How to stop blaming yourself for all deadly sins

Feeling guilty about yourself is not always a healthy manifestation of self-criticism. When it develops into constant self-flagellation, it's time to pay attention to it and start doing something. Psychologist Naomi Rein will help to figure out where this feeling comes from and how to cope with it. In the book How to Love Yourself, she tells in detail how to make friends with your inner experiences and what causes them.

Where is the line between healthy self-criticism and self-flagellation?

We were told from childhood that it is a shame to praise ourselves, but to criticize and squabble is a good thing. These reproaches have become so much a habit that you no longer understand where you really made a mistake, and where nothing depended on you. But only you are the last in your head.

If two minutes is enough for you to come up with a thousand and one reasons why you are to blame for a particular situation, it's time to deal with the level of criticism.

According to Tackling Self-Blame and Self-Criticism: 5 Strategies to Try psychologists, there is a big difference between logical explanations of a negative outcome by certain factors and the constant search for the culprit, which is most often you. The second option is a habit learned from childhood, which it is time to leave in the past.

Here are typical examples of blaming yourself without reason:

"I was not hired because the interviewer realized that I was a weakling and a failure."
“We broke up because it’s too hard to love me.”
"I shouldn't even have tried to get a promotion because I'm not good enough for the job."

Having evaluated how certain actions influenced the result, you will see the situation from a completely different side. To better understand what happened, ask yourself these questions:

What exactly depended on you in this situation?
What depended on the other people who participated in it?
What actions have influenced the result?
What actions of others influenced the result?
What can you change at the moment?

Objective answers to them will make it clear whether you are really as bad as you claim.

What causes the accusations

Echoes of the past

Any character trait or behavior has its origins in childhood. They are formed from birth and largely depend on what and who surrounds the child. The same can be said about the habit of blaming yourself.

Naomi Rein is actively developing the theory of internal figures and believes that any severe shock in childhood must be fully experienced by a child, otherwise it will traumatize the child's psyche.

To survive is to tell someone an adult who will understand, comfort and protect. Cry, get angry, be afraid in the arms of the one whom the child loves and trusts. Hear words of support, explanations of what is happening. Feel good, valuable, dear.

Naomi Rain

But often in life, everything is completely different. At best, parents simply do not take the side of the child or do not pay due attention to his feelings, at worst - they themselves are a source of threat, violence and humiliation. Parents can blame the child, shame, reject, devalue his feelings and shut up, which forms in him a stable opinion that he is bad and he is to blame. After all, parents are the closest people who are always right and know everything. Then the Accuser appears inside the child. And already as an adult, he himself shames, scolds and criticizes himself.

Internal figures

The emerging Accuser is far from the only figure that can play a role in our behavior. Psychologists distinguish three main internal figures: the Child, the Oppressive Parent, and the Loving Mom.

The Inner Child is about feelings, desires, energy, interest, inspiration, creative ideas, intuition, spontaneity and immediacy.

The Oppressive Parent is the part of the personality that is responsible for moral norms, frameworks, rules and their observance. This figure can criticize, scold, demand, expect, condemn, blame, shame, punish, and silence. She is sure that she always knows what is right and demands compliance with these canons. The Oppressive Parent can manifest itself in different ways. He will be the Prosecutor if the parents most often condemned the child in childhood, the Critic if they reproached and devalued, and the Tyrant if they frightened and suppressed.

Loving Mom is a source of constant inner support, support and protection. This figure is not present in everyone, it needs to be grown inside, and it will help to cope with many problems. Including with incessant self-accusation.

How to find a Loving Mom and make peace with the Accuser

1. Find someone who will love

But you should not rush to the first comer in search of unearthly feelings and love until the end of time. Start with yourself.

Loving Mom is accepting and approving oneself differently, supporting any oneself; it is the ability to rely on one's own resources - not to demand and expect care and love from others, but to give them to oneself.

Naomi Rain

That is why the one who loves is, first of all, you yourself. You need to find the very Loving Mom in yourself who will come into contact with the Inner Child and protect you from the Accuser. To do this, learn to listen to the Child and respond to him. Take time for yourself, ask yourself about your feelings, comfort, support, wrap yourself in a blanket and give yourself some tea if the Child needs it.

One of the methods that Naomi Rein gives in her book is as follows. A person is invited to remember when the most terrible and painful shock in childhood happened to him. After that, you need to write a letter from yourself at that age to yourself as an adult. You can also write a response letter: from the elder to the baby. After that, you need to analyze the feelings that these letters express. This brings the person closer to dialogue with his Inner Child.

2. Quiet the Accuser

When the contact of the Loving Mom with the Child is established, proceed to action. Having learned to separate and hear these two figures, you can easily identify the third - the same Accuser. And you can neutralize him only by clearly understanding when his voice is heard inside you.

“It’s his own fault! You should have guessed right away! Why didn't you think? Here is stupid! - typical phrases of the Internal Accuser. Familiar thoughts?

Hearing something like this, you must immediately connect that very Loving Mom who wrapped you in a blanket. Only now she should no longer communicate with the Child. Make it clear to the raging inner Accuser that the Child should not be touched, and explain to him who is really to blame and whether or not (analysis on the questions from the first point will help in this). It will take a long time before you learn how to pacify the Prosecutor in no time, but Moscow was not built in one day either.

3. Don't go back to self-flagellation

The main thing to remember when calming the Accuser once or twice is that this figure is as much a part of you as the Child and Mom. Accordingly, it will not go anywhere and will not disappear, but will always control your actions and check if everything is done correctly. That is why it is important to always remember that it can and should be put in place.

The prosecutor is on our side. He wishes us well, wants to help, to protect us from failure or shame, from risks.

Naomi Rain

However, sometimes it gets out of control and demands the firm word of the Loving Mom. In a healthy version, the power in consciousness belongs to the center of the personality. The Center of the Personality, or What does it mean to be harmonious inside. But often the Prosecutor takes up too much space, claiming the main role and not listening to anyone. At such moments, it is necessary to stop him, take power and show that you are still in charge here.

In conclusion, I would like to add that the theory of internal figures contains many more ramifications and explains not only the phenomenon of self-flagellation, but also other problems that we face in our behavior. You can learn more about it by reading the book "How to Love Yourself" by psychologist Naomi Rein, which served as the inspiration for writing this article.

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