Do you punish yourself? You may not even realize you do so. But if you are your own harshest critic, you likely engage in self-punishment.
Self-punishment shows up as demeaning self-talk, negative thoughts about yourself, self-blame, and repetitive stories about your failures, faults, or mistakes. It also can involve overeating, addictions, or a lack of self-care.
The results of any self-punishment are always the same:
- You feel horrible about yourself.
- You feel guilty for past (or current) actions.
- You feel ashamed of yourself and who you are.
- You don’t take new actions that benefit you.
- You remain stuck.
- You don’t become the person you know you can—and want to be.
- You feel afraid to make any change, even if it is a positive one.
How You Punish Yourself
It’s essential to understand how you self-punish. A few examples might shed light on your self-punishing behavior.
Let’s say you once lied to your boss and got fired as a result. Every time you tell yourself or someone else that story, you punish yourself again for that event. You might be—and probably are—a totally different person now. Yet, when you tell the story, you affirm you are still that past version of yourself—a liar—and feel bad about yourself.
That’s self-punishment.
Retelling that story (or any story like it) punishes you. Sharing your past makes you feel horrible about yourself and your past actions.
Or you may continually tell yourself and others that you are to blame for your daughter disowning you. “It’s my fault. I should have stopped offering my opinion on her choice of partner, job, and wardrobe. I meddle and control.”
Ever since your daughter asked you to never call her again, you’ve been overeating and drinking too much. You now weigh 30 pounds more than is healthy and have started to lose friends because of how you behave when you drink. Even your husband is complaining and threatening to divorce you if nothing changes.
Blame, overeating, and overdrinking are forms of self-punishment.
It’s time to stop punishing yourself, is it not?
Five Effective Ways to Stop Punishing Yourself
Internalized negativity is self-criticism. Self-criticism is self-punishment. All your negative thoughts, beliefs, and stories about yourself, as well as your self-defeating behaviors, punish you in some manner.
Treat yourself with love and kindness instead. Reward yourself more often. Do these things and you’ll increase your level of self-esteem and foster a more positive relationship with yourself—and others.
Stop punishing yourself by adopting the following five simple yet powerful mindset and behavioral changes.
1. Change Your Thoughts
Your internal dialogue can be punishing and critical or rewarding and supportive. In either case, it shapes your sense of worth and identity.
Become aware of your thoughts. Pay attention to the mental chatter—what you say to yourself throughout the day—and how much of it is negative and punishing.
Challenge your negative thoughts about yourself. Ask, “Is that true?” The answer is, “Probably not”…at least not all the time.
Flip your negative self-talk to positive thoughts about yourself. For example, when you catch yourself thinking, “I’m so stupid,” reframe it to, “Everyone makes mistakes; I can learn from this.”
Replace self-critical thoughts with positive or neutral ones. For instance, instead of “I always mess up,” try “I did my best, and I can improve.”
Let’s say you dent your new car by accident. Your brain automatically turns to thoughts like “Oh, my God! I did it again…just like that time I dented my parents’ car. They were so angry! I guess they were right, I’m careless and a bad driver. I don’t deserve a new car.”
When you become aware of the thoughts (in the form of self-talk), change them up! Tell yourself, “Accidents happen; I can get the car fixed and be more careful. I’m a good driver. I’ve never had a serious accident. I can take good care of my new car.”
You are the thinker of your thoughts. If you automatically can think negative thoughts, you can also intentionally choose to think positive thoughts.
2. Change Your Stories
Stories are personal narratives you tell yourself (or others) about who you are based on past experiences. Like thoughts you think often, stories can become beliefs about yourself. They inform how you see yourself and become your identity.
And they can be used to punish yourself. Each time you tell the story, you remind yourself of past events and who you were then—even though you are no longer that person. And then you feel bad about yourself.
Notice when you tell yourself, “I’m always clumsy” or “I’m bad at managing money.” (These are identity statements.) Then, become aware of how that self-talk evolves into reminders of the “time when…” The stories that ensue might involve the time when you fell and broke your ankle, dropped an expensive vase, or accrued $20,000 in credit card debt.
Recognize that these old stories no longer serve you. And, more than likely, you are no longer that person. You’ve grown and changed, even learned from those experiences.
