Being self-critical much? It accomplishes nothing, being self-critical, rather drowns us into a pit of overwhelming anxieties.

It’s one of the raging mental health concerns that plague us in this pandemic of grind culture. We miss a tiny bit of step and we are right at the bottom of the pit again, trying to climb out of it, fighting with our ferocious claws, just to survive. And any small amount of failure in this violent survival struggle will straight away get into this whirlwind of self-criticism.

In my case, it’s mostly the voice of my professor mother, or the fifth grade teacher, at times even it is my own quaky voice. But there is always that voice telling us where all we went wrong. If you are going through such an experience, chances are you are in a streak of being overly self-critical. And it’s never ever good. It hampers our creativity, productivity, peace of mind and above all it hinders our life as a whole, getting us into this rush of survival.

But then the question lies, how to avoid such a whirlwind? How do we stop our minds from being overly self critical?

Whenever you find yourself in your thoughts, constantly criticizing yourself or judging your every action, and reaction, be aware. Catch your mind at the very act of self-criticism. It’s mostly a result of being too scared of the outer world but it has deep rooted seed into our own personal traumas. So whenever you feel you are being judged, notice whether it’s actually you yourself who is judging your action. Most of the time you will find the answer to be affirmative. That’s where your work starts. Catch your mind judging yourself and then practice active empathy towards yourself. It’s simple. Just cut yourself some slack, like you would for other people. Try and understand why the fault took place in the first place, rather than blaming yourself. Be aware and learn from it, you will see you have stopped repeating those mistakes.

These feelings stem out of chronic emptiness that our cultures and society constantly feed into our psyche. They have zero credibility to their name. If your surroundings are telling you that you are not good enough, the first thing is to remind yourself that YOU ARE. And the second thing would be to change your surroundings; it has become toxic for you.

Well, that’s how you can counter the cycle of self-criticism.