He is successful and rich, but deep down he feels himself not good enough, compared with even more successful ones. She is beautiful and famous, but the inner critic is always unhappy. These habits of thinking are acquired in childhood and accompany us all our lives. Gestalt therapist Anastasia Gurneva — about whether it is possible to get rid of them and what stages you need to go through on this path.
Each person can tell how different from their parents. The most exciting process of opposing oneself to others occurs during adolescence, this is the time of making decisions: «I will never do / think / speak like my father / mother.»
Indeed, the children of thrifty parents become generous, those of settled parents become adventurous. Such a desire to change, to become a different person, can be successful in content.
But, as the psychotherapist Lyubov Moshinskaya says, if you want to create a family similar to the family of your parents, you will definitely do it. If you want to create a family that does not look like the parent, you will still create … similar to the parent.
This happens not only in this area. The struggle with the very essence of parental messages may well end in victory. You have been given the freedom to live as you choose. But they «swallowed» the way this war was fought.
For example, you managed to become free from the need to meet parental requirements, but at the same time you learned to demand something different from yourself. It seems to be freedom, but the habit has remained. Or you do something that your parents used to criticize for, but along with this action they began to condemn themselves. It seems like a victory, but the war for it continues. And this war is no longer outside, it moves into your inner world.
Content changes, form remains
There is a big difference between the content of communication and its form. Most often, struggle and growing up turn into a protest against the content, the content of parental messages. And most of the psychological problems relate to the style of these messages, their context and form.
For example, parents demanded success from the child. He grew up and was able to find his place, but he never got rid of the endless internal comparison of himself with another. And he considers himself a failure even with achievements.
And all because in childhood this child was endlessly compared, forcing him to study better. A person has grown up a long time ago, you can live not in a race, but in your own rhythm and without regard to others. But it’s impossible not to compare yourself.
Sometimes it is even difficult to realize how much of this «garbage» is spinning in the head — meaningless comparisons, criticisms, depreciation of success, prohibitions on the joy of living. These thoughts are difficult to see on your own, they are as familiar and familiar as the air we breathe.
To do this, you need another — someone who is free from these installations and can draw your attention to them. Working with a psychologist is an effective way to notice and change habitual “parasitic” thoughts.
Stages of getting rid of «garbage» in the head
1. The first, longest stage is to learn to notice unfriendly ways of treating yourself. And then you immediately want to throw out all this “garbage”, but this is not so easy to do. Thoughts did not arise yesterday and hold on tightly, arising over and over again at the most inopportune moment. In addition, the very idea of tearing them off and throwing them away is sadistic in fact, because this is a part of you, long rooted, somehow participating in creating an internal balance.
At this stage, it is important not to rush yourself and not fall into excessive self-criticism. After all, the thoughts that you can find can be very destructive.
2. The second stage is to find a replacement for destructive thoughts. A frontal attack here rarely ends in victory. It is impossible to just throw something out of your head, the habit of riding on the rails of thinking is very strong, especially strengthened by years of repetition.
In your case, the task is to find a replacement statement. If there is too much criticism, an abundance of praise will not be an antidote, oddly enough. There are reasons for this:
- praise can feel like fake, artificially positive thinking is not suitable for everyone;
- praise is also an assessment that sets the direction for your actions.
Let’s say you replaced the stick with a carrot. But in any case, you do something not because you want it, but because you are promised a carrot. If criticism leads to actions that allow it to be avoided, then praise leads to those that will lead to it.
At the heart of the evaluative perception of yourself is always an expectation that you must meet. We were able to take the bar — praise. Failed — criticism.
Evaluation is an important part of thinking. It makes it clear whether you are moving in the chosen direction or moving away from it, there is progress on the way or stalled. But it happens that apart from grades, little brings joy, and the meaning is lost in running only for gingerbread and trying to avoid whips.
The way out of evaluative thinking is non-evaluative, descriptive thinking. Acceptance, in which instead of a ban, criticism and condemnation, there is permission to be anything, smart and stupid, fast and slow, a genius of communication and bewilderedly clamped. Any oneself, without demand and expectation, but depending on one’s own state.
3. The third stage is to learn to be on your side. This is an opportunity to notice your inner world not through the eyes of the people around you, thinking out their attitude towards you for them, but based on your states, experiences, opinions.
This habit comes from childhood, when another person (parent, teacher) was the source of knowledge about you. You now habitually define yourself and your actions by reference to this conjectural attitude of the other. “If he looks at me like that, there must be something wrong with me.” “If he didn’t speak to me warmly enough, I probably didn’t please him in some way.”
It is quite painful to live like this, because the attitude of other people towards you is often determined by their states and contexts. Not because you, but because, for example, he got up on the wrong foot, or something hurts.
And your task at this stage is not to take it personally and not even try to guess what is wrong with him, but to make a 180-degree turn of attention. Shift the focus from the other person to yourself. On what process is unfolding inside you: good or bad for you, whether you need this other one or not.
Shift attention from war and confrontation, from contact with the other in general, inward. Notice what is happening to you. And then go into communication, noticing also how it affects you. Your attention will move like a shuttle: out-in and back to see how the outside world affects you, and you affect it.
In any case, if you decide to change, it’s a long way to go. It can be passed independently, it is possible in psychotherapy, joint work with a psychologist.
The freedom to be yourself is not a victory in a war with another, but an unrestricted exploration of your world, recognition of it and the courage to follow it.
The ability to appreciate yourself comes with the release of learned evaluations that sound inside you or seem to come from others. This is how growing up happens.