In a similar fashion to changing your stories, you can create new stories that reflect your current identity and past learning and [personal growth]https://ninaamir.com/roi-impacts-entire-life/). For instance, replace “I’m bad at managing money” with “I am learning to manage my finances better every day. I put money automatically in my savings account each month, and I stick to my budget.”
Shaping new stories replaces negative, limiting beliefs about your past and yourself with positive, unlimited ones based on the present. This practice changes your thoughts and, therefore, your beliefs about yourself, helps you break the cycle of telling punishing old stories, and reinforces a positive self-image.
3. Change Your Actions
Too often, our actions follow our thoughts, beliefs, and stories about ourselves. If you continue to think about how bad you are with money and tell stories about your debt, you will continue to do the things that cause you money problems. You’ll punish yourself for past money problems by having the same challenges in the present. That fact reinforces your belief that you are a person who is bad with money.
But just like you can choose your thoughts and stories, you can choose your actions. For example, you can avoid punishing behaviors like:
- shopping when you don’t have money.
- engaging in online searches for things you want to purchase—but can’t afford.
- avoiding bill paying until you receive late notices.
Why are these activities self-punishing? They cause you to feel upset, guilty, and angry.
Instead, you can choose to:
- start living within your financial means.
- stop overspending.
- save $100 every week.
Such actions are rewarding in and of themselves. They make you feel good and shift your identity. Repeated actions create habits, and habits shape your self-image.
4. Change Your Identity
Your identity is who you believe yourself to be, or how you perceive and present yourself to others. Your old negative thoughts, stories, and actions punish you for who you used to be—for being someone who failed, behaved in a hurtful manner, lied, or did something wrong.
But that is who you were; it’s not necessarily who you are now—or who you choose to be. Yet, every time you engage in negative self-talk, tell old stories about yourself, or act as if you are still that person, you punish yourself. You tell yourself you are still that person—a failure, self-centered, dishonest, or lazy person, for instance. And that hurts. That’s punishing.
Are you really that person now? Probably not. So, acknowledge how you have changed and behave as the person you are now—instead of perpetuating the thoughts, stories, and actions of someone you stopped being long ago.
And if you are still that person but want to change, choose to be someone different. Decide who you want to be today. Leave the past identity stories behind, and create a new one based on a new identity you choose..
For example, instead of aligning with your old identity—“I’m someone who is bad at managing money.”—choose a new identity—“I am someone who manages money wisely.” If your brain starts telling you that you are not that person, affirm that you are. And prove that to be true with your thoughts, beliefs, and stories about yourself as well as with your actions. Then your habits and mindset will align with that identity. You’ll find yourself thinking and behaving differently.
Let’s say you choose to be someone who feels their emotions, rather than numbing them with alcohol. Embody that identity. You’ll find you don’t choose alcohol when upset, and you’ll believe feeling your emotions is healthy, even if uncomfortable.
5. Change How You Treat Yourself
Instead of punishing yourself, treat yourself with love and kindness. If you’ve been punishing yourself for years, this may feel uncomfortable. But you can do it.
Here are a few ways:
- Use kind, supportive self-talk.
- Forgive yourself for past mistakes.
- Choose who to be now.
- Tell stories about who you are or want to be.
- Celebrate who you have become.
- Respect your emotional needs.
- Reward yourself for small and large wins.
- Give yourself some grace, especially when things go wrong.
The more compassionate you are toward yourself, the less you’ll feel the need to self-punish. You’ll also retrain your brain to be supportive rather than punishing.
The Power of Self-Love
Self-love lies at the heart of these five strategies. By loving yourself more fully, you automatically reduce your need to punish yourself.
When you come from a loving perspective, you realize you are not your past. You can stop making yourself feel terrible by listening to negative self-talk or stories. And you can avoid engaging in behaviors that make you feel horrible in the short or long run.
Letting go of self-punishing behavior requires patience and conscious effort. It’s a process of personal growth that results in change. Yet, every small change helps you treat yourself with more kindness, self-respect, and understanding.
How do you punish yourself? Tell me why in a comment below. And please share this post with those who may benefit from reading it.
Image courtesy of luismolinero.
