Me Vs. Me: How to Stop Battling With Ourselves

By Peppertan

You are your worst critic.  I know I am mine.    Not a day goes by that I don’t engage myself in intermittent self-berating sessions whenever I fail at something.  No matter how trivial the mistake, I always seem to make a mountain out of it.  The otherwise negligible error is then catapulted to major blunder status.

And where does that leave me?  I end up feeling more miserable than I was at the beginning.  Instead of simply getting over what I did, I keep playing the scenario over and over in my head, making corrections as I go.  Doesn’t help at all, because what’s done is done.  It just tires me like a Despicable Me minion doing a half-marathon.

We all have our respective concerns from which emotions of fear, anger and worry emerge.  We often unconsciously spend so much time trying to steer clear of these concerns.  What happens is, the more we push them away, the more they have a hold on us.

For instance, your major concern is your discontent with your current job.  Then, your fears and worries will revolve around finding a new job which is more fulfilling.  You become stressed out from scouring the net for employment opportunities.  You may find yourself lashing out at your co-workers for seemingly no reason at all.

Once we become more aware of the patterns of habit from our areas of concern, we become more in control of ourselves.  If you start to acknowledge your job dissatisfaction, then you will be able to have more control over the emotions springing from that, instead of having those feelings take over you.

Teach yourself to accept whatever life circumstance you’re in.  Do not resist how you feel.  If you react to things a certain way, don’t punish yourself for it.  Just allow the feelings to pass through your body, in and out.   Purge, instead of repress.

It’s all about being true to oneself.  Accept who you are, and you will be more forgiving of yourself- and others as well.  Everything else will then nicely fall into place.