How to Break Out of Limiting Self Beliefs

'It's part of the human condition that we create stories about ourselves and the world around us. Our stories are often filled with limitations, and we proceed to live our lives inside those limitations.'  Kelly Wilson & Troy Dufrene

If we can learn to hold all of our stories lightly - good and bad, true and false - then we can start to be able to take important actions even in the presence of thoughts that are telling us: 'You aren't smart enough. You aren't pretty enough. You don't know enough'.


The important thing here is not to take action in a rigid, bare knuckles kind of way but instead take action from a place of self compassion.  Holding that part of ourselves that is feeling scared and vulnerable with kindness whilst still doing what is important.

Using the 'Dependency Paradox' to Make Yourself More Attractive

I'm starting with three assumptions here:

1. Being needy is usually unattractive to emotionally healthy people
2. We all get needy at times
3. We tend to get especially needy when we are anxious that our needs aren't going to get met.

In Scientific American Mind, Amir Levine and Rachel Heller explore the ‘dependency paradox’. They found that the more people can depend on their partner, the more ‘independent and creative’ they become. This is a bit like how little children with reliable parents tend to feel secure and are more confident about venturing into the world. They know that Mum or Dad will still be there when they return, so they can happily explore.

Levine and Heller’s finding is important – it resonates with my third point. In a cruel twist of fate, when we most want to find someone who will love us; when we feel desperate and dateless; it is then that we are at our least attractive. Potential partners can sense our neediness (even if we try to hide it) and run a mile.


We know that neediness isn’t attractive (except to rescuers, and that never ends well). And we also know that being dateless seems to make us more needy.  Aaargh!

So what is to be done? Common advice here is to become comfortable with being alone. But I think that Levine and Heller's research suggests that it might be wiser to acknowledge that our needs aren't being met and make practical plans to deal with this.

Regular readers will be unsurprised to discover that I think that Mindfulness might be helpful here. When needy feelings arise, notice them with compassion. Don’t try to squish them away or tell yourself you are wrong to feel that way. We all feel needy at times. This is a time to be very, very kind to yourself. Then decide – Shall I ask for some support from a loved one (again with an attitude of openness – they are allowed to say ‘No’) or shall I soothe myself? If you aren't good at soothing yourself, then I recommend this book.

I have been critical of therapy in this blog. However, I think that for some people, a long term supportive relationship with a reliable and compassionate therapist can be incredibly helpful. The trick here is to discern helpful from unhelpful therapy. Consider the question: ‘Does my relationship with this therapist make me feel less or more needy?’ Levine and Heller report that:

‘Most men and women are as needy as their unmet needs. When their emotional needs are met, they usually turn their attention outwards’.

 Sometimes good therapy can enable people who are prone to neediness to feel a little more secure. This lessening of their needy behaviour then allows others in their life to feel safe to be more supportive and creates a virtuous cycle.

Creatively getting unmet needs met.  If there are unmet needs (perhaps for emotional closeness, affection, belonging, praise) in your life that seem to be driving your feelings of neediness, see if you can come up with a creative solution. There is a reason that elderly ladies who live alone have cats! Regular massage lowers stress and improves well being. The research on religion suggests that people who practice their religion by going to Church/the synagogue/the mosque, being part of the community and performing acts of service have improved well being.  

The bottom line is, don't just sit there feeling lonely and needy - being alone will probably make you feel worse. Instead, be very, very kind to yourself and know that finding a constructive way to meet those dependency needs will likely make you less needy and more attractive.

Vulnerability and Connection

Truly wonderful TED talk by Brene Brown on vulnerability and connection.

She describes her research on 'the whole hearted'.  She found that they demonstrate:

• the courage to be imperfect
• compassion - for self and others
• connection to others as a result of authenticity
• willingness to fully embrace vulnerability as a necessary part of a life well-lived.

'In order for connection to happen we have to allow ourselves to be seen....really seen'

Another Reason to Build Self-Compassion

A new study just published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders has found that Self-compassion is a better predictor than mindfulness of symptom severity and quality of life in mixed anxiety and depression

‘Self-compassion predicts 18–44% of variance in anxiety, depression, worry, and quality of life’

In this community sample of people seeking self-help for 'anxious distress', self compassion had ten times more impact on the level of anxiety, depression, worry and quality of life than did mindfulness.

To put this study in context, the authors used the MAAS mindfulness scale and the self compassion scale in the comparison.

Some experts in mindfulness view the MAAS as only focussing on one aspect of mindfulness - 'open or receptive awareness of and attention to what is taking place in the present' - whereas if you look at questions in the self compassion scale it is hard not to imagine it would be associated with well being.

