Raúl Soria

Many of us hold deeply ingrained beliefs about ourselves that are simply not true. You can start to free yourself from them by editing your narrative, says psychiatrist John Sharp.

There are many things in our lives that we have little control over — the news, the weather, the traffic, the soup of the day at our local café. But among the things that we can control, there’s a big one: our story.

This narrative is not the one that contains the objective facts of our lives; instead, it’s “the story you’ve been telling yourself about who you are and how everything always plays out,” says psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School professor John Sharp.

And he adds, “If you want to change your life, it needs a re-edit.”

The problem with this story is that too often, it’s not accurate — writer Marilynne Robinson calls it “a mean little myth.”

Sharp, the author of The Insight Cure: Change Your Story, Transform Your Life, explains, “Some emotionally difficult scenes are way over-included — just think of all the things you can’t let go of — and other scenes are deleted, such as times when things did go well. The worst part about the false truth … is that it becomes our self-fulfilling prophecy, the basis of what we expect from ourselves in the future.”

To begin revising your narrative, Sharp recommends doing the following:

1. Identify where your narrative diverges from reality.

For Sharp, his parents divorced when he was young, and he says, “the false truth that I held to so dearly was that just … as I couldn’t be effective in keeping my parents together, I probably couldn’t be effective at much of anything else, and this left me feeling very insecure.”

Since you’ve long accepted your false story as the official account, it may not be super-obvious to you. If you’re not sure what it is, try filling in these blanks, says Sharp:
“If I break a promise to myself, I feel ___________.”
“When someone ignores me, I feel _____________.”
“When my partner or best friend and I have a big fight, I feel _____________.”

Why these prompts? Our inaccurate narrative tends to be one that we default to when we’re faced with difficulty or disappointment.

Another way to help you identify your old story is to listen to your self-talk and notice when it includes statements that begin with “I always ______,” “I’m always ______,” or “I never ______.”

After you find your ingrained story, think back to your childhood and try to look for the experiences that helped feed it. And if you end up identifying multiple false stories, choose the one that’s had the most impact on your life. Sharp says, “While I know there are many stories and many possible revisions for all of us, I truly believe that there’s one underlying story that you deserve to identify and rework first.”

2. Question your beliefs.

Let’s say your deep belief is no matter what you do, it’s not enough; perhaps your parents were rarely satisfied with your achievements, even when they were stellar, and fixated on your next report card, exam or accomplishment. So, ask yourself: While that might have been the case when you were younger, is it really true now that what you do is never enough?

“When you view it from an adult perspective, you can see that it’s not fair or just to ourselves,” says Sharp.

Your story doesn’t have to have been caused by your parents, but it’s typically the result of a relationship we had when we were young. Explains Sharp, “It happens at a time before we know the difference between a healthy and and unhealthy reaction to something that really scares us, so we hold on to the wrong conclusion.”

3. Don’t beat yourself up.

It’s normal to feel a bit discouraged when you realize how long you’ve been telling yourself a false narrative. But know you’re far from alone — many of us walk around with these stories, says Sharp. “We need to be compassionate with ourselves about how this came into being.” Most people come up with them for what he calls “understandable reasons” — the need to maintain a sense of control and the tendency for kids to take specific circumstances and generalize broadly.

4. Introduce positives into your narrative.

Think about all your strengths and talents, and appreciate them. While the situations that led to the false story have made you into who you are today, they’ve probably affected you in positive ways as well. Maybe they’ve made you more resourceful, more responsible, more empathic, or more ambitious. These positives, whether they’re big or small, deserve a place in your story, too.

5. Leave behind the old story.

“Cut away what no longer serves you,” says Sharp. “Identify and gather up all the many exceptions … and accept that it’s safe now to move on. You no longer have to hold on to that false security.”

One of Sharp’s patients was a woman who avoided all challenges and adversity. Upon reflecting about her past, she realized “she suffered from the false truth that when she fell, she couldn’t pick herself up,” says Sharp. “Now she knows she can, and her future looks entirely different and better.”

Sharp is a fervent believer in the power of editing one’s story. “If I hadn’t cut away from my ‘mean little myth,’ then I’m confident now that I wouldn’t be here with you today,” he says in his TEDx talk. “In my 20 years of clinical practice, I’ve seen this kind of transformation over and over again.”

Watch his TEDxBeaconStreet talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Eugenia Mello

People who have greater levels of self-compassion tend to be more motivated, less lazy, and more successful over time. But just as important, they like themselves even when they fall short.

Psychologist Susan David explains how you can cultivate this quality.

