How to Silence Your Inner Critic →
From Lifehacker:
Whenever Attia would catch himself having a negative self talk, he would have to immediately stop whatever activity he had just messed up. Then, he would have to pretend it was actually a dear friend who had just flunked the task, and replace the self talk by audibly speaking to that person as if they were there. He would record the “conversation” on his phone and send it to his therapist.
Naturally, he would speak in a much kinder way to this friend, rather than angrily to himself. After about several months of doing this activity four or five times a day, Attia claims he can’t remember how his inner critic even sounds anymore.
The trick has to do with the brain’s ability to changing, or as he talks about in his book and is known in the scientific community, its neuroplasticity—the ability of the neural networks in the brain to change and adapt throughout an individual’s life.
While people who have a toxic inner monologue lack empathy for themselves, most still have it for other people. Ultimately, he is hacking his brain into talking to himself in a much more loving way and undoing 47 years of toxic inner monologue.
Be brave enough to suck at something new.
If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.
—Anthony Bourdain
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.
—Anthony Bourdain
Make yourself of a priority. You are your longest commitment.
“Do You” vs. “Be Like Me”
There are two kinds of people:
-
Those who encourage you to be the best version of you and will support you as long as you’re happy & healthy (and don’t hurt anyone else’s happiness/health).
-
Those who push you to be more like them, because if you don’t, then something is “wrong” with you.
Sometimes people use "respect" to mean "treating someone like a person," and sometimes they use "respect" to mean "treating someone like an authority."
And sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say, "if you won't respect me, I won't respect you," and they mean "if you won't treat me like an authority, I won't treat you like a person."
And they think they're being fair but they aren't, and it's not okay.
Love is a Verb
When people say, "you have to love yourself first," it means more than just being able to look yourself in the mirror and say, "I love myself" and "I'm comfortable in my own skin."
Loving yourself is about those little acts you make every day that strengthen your mind, body, and spirit.