Having said that, this is still a cool piece of research adding to the data suggesting it is a smart idea to foster self-compassion.

There is more information on self-compassion here.  And some tips on how to increase your level of self-compassion here.

The Near Enemy of Psychological Flexibility

I recently presented an ACT workshop with NeLi Martin and she spoke about the concept of the 'near enemy'.
In our attempts to become better people the near enemy can actually be more dangerous than the far enemy.  For example, the far enemy of compassion is hatred but the near enemy is pity. It is easy to differentiate compassion from hatred but much more difficult to spot the more subtle differences between pity and compassion.
In this blog, I often mention psychological flexibility because it is associated with well being.  Steve Hayes defines psychological flexibility as:

The ability to contact the present moment

fully and without defence

as a conscious human being

engaged in life as it is – not as your mind says it is –

and, based on what the situation affords,

changing or persisting in behaviour

in the service of chosen values.

The far enemy of psychological flexibility is 'experiential avoidance' - making inflexible choices that aren't aligned with values and that have the core aim of avoiding painful thoughts, feelings or memories.  Experiential avoidance is associated with all sorts of poor outcomes.

But the near enemy is to turn the choice to live a value laden life into a harsh, 'fake it 'til you make it'; 'suck it up'; 'carry on regardless' approach.  I think if we want to avoid this near enemy, we need to have a stance of self-compassion when we are doing our best to live our values.

Emotion Differentiation as Resilience Against Excessive Alcohol Use — Psychological Science

Emotion Differentiation as Resilience Against Excessive Alcohol Use — Psychological Science

'Some people are adept at using discrete emotion categories (anxious, angry, sad) to capture their felt experience; other people merely communicate how good or bad they feel. We theorized that people who are better at describing their emotions might be less likely to self-medicate with alcohol. During a 3-week period, 106 underage social drinkers used handheld computers to self-monitor alcohol intake. From participants’ reported experiences during random prompts, we created an individual difference measure of emotion differentiation. Results from a 30-day timeline follow-back revealed that people with intense negative emotions consumed less alcohol if they were better at describing emotions and less reliant on global descriptions.'

Todd Kashdan is doing some fantastic research.  This study suggests that if we don't want our kids to binge drink in response to painful emotions then we need to teach them to be able to accurately name what they are feeling. 

Digging into that  - what exactly do we need to teach them?

1. To be good at getting present with themselves - dropping in on themselves and noticing their thoughts and feelings
2. To have a diverse emotion vocabulary - not just angry but also frustrated, irritated, bored, furious, resentful, bitter, exasperated, indignant, offended - and to know the subtle differences between these feelings

And how do we teach it:

1. Be open and curious and present with them - ask them about how they are feeling and help them tease it out, so they get good at being open and curious about their emotions
2. Model appropriate expression of painful emotions. Don't just pretend that everything is OK.  When you feel painful emotions talk it through with them - what you feel and what triggered the feeling
3. Model appropriate responses to painful emotions - show them that we don't have to act out or suppress painful emotions. We can feel the emotion, be compassionate to ourselves and  pause before we choose actions based on what is important to us.

The Benefits of Self-compassion - from wonderful Wikipedia

Self-compassion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Self-compassion is extending compassion to one's self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering. Neff has defined self-compassion as being composed of three main components - self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.^[1]

• Self-kindness: Self-compassion entails being warm towards oneself when encountering pain and personal shortcomings, rather than ignoring them or hurting oneself with self-criticism.
• Common humanity: Self-compassion also involves recognizing that suffering and personal failure is part of the shared human experience.
• Mindfulness: Self-compassion requires taking a balanced approach to one's negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. Negative thoughts and emotions are observed with openness, so that they are held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which individuals observe their thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.^[2] Conversely, mindfulness requires that one not be "over-identified" with mental or emotional phenomena, so that one suffers aversive reactions.^[3] This latter type of response involves narrowly focusing and ruminating on one's negative emotions.^[4]

Much of the research conducted on self-compassion so far has used the Self-Compassion Scale^[1], which measures the degree to which individuals display self-kindness against self-judgment, common humanity versus isolation, and mindfulness versus over-identification. Research indicates that self-compassionate individuals experience greater psychological health than those who lack self-compassion. For example, self-compassion is positively associated with life-satisfaction, wisdom, happiness, optimism, curiosity, learning goals, social connectedness, personal responsibility, and emotional resilience. At the same time, it is negatively associated with self-criticism, depression, anxiety, rumination, thought suppression, perfectionism, and disordered eating attitudes ^{[1][5][6][7][8][9][10]}

