Cultivate Compassion by Knowing How to Silence Your Inner Critic
Feb 26, 2024
Last week we tackled the question whether you’re responsible for your child’s happiness?
And how children are all about instant satisfaction. Am I Really Responsible for Making My Child Happy? (emmagrantauthor.com)
It’s so easy to be annoyed at their behaviour, but it’s natural for them to feel unhappy when they can’t get what they want. So instead, try cultivating some compassion.
Cultivate Compassion for your child?
It’s in those moments, when they’re frustrated, angry and upset, that they’re seeking compassion and understanding.
Once you get why your child feels or acts a certain way and that it’s not their fault, you can help them feel happier. And by adopting realistic expectations for your child's age, you come to realize that messy emotions, mistakes, and challenges are essential for your child's growth and development.
When you and your child learn to accept the inevitable chaos together, life becomes a beautiful adventure that you can both navigate with ease and resilience.
You can never avoid mistakes, challenges or emotions, so why try to resist them?
Your Parenting Superpower
When things don’t go according to plan, children get upset and often they don’t understand why. In those moments, when they make a mistake, they are looking for your reassurance and some empathy. ‘I told you so’s’ are a parenting cliché of the past. They teach your child nothing but that you were right, and they were wrong. Instead, you’re better off reassuring them. They did what they could do, the best they could, and that’s always good enough. Let empathy be your parenting superpower.
The amount of empathy you have towards them in times of trouble will determine the amount of compassion they have for themselves. Tell your child to be kind to themselves like they would be to their best friend going through the same thing. Then extend this compassion to yourself.
There’s no such thing as perfection—it’s an impossible standard. It’s alright when your child isn’t acting perfectly, and it’s perfectly fine for you not to have everything under control. Embrace the beautifully messy reality of parenting.
Phew!!!! Take a huge sigh of relief now, Muma!
And start setting realistic expectations for both your child and yourself—whether it’s parenting or personal goals.
Cultivate Compassion for Your Self
Embracing self-compassion leads to greater happiness and well-being—science says so! But it’s an ongoing practice.
Self-compassion is the practice of treating yourself with kindness, understanding, and patience, especially during challenging moments of motherhood. It involves acknowledging and validating your own struggles and emotions without harsh self-judgment. And offering the same love and support to oneself that a caring friend would provide. Fostering a positive and nurturing relationship with yourself, amidst the demands and joys of motherhood, will help you prevent parental burnout.
Practice Mindful Self-talk
Consider now how you can set realistic expectations for yourself. Take a moment to reflect: where might you be overly critical of yourself? Challenge those thoughts and find a perspective where you acknowledge that you’re doing your best in each situation.
It’s said that we have between 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day. According to Jay Shetty at The Becoming Unstoppable event, Saturday, hosted by Jamie Kern Lima 80% of those thoughts are negative and repetitive. He goes on to say that all of our happiness or stress in life is based on one thing….our most repeated thought.
You’re never going to be a perfect parent and you won’t always get everything right and that’s normal, and it’s okay. But you are always doing the best that you can in any given moment and that is always good enough. Start to focus on what you are doing right and stop punishing yourself for everything.
No one is harsher on you than you are.
It’s time to ditch that monkey mind and become your own best friend and learn how to silence your own inner critic.
You can do this by being mindful of your inner dialogue and catching yourself when your mind goes on a negative rampage.
And by replacing those self-critical thoughts with kind, understanding ones. Affirmations can help with this. Take a look at Affirmations Don’t Work for Everyone! (emmagrantauthor.com) for more on these.
A Secret Trick to Silence Your Own Inner Critic 
Would you call your best mate ‘Stupid?’ ‘Ugly’ ‘Fat?’ ‘Useless?’
I hope not. So why talk to yourself like that?
Use self- talk that you would use to a best friend.
A trick I once heard that worked was to give your mind (self- talk) a name.
Maybe even two names. And don’t identify with it as, ‘I am’ or ‘I think’ (this is your automatic self-talk not affirmations).
Let’s say Grace is your friend. She loves you unconditionally; she knows you so well and she can understand why you act the way you do sometimes (she knows your history and conditioning).
Grace knows what you are good at. She’s got your back, and she’s always positive.
Go Grace!
Then there’s the other voice in your head, Debbie. She knows all your faults, failures, and shortcomings. Debbie remembers every negative comment and experience you’ve had. She’s judgy, negative and has unrealistically high expectations of you. Guilt is her poison. She doesn’t really know the real you that well because she’s always busy focusing on the external world. She’s consumed with internally criticizing and finding all your flaws. She doesn’t really want you to change or believe you can. Fearing success as much as failure, she sees obstacles everywhere, and she’s always going on about should have’s, would, have’s, could haves. She drives you mad!
Debbie Downer!
Of course, other names are available and I’m sorry if your name is Debbie, it just went with downer and it’s nothing personal, just ask Grace!
But you get the idea. A bit like the devil on one side of your shoulder whispering in your ear and an angel on the other.
So next time you have a challenge in life or you make a mistake, which voice in side you will you choose to listen to?
Go Grace or Debbie Downer?
Self -sabotage, guilt, blame, resentment and low self-worth are real, so you have to get to know those voices inside you and stop listening to them. Listen to the voice of love and have some self- compassion.
Be kind to you. You’re a good enough mum, and that’s always good enough.
If you need further support to help you become more self-compassionate and get rid of that negative mental chatter, then Mumatherapy® Motivations our email Newsletter for working mums will help.
Simply fill out the form below to join our newsletter and you'll also get your free Muma Got Goals Goal Book!
I Look forward to connecting with you,
Em x
Stay connected & join our Newsletter Mumatherapy Motivations for working mums in need of some weekly motivation with tips & Support.
RELAX, RESTORE & RESET!
Download your free Mumatherapy Muma Got Goals Free Goal Book & Easily Achieve Your GoalsĀ
Don't worry, your information will not be shared.
We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.