One of the great myths of self-compassion is that it’s about lying to yourself. Or, that it’s about being weak or being lazy. Another myth is that it’s about pushing aside your difficult thoughts and saying, “Now I’m going to tell myself five positive things.”

That’s not self-compassion. When you are self-compassionate, you’re actually doing something very specific for yourself — you’re noticing difficult thoughts, showing up for them, and creating a sense of psychological safety for yourself.

You’re creating a space in which you feel able to take risks. If you beat yourself up whenever you fail or fall short, this naturally inhibits you from trying new things and taking chances. But when you’re self-compassionate, you know that even if you fail, you’ll still like yourself. In this way, self-compassion gives you the ability to experiment and explore, and to be courageous.

In research studies, people who have greater levels of self-compassion tend to be more motivated, less lazy, and more successful over time. They still recognize where they’ve gone wrong, but rather than getting caught up in blame and judgement, they can learn from the experience and adapt and change course for the next time.

So how can you cultivate self-compassion? Start by ending the tug-of-war inside yourself. In a research study that looked at more than 70,000 people, I found about one-third of the participants judged their normal experiences and emotions as being “good” or “bad”, “positive” or “negative”. When you evaluate your life in such a black-and-white way, you’re entering into an internal tug-of-war — you criticize yourself whenever you feel “bad” or “negative” emotions and whenever you don’t feel “good” or “positive” emotions.

To stop the tug-of-war, simply drop the rope. When we experience a challenging emotion like sadness or disappointment, many of us respond by telling ourselves: “This is bad; I shouldn’t be feeling this. Why can’t I be more positive?!?” And then we follow up this judgement with more judgement — we berate ourselves for not being self-compassionate. Next time that happens, try saying to yourself, “I’m feeling sad. What is this sadness a signpost of? What is it pointing to that’s important to me? What is it teaching me?”

Think of your difficult emotions and thoughts as data. They can provide you with valuable information about who you are and what really matters. Self-compassion allows you to acknowledge and accept all of your feelings, even when they’re negative. For instance, you might notice that you’re feeling really frustrated at work. So ask yourself: “What is that frustration a signpost of? What is it telling me about what’s important to me?”

For one person, frustration might be a signpost that their voice isn’t being heard. For another person, that frustration might be a signpost that they’re not growing in their job. By asking questions about your uncomfortable emotions, you’re gaining a greater level of perspective about yourself and engaging your curiosity about who you are as a human being.

When you can get curious about your experiences, you’re 50 percent of the way to being self-compassionate. Because at that moment, you’re not judging yourself and your emotions. Instead, you’re looking at them and learning from them. You can also use this process to figure out the wisest action to take. Follow up your observations by asking yourself: “What could I do in this situation that would best serve me, my values and my goals?”

If you find yourself having trouble being self-compassionate, don’t beat yourself up. When you’re having a lack-of-self-compassion day, it’s really important to not criticize yourself. One thing that can help is to look at yourself from a different angle. We’ve all got a child version of ourselves who lives inside us.

Imagine if a child came to you and said, “No one wants to be with me” or “I’m feeling sad” or “I tried to do well in this project but I wasn’t successful,” would you punish them? Of course not. You’d put your arms around them, you’d love them, you’d listen to them, and you’d see them. Sometimes, as an adult when we lack self-compassion, it can help to connect with the child in you and find out what they need. So when you’re struggling to access self-compassion, ask: “I notice that I’m feeling X emotion. What is it that the child in me needs right now?”

Ultimately, self compassion is about recognizing what it means to be human. Discomfort, stress, disappointment, loss and pain are all part of the human journey. If we are not able to enter into a space of kindness to ourselves, we’re putting ourselves at odds with the reality of life. Another hallmark of humanity is imperfection: To be human is to be imperfect and to make mistakes. Self-compassion is a necessary part of our journey; it’s about recognizing that you are doing the best you can — with who you are, with what you’ve got, and with the resources that you’ve been given.

Watch her TED Talk now: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan David is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, cofounder and codirector of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, and CEO of Evidence Based Psychology, a business consultancy.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Jenice Kim

If your self-worth seems to rise and fall according to what other people think, you’re not alone. But you can challenge this mindset and find a new way of valuing yourself, says psychologist Meag-gan O’Reilly.

“How often do you get asked ‘What do you do?’ and feel like that question is going to determine how much attention or respect you receive?” asks Meag-gan O’Reilly, staff psychologist at Stanford University’s Vaden Health Center in Palo Alto, California.