Although psychologists extolled the benefits of self-esteem for many years, recent research has exposed costs associated with the pursuit of high self-esteem^[11], including narcissism^[12], distorted self-perceptions^[13], contingent and/or unstable self-worth^[14], as well as anger and violence toward those who threaten the ego.^[15]

It appears that self-compassion offers the same mental health benefits as self-esteem, but with fewer of its drawbacks such as narcissism, ego-defensive anger, inaccurate self-perceptions, self-worth contingency, or social comparison.^[7][16]'

References

1. ^ ^a b c Neff, K. D. (2003a). The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and Identity, 2, 223-250.
2. ^ Brown, K. W. & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822-848.
3. ^ Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., Segal, Z. V. Abbey, S., Speca, M., Velting, D. Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition.Clinical Psychology Science and Practice, 11, 191-206.
4. ^ Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1991). Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 569-582.
5. ^ Adams, C. E., & Leary, M. R. (in press). Promoting Self-compassionate Attitudes toward Eating Among Restrictive and Guilty Eaters. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
6. ^ Gilbert, & Irons, 2005
7. ^ ^a b Leary, M. R., Tate, E. B., Adams, C. E., Allen, A. B., & Hancock, J. (2007). Self-compassion and reactions to unpleasant self-relevant events: The implications of treating oneself kindly.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 887-904.
8. ^ Neff, K. D., Hseih, Y., & Dejitthirat, K. (2005). Self-compassion, achievement goals, and coping with academic failure. Self and Identity, 4, 263-287.
9. ^ Neff, K. D., Kirkpatrick, K. & Rude, S. S. (2007). Self-compassion and its link to adaptive psychological functioning. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 139-154.
10. ^ Neff, K. D., & Rude, S. S., & Kirkpatrick, K. (2007). An examination of self-compassion in relation to positive psychological functioning and personality traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 908-916
11. ^ Crocker, J., & Park, L. E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 392-414.
12. ^ Bushman, B. J. & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219-229.
13. ^ Sedikides, C. (1993). Assessment, enhancement, and verification determinants of the self-evaluation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 317-338.
14. ^ Crocker, J., & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108, 593-623.
15. ^ Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review. 103, 5-33.
16. ^ Neff, K. D & Vonk, R. (submitted). Self-compassion versus self-esteem: Two different ways of relating to oneself. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Self Compassion – A Trait More Powerful Than Self-Esteem

Self Compassion – A Trait More Powerful Than Self-Esteem:

This is a great article - here are the highlights:

'having high self-esteem is related to many positive benefits such as reduced instances of depression and anxiety and greater optimism.'' however "much research also shows that people high in self-esteem are often defensive in the face of negative feedback, can be narcissistic and may not always take responsibility for their actions'

Daut suggests 'another positive trait that has many of the benefits we seek from self-esteem but without the drawbacks: self-compassion.' 'Self-compassion is defined as “being kind toward oneself in instances of pain or failure; perceiving one’s experiences as part of the larger human experience; and holding painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness (mindfulness).'(Neff, Rude, Kirkpatrick)

'People high in self-compassion react to negative feedback with more acceptance and with an orientation towards growth and the development of mastery. People low in self-compassion react in opposite ways: they reject negative feedback and often fail to learn from it.

People high in self-compassion tend to have less negative emotions when distressing events occur and take more responsibility for these events. As a result, they are also more willing to make needed changes.'

He recommends building self compassion when dealing with painful events by using 'the following prompts each of which focuses on a component of self-compassion – (1) common humanity, (2) self-kindness, (3) mindfulness.'

This means:

1. Considering how others may suffer similar difficulties - it is part of being human.
2. Treat yourself as a kind friend would treat you.
3. Notice with openness and curiosity your thoughts and emotion

Love and Pain

My two favourite men have left me for a while. My partner is off in South Africa watching the world cup and my son is going to England to meet our extended family.
I love them both and because I love them I miss them.  There is a small pain in my heart caused by their absence.
I notice that I interact with that pain in several ways.
Some days the pain is a sweet pain, I make space for it, as I know that it is a necessary part of love. It signals to me how important they both are to me and I feel lucky to have that love in my life.  Making that space also means there is space for my feelings of joy that they are off doing what is important to them.

Other days, I don't want to accept the situation, I get hooked by painful thoughts (Yesterday it was, 'If Albert was here I wouldn't be struggling to put these IKEA chairs in the car on my own''), I lose contact with the present and start counting the days until he is home.
And sometimes I manage to be in the present.  Enjoying that I have more time to hang out with my gorgeous daughter; potter in the garden; write this blog.
Kelly Wilson encourages us to compassionately 'lean in' towards ourselves when we feel pain. That is such a good move.  Next time you feel some emotional pain try it - let go of judging yourself for feeling the pain and just lean in with compassion.