CRITICAL MASS

How to avoid debilitating self-criticism and why it’s stupid in the first place. Words of wisdom from Mr Worst Case Scenario.

TREAT YOUR INNER voice as a cable network or streaming service. There are shows that you like and there are programmes that make you depressed. Examples of the former: The Big Bang Theory, Friends, Spongebob Squarepants. Examples of the latter: The News – any news, any network, it really doesn’t matter. Some shows cheer us up and make us feel better about our lives – they may be nothing more than temporary distractions, but we’re happier when we laugh – something to do with dolphins swimming about in our brains (‘endorphins’, please – ed.) When we watch the news or even current affairs programmes, it can make us feel blue and we tend to get even more introspective. We feel for those who are suffering – if we have an ounce of empathy – and that makes us think about ourselves in the cosmic scheme of things, and, if we are self-critical (as many of us are) we can get unhappy or depressed to the point of debilitation.

This is partly to do with who we are, but more, perhaps, to do with who we want to be or think we should be. It’s about the fantasies we create for ourselves in terms of leading the perfect lives. In the modern world, expectations are high and we’re all too aware that we didn’t spend a seemingly inordinate amount of time in educational establishments not to be successful in whatever we have chosen to do.

We rarely give ourselves breaks because we don’t think we deserve them. Why am I not CEO by now? How come my lasagne is too runny? Why doesn’t everybody, and I mean everybody, like me?

Our minds can be our best friends, but more often than not, they’re our worst enemies because we think about things too much and we’re far too prepared to listen to the negative impulses of our inner voices that tell us we’re not good enough and that we could do better. We always feel that we have to be the perfect ‘us’, and we feel that if we’re not, no one’s going to love us, and we’ll be rejected, unloved and unwanted.

Let’s just accept that most of the things we do are carried out to avoid shame and self-criticism – it’s easy to selfflagellate when we make mistakes and even easier to dwell on those mistakes. We seem to feel that those around us are the personifications of perfection – leading lives that we can only dream of – whereas the reality is almost certainly that they are just as messed up as we are.

According to very unscientific studies, we have, approximately, 60,000 thoughts a day. There are, therefore, 60,000 opportunities for pumping ourselves up or beating ourselves down. There may well be 60,000 different channels to choose from in our multimedia universe, so isn’t it time that we started tuning in to the parts of our inner dialogue that entertain us and make us happier.

It’s not such a bad idea to remind yourself, from time to time, that you can be a bit of an idiot. Perhaps then we won’t all be so self-critical.