger, stress, fear or shame it may be time to change your relationship with the scale—it may be time to break up with your scale.

Many of those I work with have a very complicated relationship with the scale and nearly all say that weighing themselves is a dreaded experience that provokes anxiety. Giving the scale this power over you robs you of your joy and can have a lasting impact all throughout the day on how you feel about yourself. The scale can also create a false sense of happiness and when you place your worth into a number on the scale, either way, you’re giving your power away to the scale.

So many feel confused about whether or not to use a scale as a tool in their journey of healing their relationship with food. I try to encourage everyone to make the choice that is best for them and serves their goals and allows them to feel empowered. There is no one right answer to the question of whether to weigh or not to weigh?

If you do choose to weigh yourself, these are some questions to consider before stepping a foot onto the scale:

-Will I be disappointed if the number is higher than the last time I stepped onto the scale?

-Can I view the number in a nonjudgmental way, not as a good number or a bad number, just information?

-Can I tell myself that I am worthy no matter what the number is on the scale?

-Can I feel deserving of eating and nourishing my body if the number is higher than I anticipated or hoped for?

-Can I use a self-affirming statement to remind myself that my worth is far greater than any number on the scale?

If you choose to step on the scale, it will be helpful if you can use the concept of nonjudgment within the process. When you engage with the number on the scale nonjudgmentally, the number is not good or bad, it’s just a number. The number does not represent if you are good or bad, it’s just a number. The number does not reflect your worth, it’s just a number. If you can approach the process with this nonjudgmental awareness and feel that the number is just information that can simply inform your process, then by all means, step on the scale. If you can’t, don’t.

If you feel you cannot answer the above questions affirmatively and that you will indeed judge yourself or feel less worthy based on the number, or if you will choose not to feed yourself, or binge because of the frustration, then it will not serve in your healing process to step on the scale.

The scale often represents emotional residue from diet culture where the only goal you have is to lose weight. This becomes so deeply entrenched with self-worth that if the number does not change or goes up it means that you have been “bad” or “cheating” on your diet. If the number goes down you have been being “good” and are celebrated. If you can untangle your relationship with your past dieting and empower yourself to eat in a way that serves your body and satisfies your mind and body, the number will begin to have less control over you. The more you ease away from dieting and more into intuitive and mindful eating, the less you will allow or rely on the scale to determine your worth and happiness.

I’d recommend that you do break up with your scale, committing to do so for just one month. During this month you can see what mental and emotional impact that it may have on you to not weigh yourself AT ALL.

Be curious about how it feels to leave the scale behind for a bit and notice if it frees up space in your mind. Be curious to see if it allows you to feel more empowered and in control, or if it leaves you feeling helpless and out of control. Just notice, be aware and allow this time away from obsessing about a number inform the way you interact with and use a scale going forward.

Once some people try this exercise of breaking up with the scale for a month, they choose to get rid of the scale for good (woo hoo!) Others find that they can begin to shift their relationship with it over time and experience their weight nonjudgmentally when they do step on the scale. Some find they are indeed able to use their weight as information in a nonemotional way. For some who choose to break up with their scale for good, they will ask their doctors and nurses to keep the number to themselves at the doctor’s office, they’d prefer not to know.

Wherever you are with your relationship with the scale is ok, and if you’d like that relationship to change, know that it can. You can feel empowered to make the choice you’d like to make when it comes to the question, to weigh or not to weigh?

No matter what you choose, know that you are worthy of feeling good and nourishing and caring for your body no matter what. You are worthy and deserve to speak to yourself, treat yourself and be treated by others with respect, kindness and compassion.

Your weight does not reflect or determine your worth. When you step into your worth and empower yourself to choose how to relate to a scale, even if that means breaking up with it for good, you will feel your worth expanding in a healthy, empowering and meaningful way.