Perhaps you had the stomach-sinking experience of seeing your questioner’s face change or their eyes glaze over when they hear your response. It’s lousy. Instead of being seen and appreciated for all of your complicated individuality, you feel like your worth has been judged in a flash — and found wanting.

But getting a nod of approval is also unsettling, says O’Reilly. “Even those of us who seem to be winning at these conditions stand to lose because conditions change with time, age or unexpected hardships.”

O’Reilly recalls a vivid example from her own life. Once, at a party, she went up to the host — whom she’d never met before — to thank him for his hospitality. She smiled, stuck out her hand, and, she recalls, “I was met with the response of ‘Qualify yourself.’ ‘Huh,’ I said, arm still outstretched … That’s when his friend beside him reiterated the question with more clarity: ‘Qualify yourself; tell him why he should talk to you.’”

O’Reilly says, “Immediately my mind split into two paths. The first and more dominant voice got to work on the task … What are the bells and whistles of my existence that I can showcase to woo and persuade this person I’m worth his time?”

Meanwhile, the other part of her was stunned that, as she put it, “there was a litmus test for conversation. I’m happy to say that this part of me won out. I didn’t engage. I simply said, ‘Thanks again for hosting’ and walked away.”

This incident spurred O’Reilly to think about how small moments like these can chip away at our self-worth. “As a psychologist who’s heard and held hundreds of human stories, I have witnessed firsthand how this mentality of feeling like you are not enough has stolen dreams, ambitions, relationships, health and happiness away from people,” she says.

For some of us, these encounters echo earlier occasions in our lives when we felt like our value as a person was determined by other people — usually adults — and fluctuated depending on what they thought of our latest grade, game, performance or accomplishment. O’Reilly says, “Think to yourself for a moment: What were some of the early messages you received about who you needed to be to show up in the world as meaningful?”

No matter how deep-rooted these experiences and feelings are, we can free ourselves from thinking that we’re not enough. This undoing may take a while to happen so we should be patient, cautions O’Reilly. “It’s a process, and I call it lifespan work.”

Here are 4 ways we can start challenging the not-enough mindset:

1. Do what makes you — not other people — happy. Feeling like you’re not enough can sometimes lead you to take on certain friends, hobbies, projects or jobs that you think will make you look good in other people’s estimation. O’Reilly asks: “When was the last time you did something not because it’s going to show up on your resume, not because it meets that condition of worth you’re wrestling with, but just because you enjoyed it?”

It’s important to pursue the things that you genuinely enjoy because “it softens our stance toward ourselves,” says O’Reilly. “It allows us a zoomed-out perspective and gives us a chance to experience ourselves and others in a non-conditional way.” When you’re in the flow of doing what you love, you can shake off the weight of judgements and expectations.

2. Recognize that you have value … period. Believing you’re enough does not mean that you should lower the bar for what you’d like to accomplish in life, emphasizes O’Reilly; it’s just that your personal enoughness remains constant and isn’t affected by your actions. She says, “Please go and achieve much. But do it in such a way that you know there’s a floor or a baseline of worth that you cannot descend below.”

Contrary to what some people fear, recognizing our inherent self-worth does not mean that we’ll be full of our own self-importance. O’Reilly says, “An inflated sense of self-esteem sounds like … ‘I can do it, I’m the best,” whether or not that’s actually true.” Inherent value, she adds, “sounds like ‘This is important to me, and I’m going to do my best … but it doesn’t define me.’”

3. When you meet new people, go beyond your job, title or school. If we’d like to remove the judgment associated with the “So, what do you do?” question, we can also change how we respond to it. “The next time someone asks you what you do, don’t provide an occupation or field of study,” says O’Reilly. “Instead, share with them something that you cherish about yourself; try to break interpersonal ground with them and not start with labels.” (For more advice on the topic, read the TED Ideas article “How to introduce yourself so you’ll be unforgettable — in a good way.”)

4. Respond with love and acceptance to the successes and failures of your family, friends and colleagues. Similar to the previous point, we need to try to model a new way of being if we want to ease the not-enough mindset in the people around us. Given how achievement-oriented society can be, says O’Reilly, “this is difficult … but a person is not a product and we need a culture that delineates the two and helps us see that one does not define the other.”

Wouldn’t you like the most important people in your life — young or old — to feel like they are enough? By appreciating them and showing that your care for them is unconditional, you can create change that will ripple outwards. O’Reilly says, “Enough is enough with these worth wars we’re waging. Think about how radically different our world and relationships would be if each of us actually acted like we all had inherent value.”

Watch her TEDxSJSU talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.