How to untangle from self judgment

When we are caught in self- judgment and self-hate, the more primitive parts of our brain get activated.

That means we often find ourselves in state of fight, flight or freeze and our red alert system is constantly on the lookout for danger or threat. This is even more likely when we dealing with cumulative stress impacts or if you have had negative messaging imprinted from developmental trauma.

So here is a tool from Tara Brach, Ph.D, which will help you get unstuck from patterns of self loathing that can creep up when your brain is stressed. It’s an opportunity to be there as the loving parent for yourself even when that seems impossible.

3 Steps for letting go of self judgment

1. Learning to observe your own thoughts

2. Mindfully sense your own feelings

3. Offer gestures of care to your inner self

Each of these are important for our transforming our sense of who we are. That’s why the 3 processes are so important:

Each of the above steps activates the more recently evolved parts of our brain, the frontal cortex and the neural pathways responsible for reason, empathy and compassion. These processes move us from the survival physiology that gets triggered in stress: “fight, flight, freeze”, to a state described as “tend and befriend”.

Through these three processes we are literally evolving ourselves to relate to our inner life from a more whole, caring and intelligent perspective. We are also more available to receive support and connect with others.

Here is a breakdown of the processes in more detail:

1. Learning to observe your own thoughts

a. Simply being a witness to your thoughts: step back and observe what is moving through your mind

2. Mindfully sense your own feelings (and allow them to be just as they are)

a. Pay attention to what is underneath the judgments

b. Name the feelings. 

Labeling activates frontal cortex and shifts out of limbic system, thus emotions have less capacity to take over and possess us. We become more like the ocean, with more room for the waves.

c. Let the feelings move through you.

When we resist emotions, that’s when our own inner conflict poisons our relationship with self and others.

d. If noticing pain, acknowledge the truth: that this is suffering.

You can even say “ouch”, “this hurts” or “this is suffering”.  When we can acknowledge suffering we have set the grounds for genuine compassion, allows us to feel caring towards ourselves.

3. Offer gestures of care to your inner self

--put hand on heart and offer words of care to the hurting place

--picture waves of caring coming into your heart

--imagine a warm blanket comforting the pain

--or what ever gesture seems appropriate to you

Now take a moment to practice this skill.  Like anything, it might seem strange at first, but with regular practice in the moment, or in a dedicated timeframe each day, it can help you shift towards a more compassionate and spacious inner life, rather than a self-harmful one.

A therapist that you feel comfortable with can also be an excellent support in shifting these patterns- remember you don’t have to do it alone.

Drawn from “Radical Acceptance: Embracing your life with the heart of a Budda”, www.tarabrach.com

Making friends with your Amygdala

Your Amygdala is a part of you that wants your attention.  Its the brain's "smoke" detector, and it is the key structure that activates your body's alert response to stress, coordinated by your sympathetic nervous system, commonly called "fight or flight". If you've been dealing with high stress for any period of time- short or long, that detector has been making noise.

How do I reset the smoke detector?

Your biological system is constantly scanning your environment, assessing "how safe is this?". If your alarm is going off in the absence of an external threat, then it is likely reacting to something it has coded as an internally generated threat signal, and it won't allow deactivation. The reaction is "where's the fire"- and we try to find the source of threat.   Usually we will find something in the environment to project our sense of threat onto.

However if you can can allow your attention to go out into the environment and simply see what you see, hear what you hear, smell what you smell, etc; allowing your senses to take in the actual experience, then your attention is going to a different brain department - the part responsible for orientation.  

The result is that it comes out of the loop of "hey there's something wrong here and I have to figure out what it is" and it lets your system of neuroception do its job- to assess the safety of the current moment, and suddenly you feel more safe.  This felt sense of safety initiates and helps sustain a physiological phase of relaxation and also human connection. 

Orientation Exercise-

For the next 30 seconds, simply allow your eyes to go where they want to go in the environment you are in.  Let yourself experience your seeing without going into analysis.  

Notice how you feel afterwards.  Notice any shifts in your physiology that happened as a result of your engagement with your environment.

Try this anytime when you are noticing your "smoke alarm" going off. In so doing, you will be re-training your systems to utilize its capacity for renewal and full sensory engagement and greater feelings of aliveness.

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